Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States, alarmed by poor exports, plans to enable foreign allies to customize the Joint Strike Fighter.

Officials said the Defense Department has approved a proposal that would offer foreign countries the right to change mission data on the F-35 fighter-jet. They said the step could accommodate demands by foreign partners in the $1 trillion program for input in the aircraft’s mission computer.

///////////”We together, jointly, will build there the brains of the airplane for them,” JSF program manager Chris Bogdan said.

In a briefing in late October, Bogdan said military personnel from foreign clients would work in JSF facilities to develop individual software packages. He said data packages would be prepared for clients in two different regions, one of them believed to be the Middle East.

“In the future we will have many labs where our partners are going to do some of their own work,” Bogdan said.

The arrangement marked a revision of a decades-long policy of refusing to customize U.S. fighter-jets. Officials acknowledged increasing anger among JSF’s partners, particularly Britain, Italy and Turkey, over the Pentagon’s refusal to transfer technology for the F-35.

“They go to different places and they fight in different ways,” Bogdan said.

As a result, most of the JSF partners have refused to submit significant orders for the fifth-generation aircraft. So far, only Israel, not a partner in JSF, has ordered a squadron and plans to procure an additional squadron.

Data packages contain information such as terrain, enemy assets, friendly forces that would enable fighter-jet pilots to conduct their missions. Officials said the first mission package for JSF could be released by July 2015.

“There is some schedule pressure on getting that second mission data package done by July of 2015,” Bogdan said.

  Concerned about F-35 exports, U.S. bends on software for allies, WorldTribune.com