Israel’s next stealth aircraft is the future of modern warfare, but the Pentagon’s program cost over $1.5 trillion — and it’s not yet operational
F-35 stealth fighter shot down two MiG-29 jets before taking out a surface-to-air missile battery on Sunday morning.
In a simulator at the Tel Aviv Hilton Hotel, anyway.
The F-35 Lightning II fighter jet is known in Hebrew as the “Adir,” meaning mighty or great, and for good reason: It is, quite simply, awesome.
It looks like a spaceship, has a top speed of Mach 1.6 and can carry 18,000 pounds (8,182 kilograms) of ordnance. One variation of the F-35 has the ability to take off and land vertically, like a helicopter. It has one of the most advanced stealth systems in the world, which makes it “virtually invisible” to radar, and is projected to be in active service until 2070.
The F-35 Lightning II during a refueling test at dusk in January 2015. (Tom Reynolds/Lockheed Martin)
But awesome as it may be, the F-35 is also the single most expensive weapons project in the history of the world. The Pentagon has spent over $1.5 trillion (NIS 6.42 trillion) on the F-35 — yes, trillion — and the airplane is not yet fully operational, nor will it be in the next few years, according to Lockheed Martin’s own projections.
Though it may be put into service in Israel as early as next year, most estimate the F-35 will only be completely functional in 2021.
The F-35’s ejector seats were found to be dangerous for pilots who weigh less than 165 pounds (75 kilograms). There are programming bugs in the 8 million lines of code that run the aircraft’s various avionics and weapons systems. The helmet, designed by Israel’s Elbit Systems, is so large it reportedly makes it difficult for pilots to turn their heads in the cockpit.
And those issues are just the tip of the iceberg.
Dr. J. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester, known as the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, or DOT&E, identified 91 “Category 1” or “Category 2” deficiencies in the F-35 platform as of October 2015, which he revealed in a scathing, if jargon-heavy, 48-page report published earlier this year.
A Category 1 deficiency — of which there were 27 — “may cause death, severe injury, or severe occupational illness; may cause loss or major damage to a weapon system; critically restrict the combat readiness capabilities of the using organization; or result in a production line stoppage,” according to the report, which was formally presented to the US House Armed Services Committee late last month.
The remaining 64 Category 2 deficiencies “impede or constrain successful mission accomplishment,” but are not life-threatening to the pilot or as detrimental to mission success as Category 1 deficiencies.
As the most expensive weapons project in history, the F-35 has come under considerable criticism by military analysts, politicians, as well as current and former air force personnel.
Critics tend to argue two main points: one, that the multi-role platform tries to accomplish too many things, and fails to surpass the performance of existing aircraft; two, that the exorbitantly priced F-35 comes at the cost of other desirable aircraft.
Representatives from Lockheed Martin discuss the F-35 stealth fighter jet during a conference at Tel Aviv’s Hilton Hotel on April 3, 2016. (Judah Ari Gross/Times of Israel)
Representatives from Lockheed Martin discuss the F-35 stealth fighter jet during a conference at Tel Aviv’s Hilton Hotel on April 3, 2016. (Judah Ari Gross/Times of Israel)
Each of these arguments has at least some merit — especially the $1.5 trillion price tag, which is hundreds of billions of dollars over the initial budget — yet at a conference focused on the fifth-generation stealth fighter held in Tel Aviv on Sunday, those involved in the project appeared thoroughly baffled by the critical reception the F-35 has received.
To them, the stealth fighter is the unparalleled future not only of aeronautics, but of warfare as well.
“It’s not just an airplane,” Gary L. North, a retired four-star general and former fighter pilot, told The Times of Israel on the sidelines of the conference.
The interoperability of the F-35’s electronic systems creates an “internet of the sky,” putting together all the information collected by every aircraft into one complete picture that can then be relayed to ground troops and naval forces, he said.
The aircraft’s advanced computer system makes the actual flying “very easy,” and allows the pilot to be “less of a technician and more of a tactician,” North said.
No matter that the computer system and avionics do not yet function fully.
