Israel will purchase a third squadron of F-35 Adir – the maintenance will be performed locally
Autor fotografie: IAF, Public domain|Popisek: F-35 Adir
Operational lessons from the ongoing war will be reflected in special systems to be installed in the new squadron of F-35 stealth aircraft to be delivered to the Israeli airforce (IAF).
A third squadron of F-35 (Adir) stealth aircraft will be purchased, according to a recent approval given recently by the Israeli ministerial committee for defence procurement made two weeks ago. Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Galant, approved the recommendation of the Chief of Staff, the Director General of the Ministry of Defense, and the Commander of the Air Force, to purchase a third F-35 squadron: "Following the approval of the Minister of Defense, the procurement delegation of the Ministry of Defense in the USA will issue an official procurement request (LOR) to the American JPO. This is in order to complete the approval and signing of the transaction in the coming months."
All the 50 F-35 Adirs will be delivered by the end of 2025
The estimated cost of the new contract is about 3 billion U.S $ and will be funded by the U.S Foreign Military Funds (FMF) that Israel gets from the U.S. Contracts for the procurement of 50 aircraft and two F-35 squadrons have been inked by Israel in recent years, 39 have been delivered. According to the official schedule all the 50 will be delivered by the end of 2025. Local changes have been made in all the F-35 already delivered to the IAF.
The local changes made by the IAF in its F-35's are the main reason for the decision to perform heavy maintenance in Israel and not send the stealth aircraft to a European maintenance center. The changes that were made so far are aimed at enhancing the stealth fighter's capabilities when and if Israel attacks the nuclear sites in Iran. The use of the F-35 against armed UAVs is not new. The first such intercept was in 2021. This intercept was according to the IAF "far from Israeli airspace". But since the war broke out on Oct. 7 the use of the stealth fighter to intercept armed UAV's and cruise missiles launched from long ranges, mainly from Iran became more common.
The IAF is using a special F-35 test aircraft to design the local changes
Major General (ret.) Eitan Ben Eliyahu, former commander of the IAF told Security & defence that the decision to purchase an additional squadron of F-35 is the right one as the F-35 is a very versatile combat aircraft: "It has the stealth capability that allows it to enter areas in enemy territory that are used to launch different weapon systems to hit Israel." Ben Eliyahu added that the very special communication systems installed in the IAF F-35 allows the pilots to communicate directly with all other forces in the area, in the air on the ground and at sea.
"This system gives the pilot a full real time picture of threats including armed UAV's launched from big distances," Ben Eliyahu added that the communication systems of F-35 operated by the IAF enables the Israeli pilots to coordinate different missions like intercepting swarms of armed UAV's. The capability of the IAF's F-35 pilots to communicate with all forces in a wide area is based on a dedicated system developed by Israel aerospace industries (IAI). This system is based on the company's "tactical C4 architecture". It is based on the latest Software Defined Radios (SDR) and uses generic communications infrastructure. This systems is now being upgraded so that it will facilitate joint operations against swarms of armed UAV's.
By Arie Egozi
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