<p >Royal Danish Air Force F-35A fifth generation fighter flying over Texas in the United States have demonstrated the ability to share secure classified data with a command centre across the Atlantic Ocean in their home country. This represents a major milestone in efforts to increase interoperability between operators and in networking the aircraft with assets across the globe. The F-35 was operating form Forth Worth, where the fighters are currently produced, and shared the data using the DAGGR-2 Open Systems Gateway. A notable feature of this system was that it was developed under a partnership with the Missile Defence Agency, with such data sharing capabilities having particularly serious implications for new missile defence efforts being pursued by the United States. Global deployments of the F-35 near the majority of potential missile launch sites against U.S. or allied forces, including on the Korean Peninsula, across the Western Pacific, and in the Arctic, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, allow the aircraft can serve as forward elevated sensors to provide queuing data for missile defences further away.&nbsp;</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/23/article_6830999e17aba7_64591371.webp" title="F-35"></p><p >The F-35’s AN/APG-81 AESA radar is among the most powerful fielded by any tactical combat jet in the world, and is set to be replaced by the significantly more powerful and sophisticated AN/APG-85. The high and fast growing numbers of F-35s <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/expands-f35c-japan-iwakuni" target="_blank">deployed</a> near the territories of potential adversaries provides an optimal opportunity for the aircraft to play a major role in missile defence, as the more data that can be obtained on missile launches, particularly in their initial boost phases, the greater the chances of interception become. This can include missiles launched against targets thousands of kilometres away, such as Russian Oreshnik intermediate rang ballistic missiles launched against targets in the United Kingdom, or North Korean Hwasong-17 missiles launched against the American mainland. The value of this could grow as the United States develops means to target missiles in their vulnerable boost phases, with the possibility of integrating a new anti-ballistic missile onto the F-35 specifically for this purpose having been raised in the past. American investment in expanding its anti-missile capabilities under the Golden Dome program could also significantly increase the relevance of the F-35’s ability to instantaneously share data on missile launches across the world.</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/23/article_68309baf330344_48248680.jpg" title="Royal Danish Air Force F-35A Fighters"></p><p >The F-35’s network centric warfare capabilities have long stood out from those of other fighters, with the aircraft’s Multifunction Advanced Data Link providing a significantly superior capability to the more widely used Link 16 system. Alongside its radar, the fighter’s passive, electro-optical and infrared sensors can pick up significant additional information, with its signals intelligence capabilities considered to be unrivalled among Western tactical combat jets. These signals collection capabilities have been <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/f35-electronic-warfare-ukraine-singaporean" target="_blank">tested extensively</a> in the Ukrainian theatre against Russian assets. The fighters’ advanced stealth capabilities also allow them to operate closer to their targets with less risk of being targeted, The Danish demonstration of the F-35’s data sharing capabilities has served to underline their potentially revolutionary value, and their ability to closely network battlefields across continents in the event of a major war.</p>
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