4 ms·

Japanese F-35 in the Pacific, cue biggest counter-espionage ops since Cold War

22 points by vinnyglennon 8y ago

daniel-cussen 8y ago
"But the jet's all-important software and programming would likely be hard to reconstruct given not only the likely damage from the crash and salt water in Pacific but also the way that the jet's sensitive systems are designed to be very hard to decipher and reverse engineer to make it more suitable for export." Funny I thought the software was repeatedly reported as being its greatest liability.
vezycash 8y ago
The first thought that popped up in my mind while reading this was, "Why doesn't this plane have self destruct mode?"
- mieseratte 8y ago
  In this case, I believe that "self-destruct mode" is called "crashing into the Pacific Ocean." This article feels disingenuous. They make it out like they Chinese or Russians are going to just stumble upon a nice, neat F-35, ready for inspection.
  - mc32 8y ago
    There was an incident some years ago where an EP-3R recon plane was forced to land by PLA fighters. Flight crew had a few mins to destroy critical components but the Chinese gathered some tech from that incident. Also, the unlucky Gary Powers.
    - bgee 8y ago
      > was forced to land by PLA fighters I won't necessarily say the landing was forced by PLA fighters; that would imply PLA intentionally did this (to obtain tech?) while in fact that J-8 crashed and its pilot was killed/missing. US recon planes fly near China's (and other countries') coastal line with PLA's fighter near by all the time. My point is that incident looks more like an accident to me even though China may have gained some tech out of it while losing one pilot and plane.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - lakkal 8y ago
      And in the opposite direction, when a Russian MiG-25 was landed in Japan by a defecting pilot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mig-25#Western_intelligence_and_the_MiG-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mig-25#Western_intelligence_an...
  - techdragon 8y ago
    This only works up to a point. Nation State adversaries are able to muster the resources to salvage things from the ocean floor. Case in point, the whole Glomar Explorer Soviet submarine salvage cover up.
- techdragon 8y ago
  It’s surprisingly hard to turn many structural materials into unrecognisable “junk”. A good illustration of this is the investigation of jet airliner wreckage. If you read into the reports a little, you’ll quickly find examples where visually unrecognisable fragments are easily identifiable by experts and they can reverse engineer the deformities into useful data about the crash. Explosive disassembly is a relatively well understood process, from little things like explosive bolts to big things like controlled demolitions of buildings, we have a pretty decent idea how explosions affect things. To effectively destroy something so that it’s of no use to an adversary is quite challenging, last I heard the recommended process for destroying sensitive computers/electronic equipment in the field is thermite charges, the sort used to render tanks inoperable. They basically turn a smallish stack of electronics into as close to a puddle of slag as they can. Doing similar to a useful fraction of an F-35 would be extremely challenging.
imtringued 8y ago
Can Russia even afford to build an aircraft as expensive as the F-35?
- mc32 8y ago
  That depends what you mean. Can they sacrifice “luxury” to afford something like this? Yes, they have been accustomed to this mode of operation since ever. The populace really never had s chance to get to know what a modicum of affluence and consumerism is. They had a small taste before the Oct/Nov revolution, but that’s all been forgotten.
- crowdpleaser 8y ago
  Probably not at any scale beyond serial production, even then, there isn't a Russian powerplant that would offer the thrust/weight performance required for the plane to perform. I'm sure some of the materials on the F-35 would be very difficult for other countries to make at scale, figuring out how to fabricate parts out of those unusual materials at tolerances required for low-observability would be really tricky. I'm sure there are machinists anywhere who could figure it out, but at that point we're talking about bespoke part production using 98th+ percentile operators. Although skilled labor is cheap is China and Russia, it's pretty untenable to use it to produce a knock-off that'll eventually hold an inferior Chinese/Russian engine.
  - dikei 8y ago
    While Russian doesn't have a powerful engine as the F-35, their newer planes have twin engine with a combined output larger than the single engine of the F-35.
    - crowdpleaser 8y ago
      Yeah, but thrust to weight really matters too. I'd be floored if two Russian engines had anywhere near the power to weight ratio of the F-35 engine. But the Russian engineers are very good, they've done a great job of designing competitive planes with those constraints. I wouldn't cast stones at the prototype Sukhois or MiGs.
myrandomcomment 8y ago
Found. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-defence-f35/wreckage-confirmed-to-be-from-crashed-japanese-f-35-fighter-idUSKCN1RM011?il=0 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-defence-f35/wreckag...

