Does Israel have F117 Stealth Fighters? Interesting bits of evidence

Could Israel have bought or been given some of the old F117 stealth fighters that were supposedly mothballed?

I came across this thread the other day on the Airliners.net forum, in which a poster recounts the following rumor:

The rumor goes that the F-117 has not been retired, but a portion of the fleet has been sold/given to a country close to the US in the Middle East area. They supposedly operate some of the aircraft that were removed from the US Air Force. Other than a few pictures of five or so aircraft sitting in a dusty hangar there is no real accounting for the disposition of all of the 59 or so aircraft made. One WAS cut up, and several are sitting on posts.

Intrigued by this, I started to dig a little bit deeper and I did find additional circumstantial evidence that it could be true.

For example, In September 2007 Israel struck a Syrian nuclear reactor that was being built with assistance from North Korea. They made a big deal of leaking to the press that only F15 and F16 jets were involved, and offered the very specific detail that the external fuel tanks were jettisoned over Turkey. A red herring?
en.wikipedia.org...

When the press wondered how it was that the Syrian radar never picked up Israeli jets entering their territory, the pentagon offered a half-baked story that it was possible to hack into Russian-made radar systems and spoof them with nothing more than a radar return signal (almost more amazing than the F117 story, if true).
www.ynetnews.com...


More interesting bits of evidence:
-F117 jets were seen flying around Groom Lake as recently as 2010. Why is that the case if the planes are obsolete and retired? The govt leaked the story that maybe they were being used as radar test platforms.
defensetech.org...

-Pilot training on the F117 trainer aircraft the T-38 was taking place as recently as 2010, but we never found out who the pilots were.
Source


Personally I think this scenario is plausible, although the evidence so far presented is admittedly flimsy. Some important questions remain unanswered:
-Which administration authorized the transfer of the planes if true? Obama or Bush? I think it is less likely that Obama would have authorized such a thing, meaning the transfer would need to have happened before 2008.
-Does having these jets make an attack on Iran a sure thing? It would seem crazy to spend all of that money, train all of those personnel and then not use the aircraft.

reply to post by kristobal


Questions I have related to the F117s is what makes them so obsolete that they're supposedly mothballed, and further, what do we have in our vest pockets that would give us confidence enough to let a few of them get leased out to another foreign power?

Certainly anything we let go somewhere, we'd need complete confidence that we could defend against its use should it ever be turned 180 against?

This might be true...

And by all means, Israel using F117's instead F16's to bomb Iran would be far more better.

Dunno tho...even with the F117's, Israel lacks the ability to do much damage to Iran.In the end, all that they have to do is to bomb one iranian facility, and get Iran retaliate, posobly blocking the strait, dragging US into war and US will finish the job.

If Israel have F117's, at least those planes have better chances to go back after bombing iranian site / sites.Will look like Strike 3 (Iraq, Syria) without NO PLANES shot down.

reply to post by kristobal

Does Israel have F117 Stealth Fighters?

It seemed to me that the retirement of this line was entirely premature to begin with.

If I had to guess, I'd say the chances were better than 50/50 that Israel took possession of at least a few on the foundation that they would not be used except in case of war with Iran and then not as part as any preemptive strike force.

Of course, once those ships are in Israel...

They are still every bit as potent as they ever were against air defenses even slightly less than cutting edge.

I think it is a good possibility.

I really doubt that it did happen but maybe. Never underestimate the Israeli air force. They are really good at making our planes better. They also have the best radar jamming in the world in my opinion, let alone pilots with balls of steel flying feet off the deck to their targets.

Last time I heard they were all at one base in ready reserve. It would be nice if Israel had 10 of them or better ones for emergency strikes but I just think the cost is to high unless they don't fly them and use something else for practice.

Israel used its F-16s to fly all the way into Iraq and they knew nothing about it till their reactor blew up.

reply to post by redoubt


I would agree but the wings were very prone to breaking under tight turns and the cost of repairing the RAM was really high. They also had the F-22 coming online and it can do the same mission. It all boils down to either Congressional stupidity or something way better is already flying that we know nothing about.

They have what US has been giving them for yrs.. modern weaponry
paid by US Taxpayers

reply to post by nineix


Oh you can bet if this did take place then something is in the planes that allows us to track them. They also probably need authorization to use them.

reply to post by kristobal


Such a sale wouldn't get by Congress. The news wouldn't last five minutes. Nor would the Russians keep quiet about it. The US persuaded the Russians not to sell S-300s to Iran. A sale of F-117s to Israel would be leaked by the Russians eager to disrupt any military action against Iran.

Originally posted by Recollector
This might be true...

And by all means, Israel using F117's instead F16's to bomb Iran would be far more better.

Dunno tho...even with the F117's, Israel lacks the ability to do much damage to Iran.In the end, all that they have to do is to bomb one iranian facility, and get Iran retaliate, posobly blocking the strait, dragging US into war and US will finish the job.

If Israel have F117's, at least those planes have better chances to go back after bombing iranian site / sites.Will look like Strike 3 (Iraq, Syria) without NO PLANES shot down.

Go back in history to the Suez Crisis and see how Eisenhower handled allies that thought they could drag us into a war. Maybe I'm wrong about Obama, but I don't think he has any interest in bombing Iran or allowing Israel to bomb Iran.

