Following earlier Israeli objections to the sale of Lockheed LMT F-35 Lightning II stealth jets to the United Arab Emirates, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz reportedly relented and accepted the sale following a meeting with U. S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper last Friday. According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, senior Israeli defense officials subsequently sought compensation: “removing obstacles” to purchasing older F-22 Raptor stealth fighters designed for greater air-to-air combat capability than the F-35. The report notes, however, such a sale is “currently not on the table.” And it will likely remain that way because the F-22 is no longer in production, and the U. S. Air Force—the type’s only operator—is unlikely to want to give up aircraft from its own fleet. Despite reaching an accord in August normalizing relations with the United Arab Emirates, Israeli officials initially objected to the Arab state receiving stealth fighters of the same type serving in the Israeli Air Force, citing a U. S. law requiring that Israel must be allowed to purchase equipment guaranteeing a “qualitative military edge” over other states in the Middle East. Already, Israel requested up to $8 billion in arms sales in the wake of the peace accords. However, after acceding to the F-35 sale to UAE, Gantz reportedly renewed a long-standing Israeli request to authorize to F-22 exports. Israel’s prior requests for F-22s were blocked due to the 1998 Obey Amendment, which specifically banned the export of F-22s. The amendment was spurred by reports of Israeli transfers of U. S. aerospace technology to China. However, that amendment is arguably no longer the main obstacle to meeting an Israeli request. The primary issue is that the last F-22 rolled off the production line in December 2011. Restarting production could only be done at great expense. And the United States Air Force is unlikely to willingly transfer aircraft from its irreplaceable fleet of around 180 Raptors, which are growing in relevance as the U. S. increasingly confronts China’s rapidly improving military aviation over the South China Sea. The Lockheed F-22 entered service in 2005 and lacks the modern computer systems and more cost-efficient radar-absorbent materials (RAM) found in the widely exported F-35. However, the Raptor has a smaller radar cross-section , and is built for far greater speed and maneuverability thanks to its twin thrust-vectoring F119 turbofan engines. These give the F-22 supermaneuverable flight characteristics and the ability to cruise at supersonic speeds without afterburners. That means while the F-35 may be less expensive to procure and fly, and is more flexible as a general-purpose warplane, the F-22 is a scarier adversary in air-to-air combat. Nonetheless, a hypothetical new production run of F-22s would almost certainly require integration of some of the F-35’s advancements, becoming a so-called F-22/F-35 hybrid. This possibility was studied by Japan in 2018.
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