Israel to expand fleet of F-35 fighter jets built by Lockheed Martin
TEL AVIV, Israel -- Israel will expand its fleet of next-generation F-35 fighter jets in a move that officials believe will help maintain the country’s qualitative military edge over its Mideast neighbors for years to come.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced Sunday that his Security Cabinet has approved the purchase of 17 additional F-35s, exercising an option it held on the aircraft. The acquisition will increase to 50 the number of F-35 jets being sold to the key U.S. Middle East ally.
The F-35, built by Lockheed Martin, is the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program with an estimated cost of nearly $400 billion. The first F-35 built for Israel was rolled out in a ceremony at Lockheed’s manufacturing complex in west Fort Worth in June. It’s expected to arrive in the country in about three weeks.
A senior Israeli air force official described the addition of the F-35 as a game-changing development that will give Israel a “strong and effective tool” in dealing with challenges across the region.
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Meanwhile, the Pentagon has gone forward with augmenting our stealth fleet with F-15 Advanced-Eagles (2040C). Basically they stripped out some of the dead F-15 Silent Eagle's costs, but kept the capacity to communicate with our stealth fleet and provide networked weapons launching capabilities, using the 2040C as a high capacity aerial weapons platform. The F-35 & F-22's shortcomings have always been their inability to fire more missiles. With the F-15 2040C backing them up in combat, now they can launch as many missiles as they want, then the less maneuverable F-35 can head home, leaving any remaining dogfighting to the venerable F-15 Advanced Eagle.
