Lavi prototype refuelling
Lavi prototype refuelling
Don’t know what, if anything, could be done with this approach, but Israel would be well advised to diversify its critical weapons systems partners away from the US.
Gee, that Lavi looks awfully similar to the Chinese J-10. Glad to see that US development money didn’t go to waste...
What good are fighter planes when the enemy sits in the White House?
Brilliant Plan: Something about...
“Cutting ones nose off to spite ones face”
W
Stephen Trimble: I spent a week touring Israel's aerospace industry last November, which included a sighting of the only known survivor of the Lavi program. One of many things I came away with is a sense that Israel wants to return to the ranks of the world's developers of manned combat aircraft, rather than a niche supplier of systems and UAVs. Ex-Lavi program manager and minister of defense Moshe Arens writes in Haaretz today that Israel would be better off launching a joint development program with Russia and India to build a new fighter rather than spend $11 billion to buy 75 Lockheed Martin F-35s... France, with a great aeronautical industry, chose not to participate in the F-35 project. India, with a considerable aeronautical capability and a meteorically growing economy, might be another candidate. And there is Russia. Perhaps none of them would be interested, and perhaps all of them would be. It's worth a try.Israel's overseas markets for fighters dried up, but India wasn't buying much at the time. Thanks sukhoi-30mki.
Well it may be worth exploring the question from their POV, but I think they would find the answer is no. There are almost no potential buyers of such a Jet other than the partners mentioned. They couldn’t sell them to Arabs, and they couldn’t sell them for NATO deployment, so it leaves them in a consortium that would compete with the F-35 only in theoretical (and perhaps one day real) combat.
I mean if Russia, India, France, Israel and maybe Brazil build a competitive plane, they would be the only ones to fly it, and if there was a hot war involving these countries their plane would go up against the F-35.
Though you might wonder what capabilities Israel really needs. I got the sense they were buying the F-35 because of political pressure. AFAIK they would prefer and still want the F-22 which was never made available to them.
Do they really need the new fighter jets? Or would their money be better spent on anti-aircraft and anti-missile technology, and UAV bombers?
The only reason they would need F-35 is because Saudi Arabia will want some. US will give Israel money to give to the JSF developers because the Saudis will be paying cash for them. It’s a very strange set of circumstances.