Israel goes F-35

[dsawan 624]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100815/wl_mideast_afp/israelusdefenceweaponslockheed

[wahubna 0]

I heard about this plan a year ago. At first they wanted F-22's but Gates said no. Lockheed Martin is having a bit of a fight still with IAI over IAI wanting to be able to make their own upgrades/modifications to the electronics on the F-35.

[SayethWhaaaa 245]

That's a shock...

 

I really don't get what the big deal is about Israel wanting to use their own avionics in the plane. I've heard things like "it may compromise the stealthy characteristics of the F-35" and so on which is stretching it a bit. I figured it would be more along the lines of Israeli contractors would learn more about the nature of 5th Gen stealth fighter characteristics or something which they're going to do anyways, what with being a user of the aircraft.

[GwynO 16]

Could be Steve Jobs got a job at the DoD and just wants all the users to get the full I-plane experience. Radar contacts are updated via I-tunes apparently.

 

On a serious note, the avionics might well form a key component of some needed stealth features, the difference being between active and passive stealth features such as the difference between a simple coat of paint and deceptive jamming. Deceptive jamming doesn't remove a radar signature however, only makes it harder to pinpoint accurately, but if (big if) there was some avionics gizmo in the fifth gen stuff that could, it might just be that to give any third party access to an airframe without the avionics would risk it appearing as a much less capable platform than with, not good for business really but not as bad for business as selling the unencrypted source of such avionics given that no other country has it yet.

[JediMaster 451]

The difference is integration. Unlike previous planes (except the F-22, which I'm not too sure about) where every piece of equipment lived by itself to some degree, the F-35 has extensive networked integration between all its components. Swap out the RWR and there's a lot of extra work getting it to function right. It would also require the source code AFAIK and probably a lot of high-level knowledge of how the whole thing works. They might instead wind up with a next-generation airframe and engine that is dumb as a brick and incapable of flying in combat.

 

In short, to assure their "independence" from any US interference would require so much more effort than on any previous plane that it's a serious issue as to whether they want to replace their F-16s with it. Hence the discussion about instead a small "deterrent value" silver-bullet force that would be used when necessary but wouldn't be the sole platform the IDF relied on. So if some theoretical US "grounding switch" was flipped or we cut off spare parts for something on them, they'd still have a sufficient force of other planes to fulfill their defense requirements.

[+allenjb42 4,240]

Maybe merge with this thread?

 

http://combatace.com/topic/33086-israeli-f-35-info/

[JediMaster 451]

Well to be fair that thread is almost 2 years old!

[+Brain32 265]

This link is interesting regarding the financial part of the deal:

http://defensetech.org/2010/08/16/israel-places-order-for-20-f-35-jsf-u-s-picks-up-the-tab/

[MigBuster 2,884]

Pretty sure nearly all US jets to Israel have been financed that way since the mid 60s

Edited August 17, 2010 by MigBuster

[JediMaster 451]

Yup, aside from some outright transfers of weaponry like the F-4Es decades back that AFAIK had no monetary value ever assigned.

[+Brain32 265]

Pretty sure nearly all US jets to Israel have been financed that way since the mid 60s

 

Wow that's nice, so in a nutshell USA is paying Israel 4 bilion$ to be able to give them for free 2,75 bilion $ worth top military equipment that USA is paying for in the first place?

 

I wonder what would my country have to do to be such a good friend to USA, we are already in Afganistan, maybe if we would single-handedly submit N.Korea or something, for that kind of free money I'm willing to attack N.Korea by myself with old AK-47, and a 9mm pistol

[dsawan 624]

If Israel gets the F-35, wonder what US will do to compensate Saudi arabia and Egypt, maybe the f-22?

[JediMaster 451]

LOL, no! The F-22 is dead. No one but the US will get any and the line is shutting down soon.

No, the answer will be F-35s. Note that Israel has F-15s and F-16s. Egypt has F-16s, Saudi has F-15s, Jordan has F-16s, Kuwait has F/A-18s.

After Israel gets F-35s, if those countries ask (and can afford it...ok other than Saudi which of course can) I'm pretty sure they'll get F-35s too.

[+76.IAP-Blackbird 3,557]

Mh, I still don`t understand the hype about those jets, they seem to be less stealthy than promised, more expensive and carry less weapons than a current F/A-18 (ok it`s the workhorse of the Navy) The only counterpart coult be the PAK FA or even the Su-27/35 family. A real Multirole Fighter. Interesting is , that no country down there use modern military jets.

