F-16I scheduled to arrive on February 19th [Israel getting newest F-16s]

F-16.net ^ | 13 Feb. 2004 | unknown

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

The long time of waiting has come towards an ending. The New Israeli F-16I Block 52+ are scheduled for arrival on February 19th, 2004. The two first planes (408, 409) will arrive at Mizpe Ramon Base.

The planes will be part of the "Negev" squadron. They will be receiving the newest F-16s.

The planes are flown to Israel by USAF pilots. They will make a fuel stop at a base in Germany and will continue to Israel. The landing is scheduled for around 15:00.

A ceremony is has been foreseen at the base, with the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, IDF and IAF commanders-in-chief, US Secretary of Defense and the president of Lockheed Martin.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

They will be receiving the newest F-16s.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Islamoscum.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Ping!!

[Professional Engineer]

Heh heh heh

[EGPWS]

They will be receiving the newest F-16s.

They are also to receive AWACS with a Gulfstream GV platform.

[SAMWolf]

Look up Arafat!

[The South Texan]

Good for Israel. I'm glad they are on our side.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Makes a young man want to join the military, doesn't it?

[babyface00]

Makes a young man want to join the military, doesn't it?

Makes some older men wish they still could too!

[TheSpottedOwl]

Happy Valentine's Day, Yasser!

[VRWCTexan]

I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. In you will all of the families of the eretz be blessed." Gen 12:1

[jslade]

Another weapons system that was voted against by John F'ng Kerry. KERRY IS A SCUM GIGILO!

[agite rem mente]

How much is this costing the US taxpayer?

[Mendelssohn]

"How much is this costing the US taxpayer?"

This is what Israel does with the military aid it receives from the US.

In any event, it's a lot less than the $9 billion in military planes that Poland has received for basically nothing just a few months back.

And it's a lot less than America spends in defending wealthy Europe or the Far East.

Or is it just aid to Israel that rubs you up the wrong way?

And you really should remember that had Israel not had the military equipment to bomb that Iraqi nuclear reactor two decades ago, Saddam would have had nuclear weapons, and you'd have been sitting in your shelter.

[Seselj]

Radar concerns cast shadow over F-16I buy
ALON BEN-DAVID JDW Correspondent
Tel Aviv

13-Feb-2004 - The Israel Air Force (IAF) is "highly dissatisfied" with the Northrop Grumman AN/APG-68(V)9 radar installed in its new F-16I multirole fighters, according to senior Israeli defence sources.

With the first of 102 Lockheed Martin F-16Is scheduled to arrive in Israel on 19 February, a growing number of defence officials are now criticising the procurement.

JDW has learned that following a series of test flights at Lockheed Martin's facility in Fort Worth, Texas, IAF pilots assessed the synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) mode of the AN/APG-68(V)9 to be "below IAF operational standards".

Israel's former minister of defence, Moshe Arens, who negotiated the F-16I deal, told JDW he is not surprised to learn about the radar's performance problems. "Our intention was to install Israeli-made radar in the F-16Is, but the US government made the whole sale conditional on the purchase of US-made radar. I argued that [Israel Aircraft Industries' subsidiary] Elta's radar had a proven better performance and lesser cost than the US radars, but the Americans were unrelenting," Arens said.

The Israel Defence Force (IDF) spokesperson's office declined to comment on the matter, and a spokesperson for Lockheed Martin said that "the issue is between the Israeli and the US governments".

Senior IAF officers have recently met with both Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman executives and presented them with what they described as "performance problems of the radar". IAF sources said that "once the aircraft arrive in Israel, further tests will be conducted in co-ordination with the manufacturer".

However, according to a Northrop Grumman spokesman, the company hosted a SAR "summit" for all key principals in January 2004, at the US government's request, to evaluate the radar's performance. At the end of that session, the parties agreed that the radar had met all its performance specifications, that the development phase was completed and that the IAF should now evaluate the radar in its own environment.

IAF sources said that in 1999 the service's preferred option was for Lockheed Martin's F-16I over Boeing's F-15I - partly because an offer to purchase two batches of 50 aircraft had significantly lowered the price per unit. However, the $4.4 billion F-16I deal, Israel's largest- ever single procurement, is now under increasing scrutiny by both former and current defence officials.

"I don't think we should have decided in 1999 on fighters we will still be receiving in 2008," said Brig Gen Eival Giladi, who until last December was head of strategic planning for the IDF. "I am not worried about their technology, but I'm not sure that what we will need in 2008 are fighters. We should have opted for the smaller [F- 15] deal. Even though we would have lost the considerable discount, we would have gained much more freedom to decide later on the structure of our air force."

Arens, who supported the F-16I deal at the time, said: "In perspective, it could be that we were a little hasty. Considering the strategic changes in the region, I am not sure we should have made that deal."

While IAF Commander Maj Gen Dan Halutz (now IDF Deputy Chief of Staff elect) maintained that the F16I procurement "was the right decision then and still is today", other senior officers are questioning the decision, which committed a large part of US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to Israel for almost a decade.

The IDF's budget was drastically reduced in the last two years, making the FMF the only available funds for new procurements.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently added NIS1 billion ($224.2 million) to the 2004 defence budget, totalling NIS33.4 billion, and pledged an additional NIS1.6 billion in 2005.

Source: Jane's Defense Weekly

[hershey]

Bingo! You put that very nicely. Now let's hope Israel uses the new jets to put a permanent halt to Arab aggression. There's a quid pro quo here somewhere.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

...a growing number of defence officials are now criticising the procurement.

Probably the same bunch of defence officials who thought that selling F-15s and F-16s to terrorist countries (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt) was a real swell idea.

[Gunrunner2]

Not really.

Israel never approves of any sale, they may not disapprove.

This complaining is nothing more than laying the ground work early for a bid for better stuff in future. They know what they are getting is pretty darned good, they just to make sure they get better stuff when it comes along. Their complaint is nothing new to those of us in the gunrunning business.

[Seselj]

I don't know if this is accurate, but I read somewhere that the US built kill switches into the Saudi F-15's and gave the codes to Israel. The thinking was that if the Saudi government was overthrown and replaced with a more extremist government, the first thing the new govt would do is use those F-15's against Israel. Whether or not this story is actually true I don't know.