Israel has announced it will equip the F-35s it starts receiving this December with its own command, control, communications and computing (C4) system. The software, produced by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), is an upgrade of an existing C4 system the Israeli air force flies on its F-15 and F-16s.
By adapting proprietary software to the F-35, Israel has leveraged the strike fighter’s open-architecture software design long touted by Lockheed Martinand the Joint Program Office (JPO). In effect, IAI has written the first “app” for the F-35 and, arguably, set a precedent for F-35 software independence.
“Imagine putting some new applications on your mobile phone,” says Benni Cohen, general manager of IAI’s Lahav Division. “It is not difficult. You can do it without touching the mission systems.”
His metaphor is a useful one. While the specifics are not exactly the same, think of the F-35’s software backbone as an “operating system” like Apple’s iOS and IAI’s C4 software, which sits atop it as an “application.” With the right application interface, developers can write new apps for the F-35, adding new functionality.
“Yes, it is straightforward to tap into that [F-35 system] data and build upon that information to make new applications or add new functionality that benefits the overall fight,” John Clark agrees. Clark is director of mission systems and software at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, which is working with the U.S. Air Force to craft a software protocol called Open Mission Systems (OMS), designed to enable faster technology insertion into existing and future platforms.
By standardizing the process for moving data around the F-35’s open architecture backbone, OMS will enable more rapid software development and mission systems integration. The protocol is still in development but is planned to be introduced on the F-35 “in the near future,” says Lockheed. By working independently, however, Israel may have already changed the game.
Israel will not add its C4 system using OMS but instead exploit the F-35’s existing openness. Whenever OMS does arrive, the fact that someone has already written an app for the aircraft now provides F-35 customers the option to add their own software, rather than waiting for upgrades planned by the U.S. Current plans for the JSF partner nations to develop a follow-on Block 4 software package are not expected to start until 2018 and will take six years.
“The folks at IAI doing that will certainly bring up [the issue] as more partner nations have the desire to do that,” says Clark. “But it is also a double-edged sword. They do not get the benefits of the rest of the ecosystem the F-35 has by deviating.”
Clark points out the F-35 program has a defined joint standards process intended to align partner nations with common enterprise support across the board, for software or hardware.