I’ve seen a few articles now that US fighter jets have kill switches in them, so the US could just render them useless for anyone they’ve sold them to.
Is this true? It sounds insane to me, I’ve always assumed that countries that buy these jets have full control over them. It’s a gaping hole in your defence if you don’t.
I wouldn’t expect jets from other countries to be any different. Aircraft in general get a lot of inspection and maintenance. Military jets planes push the limits of what their materials and systems can handle, and it takes a toll.
Idk how credible the site below is, but they claim the F-16 averages 15 hours of inspections ad maintenance for every hour of flight time. Also that military jets are generally only mission-ready about 50%-75% of the time, which means they spend an awful lot of their useful lives in the inspection and maintenance queues:
https://simpleflying.com/military-aircraft-maintenance/
Yeah, I was being a bit cheeky - I wouldn’t step on any jet plane that hasn’t had access to official spare parts for a few years.
I just found it amusing F-14s were bought in the mid-70s, which I guess is around the time many would say the quality of American cars also began dropping.