Yehoshua “Shiki” Shani, a former IAF general and current CEO of Lockheed Martin-Israel, claimed the criticism was just sour grapes on the part of other companies that competed for the contract to develop the platform, while others chalked it up to misunderstanding or the media’s desire for discord.
Though debate may rage over the virtues of the futuristic fighter jet, Israel is on track to receive the aircraft later this year. Israeli pilots will leave for the United States shortly to begin training on the platform and the first two F-35 fighter jets are projected to start their journey to Israel on December 12, 2016, according to the air force.
Along with the planes themselves, Israel will received an F-35 simulator, one that is “10 times” as immersive as the simplified version brought to the Hilton Hotel, a Lockheed Martin employee said.
Using both the simulator and the two jets, the IAF will prepare the first F-35 squadron, known as the Golden Eagles, to use the fifth-generation fighter. This training process should take “about a year, maybe a little less” before the aircraft is operational, a high-ranking IAF official told The Times of Israel last month.
Serious deficiencies
The F-35 stealth fighter is designed to perform multiple varieties of missions — bombing runs, close air support to protect troops on the ground, air-to-air combat and reconnaissance.
For this reason, supporters refer to it as a multi-role fighter, while detractors call it “an ugly mutt.”
“It doesn’t do one thing or another thing, it does many things,” F-35 chief test pilot Alan Norman said at Sunday’s conference.
Yet in many of these categories, pre-existing aircraft remain better suited to the task, which is recognized by members of the F-35’s team.
Dedicated bombers, for instance, can fly farther with larger payloads. For close air support, there are few options better than helicopters, including Israel’s fleet of Apache attack helicopters, which can perform anti-tank missions as well as provide cover for ground troops.
The F-35 was also found to be “substantially inferior” to a 40-year-old F-15 fighter jet with which it had skirmished, according to an unclassified document written by an F-35 test pilot that was obtained and published by the War is Boring military news website in 2015.
(Lockheed acknowledged the accuracy of the leaked document, but said it did not provide the context of the test in question, which was more about the F-35’s handling and less about its fighting capabilities.)
This year — the IAF’s “Year of the Adir” — the F-35 has again been inundated with criticism and derision, following the release of the critical DOT&E report, which found dozens of serious issues in the Joint Strike Fighter, as it’s also known in the United States.
Thus far only the US Marine Corps’s version of the aircraft, the F-35B, has been deemed operational. However, that designation may be in name only.
The Marine Corps’s F-35 cannot operate by itself in combat scenarios, according to the DOT&E report. It had trouble identifying and responding to threats, and due to its limited weapons storage — it can only hold two missiles or bombs at a time — will require additional aerial support “if operations are contested by enemy fighter aircraft,” he wrote.
Hardly a ringing endorsement for an aircraft due to arrive in Israel in just over eight months.
The way of the future
US Marine Corps pilot Doyle “Wahoo” Nicholson has a famous quote attributed to him: “There are only two kinds of aircraft — fighters and targets.”
At Sunday’s conference, Tal Inbar, a researcher at the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, updated Nicholson’s quote, saying, “Soon there will only be two kinds of aircraft — stealth fighters and targets.”
Air superiority is a game of cat and mouse between aircraft and air defense systems.
A stealth airplane can only operate for so long before an anti-aircraft system is developed that can find and destroy it, and an air defense system can only shoot down enemy planes for so long before a new missile or electronic countermeasure is created to neutralize it.
The F-35 is a “fundamental shift” in that dynamic and will remain “predominant for decades to come,” according to North, who now serves as a Lockheed Martin executive.
Brig.-Gen. Tal Kalman, chief of staff of the Israeli Air Force, discusses the changing threats against Israel during the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies’ annual conference in Tel Aviv’s Hilton Hotel on April 3, 2016. (The Fisher Institute)
Brig.-Gen. Tal Kalman, chief of staff of the Israeli Air Force, discusses the changing threats against Israel during the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies’ annual conference in Tel Aviv’s Hilton Hotel on April 3, 2016. (The Fisher Institute)
“We see in the F-35 a technological and operational leap forward as part of the air force’s entrance into the fifth generation age. Stealth is a milestone in the history of the air force,” Brig.-Gen. Tal Kalman, the IAF chief of staff, said during the conference.