HOWEVER... and I have no proof of this, but employing only logical speculation based on previous history.... a few aircraft could have been quietly flown to base(s) in or near Israel with the intent of being flown secretly by American, or ex-military (CIA) pilots on behalf of Israel, sort of a false flag operation to assist an old friend you might say, giving America 'plausible deniability'.

Possibly we should put Brad Meltzer and company, or ex-GOV JV on this right away.

What the hell kind of deniability is there in providing the strike weapons for a sneak attack on a country nobody has declared war upon?
Though Isreals Dov Zakheim, was comptroller of the pentagon (headbookkeeper) during the trillion dollar fiasco, theres no proof he sold any to the country of his other passport....
There is however the intimation he sold isreal f18s for scrap prices......
It may be under his watch the 117as went to the IDF, as well.......
Just sayin so....its worth considering the method too....and hes the boy who could have done the deal......
Hes also goy a company which makes remote control systems for aircraft.....owned it before 9/11 and it makes the systems which allow taking over an aircraft in flight from external methods.....ie rado controls strong enough to lock out the aircraft pilot from the controls.....hint hint.....

Israeli pilots are very good at low level operation that fly under radar coverage and Israel have very good jamming and radar spoofing equipment. a F117 would have no problem hitting targets in Syria.

But Iran is a whole new ball game as they would need to refuel to hit iran and no one has a stealth refueling tanker

The other part is the F117 can not carry the deep penatraion bombs that would be needed to take out the underground nuke site in iran.
These bunker buster bombs are to long to fit in the bomb bay of the F117

Originally posted by ANNED
Israeli pilots are very good at low level operation that fly under radar coverage and Israel have very good jamming and radar spoofing equipment. a F117 would have no problem hitting targets in Syria.

But Iran is a whole new ball game as they would need to refuel to hit iran and no one has a stealth refueling tanker

The other part is the F117 can not carry the deep penatraion bombs that would be needed to take out the underground nuke site in iran.
These bunker buster bombs are to long to fit in the bomb bay of the F117

Not to mention that the F-117 is a lob ball, a subsonic fighter aircraft, that by speed, was obsolute before it went into the air.

I'm sure the Israelis have them, Just as everybody will be getting F-22s and the F-35s before long. The reason for these seemingly insane business is just thatbusiness. is the American defense industry wants desperately to get out of the jet business and build lots and lots of triangles but the American aerospace industry needs those decades old plants huffing out conventional jet components.

israel aircraft industries has their own stealth fighters..they dont need to use them they will launch missles from submarines off the coast of iran and saudi arabia has around 50 israeli jets stationed at its air base they will be close enough to iran to hit them

There are two nations in the Middle East this could be talking about and I seriously doubt it'd be Israel, for a number of reasons. The MAIN two being balance of power...this would blow it all to hell, and secrecy. Israel is about as bad about secrets these days as the U.S. is.

Saudi Arabia though..... Let's just say that if full regional war breaks out, I believe there will be some heart stopping surprises rising out of the empty deserts of the Saudi Kingdom. They already have things which aren't in Jane's that blow any real balance to anything. They also just kill spies and traitors like it's a personal pleasure or something. They'd be the likely recipients of a system like the F-117, where trust and TOTAL secrecy would have to be a given right up front, IMO.

It will just be shoot down again with ""primitiv"" Missiles and old Sovjet Radar System just like when they used F117 in Serbia.

reply to post by stirling

There is however the intimation he sold isreal f18s for scrap prices

I do not know about F117 since it is "special ops" secret thingies and could be hidden. But i 100% know that there are no F18s in Israel because it is a workhorse and is not supposed to be hidden any more then F16s or F15s.
So i think you should get funny little facts called facts stregiht before throwing accusations left and right.

Originally posted by ANNED
Israeli pilots are very good at low level operation that fly under radar coverage and Israel have very good jamming and radar spoofing equipment. a F117 would have no problem hitting targets in Syria.

But Iran is a whole new ball game as they would need to refuel to hit iran and no one has a stealth refueling tanker

The other part is the F117 can not carry the deep penatraion bombs that would be needed to take out the underground nuke site in iran.
These bunker buster bombs are to long to fit in the bomb bay of the F117

What about the Thermobaric bombs used in Ashcanistan against the taliban deep caves? anyone know what size they are?

I think it was a bit odd that the F-117 went to retirement. I think it still had operational potential after all. Unless the US Airforce decided that they had been to exposed, and their advantages with the stealth technology had become irrelevant.

Usually it's only a matter of time until "the other side" gets a better counter-weapon.

That being said, it would make sense if they would sell them to other allied countries. But the thing is, that's not so simple to accomplish.

The jets that the US sell to other countries are jets who are still operational, which means they are still numerous spare parts and reparation parts to use in case there are problems. Airplanes, especially jet fighters are a bit sensitive when it comes to maintenance, and if you overlook that problem, crashes start to happen.

If the F-117 was totally put out of service, that also means that the production for spare parts has stopped (I don't know, I'm only assuming). And we are also talking about very specialized parts.

The only possible solution for this scenario to be plausible was if the US had given Israel the plans for them to build the parts them-selfs. Which personally, I doubt has happened.

But you never know.