22 points by vinnyglennon 8y ago

"But the jet's all-important software and programming would likely be hard to reconstruct given not only the likely damage from the crash and salt water in Pacific but also the way that the jet's sensitive systems are designed to be very hard to decipher and reverse engineer to make it more suitable for export." Funny I thought the software was repeatedly reported as being its greatest liability.

vezycash 8y ago

The first thought that popped up in my mind while reading this was, "Why doesn't this plane have self destruct mode?"

mieseratte 8y ago
In this case, I believe that "self-destruct mode" is called "crashing into the Pacific Ocean." This article feels disingenuous. They make it out like they Chinese or Russians are going to just stumble upon a nice, neat F-35, ready for inspection.
- mc32 8y ago
  There was an incident some years ago where an EP-3R recon plane was forced to land by PLA fighters. Flight crew had a few mins to destroy critical components but the Chinese gathered some tech from that incident. Also, the unlucky Gary Powers.
  - bgee 8y ago
    > was forced to land by PLA fighters I won't necessarily say the landing was forced by PLA fighters; that would imply PLA intentionally did this (to obtain tech?) while in fact that J-8 crashed and its pilot was killed/missing. US recon planes fly near China's (and other countries') coastal line with PLA's fighter near by all the time. My point is that incident looks more like an accident to me even though China may have gained some tech out of it while losing one pilot and plane.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - lakkal 8y ago
    And in the opposite direction, when a Russian MiG-25 was landed in Japan by a defecting pilot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mig-25#Western_intelligence_and_the_MiG-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mig-25#Western_intelligence_an...
- techdragon 8y ago
  This only works up to a point. Nation State adversaries are able to muster the resources to salvage things from the ocean floor. Case in point, the whole Glomar Explorer Soviet submarine salvage cover up.
techdragon 8y ago
It’s surprisingly hard to turn many structural materials into unrecognisable “junk”. A good illustration of this is the investigation of jet airliner wreckage. If you read into the reports a little, you’ll quickly find examples where visually unrecognisable fragments are easily identifiable by experts and they can reverse engineer the deformities into useful data about the crash. Explosive disassembly is a relatively well understood process, from little things like explosive bolts to big things like controlled demolitions of buildings, we have a pretty decent idea how explosions affect things. To effectively destroy something so that it’s of no use to an adversary is quite challenging, last I heard the recommended process for destroying sensitive computers/electronic equipment in the field is thermite charges, the sort used to render tanks inoperable. They basically turn a smallish stack of electronics into as close to a puddle of slag as they can. Doing similar to a useful fraction of an F-35 would be extremely challenging.

imtringued 8y ago

Can Russia even afford to build an aircraft as expensive as the F-35?

mc32 8y ago
That depends what you mean. Can they sacrifice “luxury” to afford something like this? Yes, they have been accustomed to this mode of operation since ever. The populace really never had s chance to get to know what a modicum of affluence and consumerism is. They had a small taste before the Oct/Nov revolution, but that’s all been forgotten.
crowdpleaser 8y ago
Probably not at any scale beyond serial production, even then, there isn't a Russian powerplant that would offer the thrust/weight performance required for the plane to perform. I'm sure some of the materials on the F-35 would be very difficult for other countries to make at scale, figuring out how to fabricate parts out of those unusual materials at tolerances required for low-observability would be really tricky. I'm sure there are machinists anywhere who could figure it out, but at that point we're talking about bespoke part production using 98th+ percentile operators. Although skilled labor is cheap is China and Russia, it's pretty untenable to use it to produce a knock-off that'll eventually hold an inferior Chinese/Russian engine.
- dikei 8y ago
  While Russian doesn't have a powerful engine as the F-35, their newer planes have twin engine with a combined output larger than the single engine of the F-35.
  - crowdpleaser 8y ago
    Yeah, but thrust to weight really matters too. I'd be floored if two Russian engines had anywhere near the power to weight ratio of the F-35 engine. But the Russian engineers are very good, they've done a great job of designing competitive planes with those constraints. I wouldn't cast stones at the prototype Sukhois or MiGs.

myrandomcomment 8y ago

Found. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-defence-f35/wreckage-confirmed-to-be-from-crashed-japanese-f-35-fighter-idUSKCN1RM011?il=0 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-defence-f35/wreckag...