Maybe the fear an american intervention so all try to be good friends with US

[JediMaster 451]

They don't really know how much they'll cost in mass production, but they will be more costly than the current generation. As to how stealthy they are, no one knows that that's allowed to say! They should be the 3rd stealthiest plane out there after the B-2 and F-22.

As to how much they carry, sure, internally they carry less than any other plane out there, but they can also hang weapons under the wings, just like the F-22 can. When you don't need to be as stealthy you can let it hang out and be a bomb truck.

[+76.IAP-Blackbird 3,557]

Ok so they buy a stealthy plane, to hang out weapons and be a bombtruck ??? Mad world!

 

Ok it looks cool and sounds great when you tell your enemys, "hey, I have stealth planes and you not!"

 

And the answer will be "Come over and let us see!"

 

"Ok wait we will hang some weapons on it, give me 30 mins!"

 

[JediMaster 451]

Like I said, sometimes you need stealth and sometimes you don't. Weapons are precise enough now that it only limits the number of targets they could attack, not dictate whether it is destroyed.

You wouldn't send a stealth plane against a column of tanks anyway.

[GwynO 16]

Aye, the JSF takes multi role into the 21st century. 4th gen technology limited stealth aircraft to be either: extremely expensive, small, stealthy and limited to hitting one or two targets per mission ala F-117, so ridiculously expensive you may as well buy the country you're having problems with instead, huge, stealthy, and a bomb truck on a par if not better than a buff ala B-1, The Russian knock off, B2. Adding to the expense is that you'd still have to shell out for alternative air to air platforms. With 4.5 gen tech like the F-22 it's possible to have AA, AG and stealth, but at a cost more approaching buying the entire continent you're having problems with if you take design, manufacture, building, maintenance into account

 

The JSF offers AA, AG and Stealth for what is still expensive, but not outright ridiculous considering what that's going to give you. If you had a Phantom and needed to send it to intercept a bear, you wouldn't make it carry a full load of bombs just to prove a point that it can, likewise with the JSF it doesn't negate that it can do AA, AG and stealth just because it doesn't do all three at once. For something like that they'd need a B-1R not that any country is going to be developing something like that for the next 50 years thanks to the financial situation

 

For now, I can't see anything that even compares to the JSF on paper. Question is what are the longer term implications of starting the kind of diplomatic handcuffs with countries other than Israel in the Mid East that supplying JSF would entail? In the short run, the balance would certainly be one way with said nations perhaps thinking twice about their public statements, being perhaps a little more open and trusting, but in the longer run this balance could reverse when the losses that would come from losing the maintenance contracts are greater for the supplier than the cost of going it alone with what they've got for the regime in power at the time. Tomcats and Phantoms flying in Iran are a case in point, so for that reason it makes a lot of sense why there's so much opposition to others opening them up and fiddling with them. If they are to be supplied, it makes more sense to do so on a kind of long term loan basis with some wired in self destruct that renders them inoperable at the flick of a switch should things change as they did in Iran. The Mid East is such a volatile place to be sending JSF, I really think a few of the mooted choices should be re thought, it would be awful to see the loss of maintainable contracts being used as leverage in a future economic downturn, but that would be academic if they could just be switched off somehow like if they required online activation to start the avionics?

[Nixou 25]

Wow that's nice, so in a nutshell USA is paying Israel 4 bilion$ to be able to give them for free 2,75 bilion $ worth top military equipment that USA is paying for in the first place?

 

I wonder what would my country have to do to be such a good friend to USA, we are already in Afganistan, maybe if we would single-handedly submit N.Korea or something, for that kind of free money I'm willing to attack N.Korea by myself with old AK-47, and a 9mm pistol

 

 

Well at least now US people can't accuse anymore Obama to be "muslim sided"

[JediMaster 451]

They do every single day. Little things like "facts" or "actions" will never change the minds of some people. They have their opinions and nothing anyone can say or do will make them think otherwise.

 

Despite the fact that his lack of participation in routine Muslim rituals like praying to Mecca means no real Muslim would think of him as one, the fear-mongers insist that he is because it means they can hate him for keeping it a secret. Why they care is beyond me, it's not like his actions would be better or worse if he was a different religion...it's what he's doing that should be people's focus, what he believes is irrelevant.