To the question of why a multi-function aircraft is superior to a dedicated unitasker, North explained that the days when a military could have highly specialized aircraft that are suitable for one task only have come and gone.
“There’s no such thing as just one mission anymore. In a highly defended area, you’re going to have to fight through surface-to-air missile systems and air combat in order to do what you need to do,” he said.
As to the F-35’s $110 million (NIS 415 million) price tag — “What is security worth?” the high-ranking IAF officer, who asked to remain nameless due to the sensitivity of his position, said last month.
Israel is committed
Though some countries besides the US, notably Russia and China, have begun creating their own stealth fighters, the F-35 is shaping up to be the most popular fifth-generation aircraft available, with multiple countries around the world committed to the program.
While Canada and Japan, which agreed to purchase 65 and 42 F-35s, respectively, have expressed some concerns over the aircraft’s cost, Israel has remained resolute in its commitment to the F-35 program.
Though in the 1980s Israel canceled its locally designed Lavi fourth-generation fighter after years of development due to its high cost, the Defense Ministry and IDF have not publicly expressed any reservations toward the F-35 program.
Israel Air Force officials have even joined Lockheed Martin executives in defending the platform.
“I hear assertions about this and that concerning the F-35 aircraft, mostly in the media. I read things where the connection between them and reality is minimal,” Brig.-Gen. Kalman said on Sunday.
“This plane is better than other planes on the market, and its price is lower than some of the other planes available,” he added.
Though today Israel enjoys air superiority over its enemies, the country must prepare for an uncertain future. Fifth-generation fighters, with integrated stealth systems, will eventually become an essential piece of the IDF’s arsenal, the unnamed air force official told The Times of Israel last month.
“This is a plane that can do things that no other planes can do,” the official said.
“Are there challenges? Are there complexities? Or are they just labor pains?” he asked, rhetorically, in response to the criticisms of the F-35.
Israel has already agreed to purchase 33 F-35 stealth fighters from Lockheed Martin, with the option of buying an additional 17 jets in the future.
This is happening, this is the future. The F-35 will be Israel’s next fight jet.
It may be a glitchy, expensive mutt — but at least it will be awesome.
https://news.vice.com/article/do-israels-new-fighter-jets-mean-stealth-is-going-out-of-style
@ Vinnie:
How about asking Mr.HaLevi’s opinion since he has the knowledge and expertise to opine.
@ Keli-A:
I don’t know that a) stopping Iran is now past the point of no return, and b) Israel cannot still pull out of the F-35 program. Heck, only a very small number have been purchased, paid for by U.S. defense aid, and only two will be in Israel at the end of this year.
I also don’t know that the F-35 cannot be made into a valuable weapons system. I’m not an aerospace engineer, and I am not a fighter pilot. I read some material that makes the F-35 look very bad, but other items that claim that it is indeed a revolutionary aircraft.
I am a student of military history. I remember well when another radically new weapon, the M-1 Abrams tank, first entered service with the U.S. Army in the early 80s, when I was an ROTC cadet in college. The M-1 was three times the acquisition cost of what it was replacing, the M-60A3. But the M-1 carried only two-thirds the tank rounds, and had to be refueled twice as often. The armor was thinner in some places, and it produced a massive heat signature out of the back end; the heat exhaust was so bad that infantry troops could not be employed on foot behind the tank for protection, as was the traditional method of employment in some situations up to that time. The gas turbine engine was also considered much more vulnerable to damage by battlefield dust and dirt than a diesel engine. All of these costs and problems, so the critics charged, far outweighed the purported advantages of the M-1 in terms of speed and a very accurate shoot-on-the-move capability. But over these objections, the Army bought it anyway, they made some fixes along the way….and in Desert Storm, it proved to be more than worth all the trouble, stunning the world with its effectiveness on the battlefield.
