Salty Dog said:
Please cite your source on this, especially where $3 B was funded by the UAE for development.
Some FMS sales carry an additional charge tied to a share of development costs of a particular weapons system. If the UAE had requested any special development, these costs would be offset from the entire program development costs. In either case, the UAE would not get any revenue from further sales of the system.
"All Block 60 development costs were paid for by the UAE, which invested almost $3 billion in the programme. In return, the UAE will receive royalty payments if any of the Block 60’s technology is exported and
has full control over source code for the F-16 Block 60 and its weapons,
allowing it to add to the aircraft’s threat libraries without US permission or assistance."
Full article here:
Dubai 2007: UAE shows off its most advanced Falcons
Rubbish - don't confuse object code release with source code. UAE only has access to block 60 object codes, which is the necessary level of access to allow UAE to add to the aircraft’s threat libraries. See this
link that states otherwise:
"...As a rule, the software source codes that program the electronic-warfare, radar, and data buses on US fighters are too sensitive for export. Instead, the USA sent the UAE “object codes” (similar to APIs), which allow them to add to the F-16’s threat library on their own.
The other issue concerned the Black Shahine derivative of MBDA’s Storm Shadow stealth cruise missile. The Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) defines 300 km as the current limit for cruise missiles, and the terms of the sale allow the United States to regulate which weapons the F-16s can carry. Since the Black Shahine was deemed to have a range of over 300km, the US State Department refused to let Lockheed Martin change the data bus to permit the F-16E/Fs to carry the missile. It is believed that the Mirage 2000v9 upgrades the UAE has purchased from France will address this issue, giving the UAE a platform capable of handling their new acquisition..."
BTW, Salty Dog works for a major US defence contractor and is very familiar with the FMS process... so if he raises a query because he has doubts, you should really do some serious research before responding... I don't have the info he is looking for so I'm not responding to his post. Try to understand the query.
Sorry about seeming to be harsh (I'm really sick and tired about misinformation on source code release) and you should also post an intro of yourself. A retired Malaysian politician has been lying on the source code issue and his points have been rebutted by other professionals in DT and a rebuttal has been published in
Malaysian press (see post
#85 in another thread and also
post #72).
