The Changes on an American fighter jet sold to Israel?

Question

When ever America sells a fighter jet to Israel, Why do Israel always add their own instruments onto the fighter jets?

"The Jerusalem Post reports the Pentagon has agreed to supply the F-35A Lightning II variant to Israel as early as 2012, instead of in 2014 or 2015. This would make Israel one of the first nations to receive the aircraft, and very possibly the first foreign nation. Previous objections to Israel’s installation of its own technology in the F-35 — as it has done with every US fighter it has received"

I mean isnt the American softwares good enough?

Answer 1

It has nothing to do with the quality of the American electronics, it has to do with Israels need to have the best of anything whether or not we will sell it to them. They have always upgraded aircraft and just about everything else until it cannot be any better. For instance, in the 1967 war, Israel was using Sherman tanks from 1944, but they had upgraded them so much that they took out state of the art Soviet T-55 tanks.

When American equipment was unavailable during the 60's, the Israelis bought french Mirage fighters, and upgraded them so much that they are practically their own aircraft. The Kfir, which is a modified 1960's Mirage 3, is the finest version of the Mirage family. Our own Military purchased the Kfir's from the Israelis and used them as aggressor aircraft for a decade.

I am sure the Israelis have some sort of special upgrade they require, they have a very intuitive military and they squeeze the best out of everything they can.

Oh, and Israel never bombed Pakistan, it bombed Iraq's french built Osirak nuclear plant in 1981.

Answer 2

The US never sells a fully loaded fighter aircraft to any foreign nation including Israel.  Most aircraft are sold with what is called a foreign package.  It is usually made up by the buyer and the manufactor.  Why would we sell all our secrets such as stealth, electronics, weapons etc.  

It is a known fact that allies can become enemies.  Example Iran with the F14, and again with the Cobra Helo.  Even with these examples packages were sold that did not compare with what we were using.

Israel is a very smart nation.  During and after the Viet Nam war the US sold them used F4 Phamtons.  They were stripped down and Israel installed there own engines, weapons, and electronics.  Some military experts said that they ended up with a better aircraft then what the US started with.  It flew higher, faster, and more reliable then the origional.  They have done this with several aircraft, including the F15 Eagle, and the F16 Falcon.  Both were first used in battle by Israel when they used them to bomb the nucular plant in Paskisitan.

The F35 that Israel is buying will be modified by them to soot their purpose.  In some cases it will be a better version then that used by the US.

Answer 3

''and very possibly the first foreign nation.''

I hope not we're the lead partner(UK), we're also paying the second most amount of cash in.

To answer the question it's cheaper to add your own in and some countries have their own industries to keep going.

Answer 4

Well we dont have turban tracking radars in our jets.  They need those.   Ok seriously the answer is when we sell hot tech to other countries, the version they get is usually scaled down from what our own pilots fly.  They know this and will put better stuff back in it.

Answer 5

We sell them the basic kit or the plain jane package with a older software package or EXPORT GRADE software.

Look at the F-15K, (Korea) it has the GE engines not P&W.

Answer 6

There was a time when they might be able to test it in combat before we could.  That gave them an opportunity to improve which they would feed back.  A few years ago it seemed like they might be sharing some information with China which slowed down technology transfer.

Only tested software is good enough!