All the same, I am far from convinced that the F-35 program will have the happy ending of the M-1 tank program. This time, the critics may be right. But I allow that they could be wrong, based on the past history of new weapons systems, employing groundbreaking technology, having to face a lot of objections but sometimes proving themselves in the end after all.
I don’t have access to top-level Israeli intel on Iran, and I am also not privy to any number of possible covert political/diplomatic/military moves that may be operative concerning Iran. I hear rumors, see snippets of information here and there that paint a hazy picture of this situation for me. Summing up what I see in this hazy picture, without dwelling on details, is that it would not have mattered who was leading Israel; if Israel had attempted overt military action against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, in the face of Obama’s resistance, at the very least, Obama would have alerted Iran to an impending Israeli attack, the element of surprise would have been completely lost, and it would have been a disaster. That is not the whole picture. I think there are many other pieces to Israel’s ongoing effort to stop Iran, some of which involve other powers in the region and beyond, and other pieces involving recent Israeli breakthroughs in terms of indigenously produced weapons that could greatly improve Israel’s chances of success at a future point in time when conditions are more critical and the political climate more favorable. Bottom line, neither you nor I know the whole story on this, and it would be premature to simply write this off as a defeat just yet.
My tentative defense of the F-35 notwithstanding, had it been up to me, I would have cancelled the program, bought more F-22 Raptors to completely replace the legacy F-15C fleet in the air superiority/interception role (and perhaps sold some of these to Israel if Israel wanted them), and replaced legacy F-16s and A-10s with new-build souped-up versions of both of these designs. The U.S. Navy could have simply gone with pure fleet of Super Hornets (their “plan B” in case the F-35 tanked in any event), and perhaps we could have developed a souped-up “Harrier III” for the Marine Corps. None of this would have been cheap, either, but relative to the cost of the F-35 program, what I recommend probably would have been a lot less expensive.
But it wasn’t up to me. And the U.S. defense establishment has put one hell of a lot of eggs in the basket of the F-35. It isn’t working out as they had hoped, I think they are starting to panic – as you know, it is WAY behind schedule and WAY over budget – and I think now they are all but begging Israel to take them and make them work. And with that, Israel perhaps sees an opportunity in this to make themselves valuable to the U.S. in a way that will cement in the alliance as nothing else can. Whether this latter assumption is valid remains to be seen. Back to my original point, if the Democrats retain the WH, I would expect on gratitude at all. In this case, like you, I’d want to ditch the F-35 and team up with India/Russia for a new fighter. I don’t think it will be too late for this in 2017.
watsa46 Said:
Israel cannot manufacture Jet engines and as long as we have to import engines the plane is not ours and subject to the same political constraints as if we had imported the whole plane. there are only a few manufacturers of military Jet engines none very friendly to Israel. The F-35 has cost America over a trillion dollars and climbing Elbit of Israel is producing the helmets for the F-35 and each one cost several hundred thousand dollars, My feeling is that defensive measures will always trump such offensive capabilities for a fraction of the cost and do it quicker. The F-35 has been planning and in development for over 10 years and the only advantage the plane has over the 15’s stealth and am not sure that enemy radars have not found an answer already… Israel should invest heavily in submarines with nukes and upgrade existing ones it’s the weapons platforms that count and advanced avionics like Jamming capabilities that are as good. Most the the hype of the F-35 are insider vested interests in seeing it developed but the Russians have shown their newest anti aircraft platforms are more than a match for American stealth aircraft already in operation.
@ Bear Klein:
It would have been produced if America had not pushed the F-35 down our throats. If Israel had been allowed to purchase ….many others would have followed suit as Israel is the best American arms salesman out there. If Israel refuses to purchase others follow our lead. The terms offered Israel were fantastic as well…
@ Keli-A:
I do not think this plane (F-15 silent Eagle) is more than on the drawing board. Not enough orders to run production line. At least this what was situation before.
It might have been better option if it was actually available in production. http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/news/a18052/boeings-stealthy-f-15-silent-eagle-israel/
Too expensive and remains under the control of the US!
IL should develop their own with India. Remember the Kfir!
@ babushka:
Here is a good option for you.
