newspapers began reporting that intelligence agencies were concerned about continued Israeli technology transfers to China-including some components given to Israel by the United States. However, Chinese-Western defense cooperation ended abruptly following the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989. firms even explored co-developing updated J-7 and J-8 fighters for Beijing. and Western Europe were also exporting military technology to China, then seen as a counter-balance to the Soviet Union. Other technologies transferred include the E/LM-2035 doppler radar (derivatives installed on the J-8 and J-10 fighter) and the Tamam inertial navigation system. The technology was licensed for production by China’s Xi’an Aircraft Corporation in 1989 as the PL-8 missile, which remains in service today. One notable export was the Python-3 heat-seeking missile, which boasted the then still-rare ability to engage planes from any aspect using a helmet-mounted sight. Thus ended Israel’s production of domestic jet fighters-but not of advanced weapons and components for jet fighters, which was greatly boosted by technologies developed for the Lavi. Ninety additional F-16s were procured instead. On August 30, in an 11-12 vote, the Israeli cabinet canceled the Lavi. However, the extraordinary financial commitments the Lavi entailed made it extremely politically divisive. It had also tested the PW1120 turbofans on an F-4 ‘Super Phantom’ which demonstrated such extraordinary performance it even flew a demo at the Paris Air Show and was briefly considered for export. Washington signaled it would only cooperate if Israel refrained from exporting the Lavi.īy 1987 IAI had built two flying two-seat Lavi prototypes which demonstrated excellent performance in eighty-two test flights. IAI hoped to make back the costs by exporting the Lavi, particularly to states facing embargoes due to poor human-rights records such as Apartheid-era South Africa, Chile and Argentina.īut the U.S., provider of 40 percent of the Lavi components, didn’t want to subsidize a competitor for the F-16. However, by the 1980s jet fighter development costs had grown exponentially as they grew more and more sophisticated and, unlike the Nesher and Kfir, the Lavi was not cloned from an existing design. The Lavi’s Israeli-designed avionics were comparable to the later F-16C model than the more rudimentary F-16A.
It also had a powerful internal mounted jamming system for self-protection. It had a lower maximum speed of Mach 1.6-1.8 compared to the Falcon’s Mach 2, but had 50 percent longer range. The more ground-attack oriented Lavi did differ in a few respects, however. critics of the Lavi pointed out Israel was investing $2 billion in development costs to reinvent an airplane it had already bought from the United States. These soon saw extensive combat service, destroying the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor and shooting down over forty Syrian fighters over Lebanon without loss. In fact, with the exception of the canards, the Lavi closely resembled in appearance and capability the U.S.-built F-16s that entered Israeli Air Force service in 1980.
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