Because the Israeli Air Power’s F-35 fleet continues to play a central position within the nation’s air marketing campaign in opposition to Iran, which was initiated within the early hours of June 13 with the launch of large air and missile strikes on the nation, assessments of the in depth customisation of Israel’s distinctive variant of the plane have gained rising significance. Though the F-35 has obtained orders from over two dozen companies the world over, the Israeli Air Power is the one overseas service which has gained permission to extensively customise the plane and combine indigenous avionics. This was insisted on by the Israeli Defence Ministry largely as a result of considerations that the F-35’s stealth capabilities couldn’t be relied on completely to make sure the plane’s survivability, as enhancements in radar, infrared monitoring, and knowledge sharing applied sciences would over the fighter’s lifetime improve adversaries’ potential to focus on it. Though the F-35’s digital warfare suite is by far probably the most formidable deployed by a Western fighter plane, not solely are the suites on export variants of the fighter downgraded, however the potential to combine indigenous techniques additionally permits them to be repeatedly modernised whereas exploiting the Israeli defence sector’s appreciable experience within the subject.
The Israeli Defence Ministry ordered the primary batch of 19 F-35s on October 7, 2010, with subsequent orders in February 2015 and August 2017 bringing the quantity to 50, which was ample to equip two squadrons based mostly at Nevatim Airbase. Plane initially delivered in 2016 have been much less closely customised, with indigenous Israeli avionics together with solely the command, management, communications and intelligence techniques. With america having proved extremely reluctant to permit Israel to extra deeply modify the F-35, a system was developed below which Israeli avionics can be added on high of the unmodified avionics of the plane. This course of was summarised by Normal Supervisor of the Lahav Division at Israel Aerospace Industries, Benni Cohen, who acknowledged: “It is open structure, which sits on the F-35’s central system, very like an utility in your iPhone. So it does not change something within the plane itself, however it offers the Israel Air Power probably the most superior and adaptable processing capabilities with relative independence of the plane producer.” This “introduces a brand new stage of freedom for the IAF [Israeli Air Force], because it paves the best way for added superior capabilities to be embedded within the F-35I sooner or later,” he concluded.
To help Israeli efforts to customize its F-35s, the fighter program’s main contractor Lockheed Martin constructed a singular testbed plane to permit native modifications to be trialled in Israel. Israeli Air Power Lieutenant Colonel Shlomy Binder, who headed testing efforts, noticed that the testbed “will allow us to start the work of upgrading the capabilities of this plane in order that it solutions our particular operational necessities,” together with for “utilizing the distinctive weapon techniques made by Israeli trade.” One of the vital vital advantages which Israel gained was the flexibility to take care of the plane with out utilizing the American ALIS logistics system or its successor the ODIN system, which not solely averted appreciable problematic points with the previous, but additionally supplied a lot higher operational autonomy and made the Israeli F-35 fleet the one one which couldn’t be simply shut down from the U.S. With Israel growing F-35 orders to 75 fighters in June 2024, the advantages for the nation’s defence sector of offering each ‘add ons’ for the avionics suites and a excessive diploma of home servicing have been vital.
Past adjustments to avionics, a serious Israeli requirement for the F-35 fleet was to increase the vary of the fighters to facilitate penetration strikes of Iranian territory with out reliance on aerial refuelling. The means by which this has reportedly been achieved stays unsure, with one chance being the combination of conformal gas tanks, and one other being the jettisoning of non-stealthy exterior gas tanks earlier than approaching Iranian airspace, and consuming all gas from these tanks within the first a part of the flight. Though Israeli air operations initiated on June 13 have reportedly seen the nation profit from in depth aerial refuelling help from international locations throughout the Western world, had such help not been supplied, Israel’s personal tanker fleet would have been laborious pressed to increase the vary of its giant F-35 and F-16 fleets to facilitate strikes on Iran. The anticipated rising vulnerability of tankers as Iran begins to operationalise trendy fighter plane geared up with very lengthy vary air-to-air missiles supplied an extra incentive to develop this functionality.
Israel’s F-35 fleet was procured and closely customised particularly with operations in opposition to Iran and Syria in thoughts, with the autumn of Syria to Turkish and Israeli backed insurgents in December 2024 having left Iran as the only real main goal. Though Iranian sources have claimed shootdowns of three Israeli F-35s by native air defences, the flexibility to launch penetration strikes deep into very closely defended airspace with such a conservative loss price has mirrored effectively on the F-35’s survivability. Losses greater than an order of magnitude increased would have been doubtless had some other Western fighter class been relied on. The extent to which Israel’s customisation of the F-35 has contributed to this survivability, nevertheless, stays unsure.