“Peebles”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZeiH2ODuz8&nohtml5=False
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/boeing-f15se-silent-eagle/
F-15 silent Eagle would be best for Israel, America refuses to sell it to Israel
https://www.israpundit.org/archives/32676
Vinnie Said:
Small little detail and setback. BB had one overriding mandate and that was to stop Iran !!! He failed and he has put us all in dire jeopardy. Your myopic blind partisanship is showing again. 😛
Vinnie Said:
Aside from the Iran debacle, BB has maneuvered Israel into the next 20-30 years of tying Israel to American diktat and almost total loss of sovereignty over a gamble …..probably induced by massive corruption and payola at all the highest levels of the IDF and political positions in Israel The IAF never wanted the plan the American AF didn’t want the plane. It’s such a white elephant that by the time it becomes full combat operational if ever the defensive counter measures will have been developed. The price of the plane will be in the end $150-200 million and at such prices you and especially Israel can’t afford to lose any aircraft even in traing exercises and it’s computer data links an data cards must be updated daily and before any operation begins by American technicians in Cyprus even as some have advised in America itself. The Americans refused to make design changes allowing for Israeli made avionic and weapons systems…. It’s operational performance stats make it inferior to upgraded semi stealth F-15 a but cost 5-10 times more and is so costly and vulnerable it is a stupid option not only for Israel but for America. It looks like a project that has been promoted by some of Americas defense contractors and sold to by bribes to approving politicians. Russia and China have their versions one in co-production with India and it’s a fraction of the cost of F-35 already and those costs will still rise considerably before it is deemed operational. Bad Bad Bad
@ Vinnie:
@ Bert:
That makes the current U.S. presidential election absolutely critical in this regard. If Hillary or Bernie is elected president, having a key front-line weapons system that depends on U.S. acquiescence for employment is simply insane. Good for Israel that the plane will not be integrated into Israel’s defenses until after Obama is out of office, but Hillary or Bernie would be just as bad as Obama. Israel under Netanyahu has been able to largely outmaneuver and outlast Obama – with the glaring exception of the Iran deal, Obama’s punishment to Israel for defying him over the Palestinian issue – but how many more years can Israel maintain an alliance with a U.S. led by an openly pro-Islamist, anti-Israel administration?
Israel is purchasing this weapon based on several articles of faith: One, that they have the technical know-how to work out the bugs (I think the U.S. defense establishment, with so much riding on this aircraft, is counting on Israel for this), and two, that the next president will back off from Obama’s anti-israel stances and re-affirm the U.S-Israeli strategic partnership to at least what it was pre-Obama. As to the first issue, if anyone can do this, Israel can, but this is far from guaranteed. As to the second, this is simply not something to be counted on at all. As of right now, this American is predicting that the Democrats will retain the WH. This will happen due to a combination of outright voter fraud in key swing states (what I am certain happened in ’12), plus an utterly corrupt U.S. mass print and broadcast media that is molding U.S. voter opinion in such a way as to get the Democrat nominee close enough to genuine break-even support so that the voter fraud will be hard to detect; the victory will “look” plausible.
If my predictions prove to be correct about the coming election, in the wake of this, Israeli leaders are going to have to move in the direction of divorcing Israel from reliance on the U.S. as this relates to national defense. Probably the best course of action would be cooperative military aerospace efforts involving India and Russia. There may be problems with this too, but at least Israel may be able to structure these arrangements going forward in such a way as to maintain independence of operation, which is key to the survival of any embattled sovereign state…and something Israel has not really had under Obama, a circumstance that will not improve at all if the Democrats win this November.
A critical omission in this article. The F35 must receive a “Go Ahead” signal from Washington which is transmitted over a trans Atlantic cable. If a Russian submarine breaks the cable or Washington decides to block a F35 mission the planes become inoperable. In addition there have been many reports by U.S. pilots about serious shortcomings of the F35. I fear U.S. government political pressure on Israel to accept the planes.
When it comes to state of the art aircraft, there is a vastly superior alternative to the F-35, and insofar as cost is concerned Israel could basically get it for peanuts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkxNljd9IA8