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SteelBird

SteelBird

Colonel
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I wonder if this worth a whole new thread, so I put it here. This is no surprise as news has been long time ago.
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Next month, Japan is going to fly their latest fighter, and they’re hoping no one notices. Well, not no one exactly, but as with every stealth fighter, the goal is a visual spectacle and a tiny radar blip.
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, the
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, now renamed the X-2, is designed to fit into Japan’s modernizing, staunchier military. Did we mention it’s
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?



While many headlines (like, uh, ours) will note that the X-2 is a stealth fighter, it’s much closer to
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in function: a technology demonstrator, more than a factory-ready design. While America is more than eager to export its stealthy jack-of-all-trades
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, the United States kept an exclusive monopoly on its
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, the
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. So for Japan to get a top-line aerial combatant, it has to make one itself.

Hence the X-2. It boasts two engines, like the F-22, and is 46 feet long by 30 feet wide and 15 feet tall. Stealth is usually achieved by a combination of materials that absorb, rather than reflect, radio waves, and by a body shape that reflects the waves away from the radar receiver.

We’ll have to wait until the X-2 flies to find out much more than the
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, and it’ll be even longer than that to see if Japan decides to go from a stealth demonstrator to a working, deployed stealth fighter. Still, assuming the test is a success, Japan will be the fourth nation, after the United States, Russia, and China, to have a working stealth plane.
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plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
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US and UK 'hacked into Israeli drones and planes'
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Image copyrightGetty Images
Image captionProject Anarchist is said to have collected video from the cockpit of an Israeli F-16 jet
US and UK agencies reportedly hacked into Israeli drones and other aircraft as they gathered intelligence, in an operation dating from the late 1990s.

It enabled Israel's allies to monitor information acquired by its reconnaissance missions, Der Spiegel and The Intercept website reported.

The website said the information came from material leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

One Israeli minister said it was disappointing, but not a surprise.

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"We know that the Americans spy on every country in the world and on us as well, on their friends," said Yuval Steinitz, a cabinet minister and former minister of intelligence affairs.

He said Israel had not spied on the US for decades.

The intelligence agencies were able to watch information that the drones and other aircraft broadcast back to their handlers, the reports said.

They had a "virtual seat in the cockpit" as Israeli drones struck targets,
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said.

_87997037_87996986.jpg
Image copyrightGetty Images
Image captionUS and UK spy agencies also reportedly hacked into Israeli drones
In 2008, an internal US National Security Agency memo boasted that the programme had been able to collect video from the cockpit of an Israeli F-16 fighter jet, the reports said.

The project, codenamed Anarchist, has been running since 1998 and was based near the highest point in Cyprus, Der Spiegel and The Intercept reported.

Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said a US base in northern England was also involved.

Israel was the main focus of the project, but systems in Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Syria were also hacked into, the reports said.

The UK Foreign Office said it would not comment on intelligence matters.
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I couldn't help but wonder if this was made easier, if not possible at all, because of the extensive use of US technology by Israel, and also whether just watching in was all that was possible.

It has long been suspected that export versions of US made fighters and other weapons have back doors and kill codes that can disable or even destroy them in the event the US goes to war with the country who owns them.

There was a very hushed up incident in 2003 over Bawean, Indonesia, when F18s from a transiting US carrier intercepted an Indonean F16 patrol, and ended up locking their radars onto the F16s to warn them off.

Remarkable event by itself, but what's pertinent here is that the Indoneanian pilots insist their radars would not even detect the F18s that they can see with their own eyes. Strong evidence that some sort of backdoor or built in feature was enabled to prevent the F16s from detecting, never mind attempting to engage the USN Hornets.

All the English language versions of that event have magically disappeared off the net. But a few Indonesian accounts are still around if one wants to look for it.
 
P

PanAsian

Major
plawolf said:
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I couldn't help but wonder if this was made easier, if not possible at all, because of the extensive use of US technology by Israel, and also whether just watching in was all that was possible.

It has long been suspected that export versions of US made fighters and other weapons have back doors and kill codes that can disable or even destroy them in the event the US goes to war with the country who owns them.

There was a very hushed up incident in 2003 over Bawean, Indonesia, when F18s from a transiting US carrier intercepted an Indonean F16 patrol, and ended up locking their radars onto the F16s to warn them off.

