U.S. May Degrade UAE F-35's Stealth As Israel Protests Sale: Report

Investors Business Daily ^ | 9/22/20 | Gillian Rich

[Yo-Yo]

The U.S. is looking at ways to make the Lockheed Martin (LMT) F-35 less stealthy for a sale to the United Arab Emirates, according to Reuters, as Washington tries to overcome resistance from Israel.

Officials are working out how to sell the jets to the UAE while maintaining Israel's air superiority in the region. Israel typically gets a five-year head-start over other U.S. allies in the Mideast when buying new weapons. The first Israeli F-35 was delivered in December 2016.

Sources told Reuters that officials are looking at ways to make the F-35s more visible to Israeli radar systems.

The potential F-35 deal comes as Israeli defense minister Benjamin Gantz will meet with Defense Secretary Mark Esper at the Pentagon Tuesday afternoon.

Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia told IBD earlier that Israel has a higher degree of country-specific modifications vs. other F-35 foreign buyers that would "presumably give them an advantage over other export models," he noted.

[Yo-Yo]

The UAE's reward for signing the Peace Accord with Israel.

[DAC21]

I suspect Israeli Pilots will be a huge difference maker.

[captain_dave]

I was thinking the same. Make less stealthy = Arab pilots.

[Mr. Blond]

Seal up the internal weapon bays.

[Robert A Cook PE]

No, no. Inside the cabin, you install simple switch,
“Stealth Mode: On/Off”.

You just tell the Israeli pilots to ignore the switch. Everybody else has to “Energize Stealth Mode” to turn it on.

[babble-on]

Now we see the violence inherent in the peace deal.

[pfflier]

Not really, please explain your comment.

[Fractal Trader]

Since the planes will most likely be maintained by military contractors (active duty?), it will be easy to pull the plug and any unwanted missions.

Also look into the extremely cumbersome system, Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), which Israel is the only nation to have opted out of. It is an intrusive system designed to assure the supply chain for the plane. This also seems easy to deactivate.