EW Not Only Roadblock To Israeli JSF Plans

The prohibition against putting an Israeli-made electronic warfare/attack system into the U.S.-made F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is only about number three in the list of impediments to finalizing a deal for delivery of early-production models of the F-35A to the Israeli Air Force (IAF).

Price is number one, Israeli industrial participation is two and only then comes the issue of who provides the electronic warfare/attack (EW/EA) package. While the radar and EW/EA systems are combined in the U.S. models, an IAF general with insight into the negotiations says the U.S. has expressed no concerns about the U.S. putting an Israeli-built, active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar into the F-35.

Sticking point

The problem arises when the EW/EA system’s techniques generator is connected to the radar to produce electronic effects for insertion into enemy sensors of jamming, false targets and other misinformation. The U.S. won’t turn over its EW software to be modified.

But the U.S. and Israel aren’t past the first major step – the price. The sales price with spares, manuals and long-term technical help is “more than $100 million each.” IAF officials won’t reveal the asking price, but they do say that if the price was only $100 million each, the deal would have already been signed for 75 aircraft.

Nailing down the price of an F-35 is a complicated task. One problem is that the earlier you buy them, the more they cost and production isn’t scheduled to end until 2035. “There is no such thing as ‘What JSF costs,’” says U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, the F-35 program executive official. “If you give me a year, a variant and a number [in the buy] I can give you a ballpark.”

Bench marks

There are a few bench marks. The first low-rate production lot of two F-35As cost about $200 million each, Davis says. The second lot of six aircraft cost about $160 million (2008 dollars without the engines) each. And by 2014, at the end of LRIP, F-35As are predicted to cost $70 million-$75 million (in 2014 dollars) each and Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing (STOVL) variants will be coming in at $80 million-$85 million, he says.

Foreign customers are not going to get gouged in the pricing unless they want something extra, he say. For example, the Royal Air Force will pay the same for their F-35B Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing aircraft that the U.S. Marine Corps does.

But the cost to anyone will be hard to predict. The issue, Davis explains, is the difference between the year of purchase, the exchange rate, and flyaway cost versus the cost when training, spares and long-term sustainment and other issues that vary over time are included. If not for escalating threats in the region, like the introduction of the SA-20 surface-to-air missile, the IAF would have preferred to wait several years before ordering its first F-35s.

Photo: USAF