Remarkable event by itself, but what's pertinent here is that the Indoneanian pilots insist their radars would not even detect the F18s that they can see with their own eyes. Strong evidence that some sort of backdoor or built in feature was enabled to prevent the F16s from detecting, never mind attempting to engage the USN Hornets.

All the English language versions of that event have magically disappeared off the net. But a few Indonesian accounts are still around if one wants to look for it.
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Things like this really should not be a surprise. That's why so many countries want to be as self-sufficient in armaments as possible, unfortunately that's financially and industrially unfeasible or impossible for most countries. However as countries not self-sufficient in armaments attempt to keep up by importing from the major arms exporters the cycle actually benefits the major arms exporters to the extent that the gap is further widened.
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
For those of you who may have followed it, or who may be interested, I have written an article hht is getting a lot of play about the Oregon standoff and how it has turned out. You can read about it here:


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​

JEFFHEAD.COM said:
I have placed 42 still photos from the FBI video of the apprehension of the Bundy brothers and the individuals with them in Oregon in the very early morning hours of January 27, 2016, where Lavoy Finicum, one of the people protesting with the Bundys, was killed. All of those photos are on the following Flickr album:

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The video that was released by the FBI, showing the entire episode from the point of view of an unmanned drone which was circling overhead, can be found on YouTbue here:

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It is a hard video to watch. Lavoy Finicum was a successful rancher in his mid fifties from Arizona, a father of eleven children, and a grandfather of numerous grand children. He was paasionate about the United states, its constitution, and his liberty and that of his family and fiends...and all Americans.

I am aware of, and am sympathetic to the issues that the Bundys, LAvoy, and the others raised. There is broad over reach by the Federal Government when it comes to property rights and other issues in the nation, and in the Intermountain West specifically. I was personally very involved in a similar incident at Klamath Falls, OR, in early 2001 that extended through the summer there. In our case we were not armed, but we were face to face with federal lawn enforcement who were.

In this case, the Bundys and those with them had occupied a Wildlife Refuge that was closed for the Winter near Burns Oregon. Thye were armed but indicated ovr and over that they sought no violence, but would protect themselves. They had been invited to a meeting in John Day Oregon, about 70 miles from where they were located, to meet with a sympathetic Sheriff there and other supporters. There are reports...that have not been confirmed...that they had been offered safe passage to go to that meeting. This would not be surprising because they had been allowed to come and go to and aattend other meetings in the area to that point.

A little after 00:25 (according to the video...which is probably recording in ZULU time, which would be in the afternoon in Oregon), as the two cars containing eight of the group (a Jeep in the back with Ammon Bundy, the group's leader in the back, and a white four door pickup truck driven by Lavoy Finicum and including Ammon's brother in the front) passed a side road. In the pciture you can see several things right away that put to rest the bizarre notion advanced by the Sheriff in Harney County and the FBI that the Oregon Highway Patrol made a routine traffic stop of these vehicles. (Note: In the rest of this presentation, the times will be given according to the video time stamp.)

Read the rest at the link.
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Just wanted to members here to be aware. Please, let's not get into a philosophical discussion about this. A good man is dead...who made some basic mistakes that cost him his life.
 
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A

antiterror13

Brigadier
PanAsian said:
Things like this really should not be a surprise. That's why so many countries want to be as self-sufficient in armaments as possible, unfortunately that's financially and industrially unfeasible or impossible for most countries. However as countries not self-sufficient in armaments attempt to keep up by importing from the major arms exporters the cycle actually benefits the major arms exporters to the extent that the gap is further widened.
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Perhaps the Bawean incident was a trigger for Indonesian Govt to buy Russians flankers. Honestly JF-17 block 2/3 would ideal for Indonesia .. relatively cheap, effective and no backdoor codes and could be built/assembly in Indonesia
 
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MwRYum

MwRYum

Major
antiterror13 said:
Perhaps the Bawean incident was a trigger for Indonesian Govt to buy Russians flankers. Honestly JF-17 block 2/3 would ideal for Indonesia .. relatively cheap, effective and no backdoor codes and could be built/assembly in Indonesia
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However, JF-17 has enough Chinese involvment that'd make Indonesia uncomfortable - if the recent developments in their high-speed railway project is any indication, Jakata is clearly not wanting to be seen as being that close with Beijing.
 
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