The Political Lion of Judea

After the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Israel faced two problems. The Israeli Air Force had lost one-third of its frontline combat aircraft, and they had to be replaced. Additionally, a large number of well educated Israeli men, frustrated by three wars in less than seven years, began to leave the country in droves.

To try and solve these two seemingly separate problems, the Israeli government turned to Israel Aircraft Industries,  the country’s leading high-tech company, and asked if the company could build a modern combat aircraft for the Israeli Air Force. Such a locally produced new fighter would not only help the Air Force but also give IAI a financial boost and allow it to enlarge its high-tech and manufacturing work force. In February 1980, the Israeli government authorized the IAF to present IAI with a list of technical specifications for the development of a low-cost, low-technology, ground-support aircraft with a two-seat version to be used as a trainer.

Israel estimated that development costs of the new fighter, the “Lavi” — “Lion” in Hebrew, a grown up “Kfir” (lion cub) — would be $750 million and that each aircraft would cost $7 million. The U.S. said Israel could use its foreign military sales credits to buy U.S. components for the new aircraft. But when development began in October 1982, the Israeli Air Force demanded greater capability, telling IAI, “We don’t want it unless it is better than the F-16s we have now.” IAI felt that with a few design changes and a slight increase in weight, the Lavi could be changed from a simple ground attack aircraft to an F-16-class high performance fighter-bomber. To that end, they chose the Pratt & Whitney PW1120 afterburning turbofan engine with more than 20,600 pounds of thrust to power the Lavi and set about making it a world class fighter.

For IAI, the project seemed simple. It had excellent aerodynamic engineers and a world class avionics industry, and now it had an engine. All it needed to do was to fit them together and persuade the U.S. to fund it.

The funding seemed the biggest challenge. The U.S. Defense Department and Government Accounting Office did not think IAI could deliver such an aircraft on time, and especially not at the cost it claimed, but these objections were overcome when the government of Israel bypassed them and went directly to the U.S. Congress for funding.

By the beginning of 1985, a full-scale mock-up of the Lavi was ready. It was a tailless canard delta with a shallow sweep of the wing trailing edge, giving a fleche platform. The wing tips were cropped and fitted with missile rails. For stability, the sharply swept vertical tail was supplemented by two steeply canted ventral strakes below the ends of the wing root fillets. The Lavi had an innovative pitch control system for the time: single piece, all-moving canard surfaces located slightly behind and below the pilot. Like the F-16, the Lavi had negative static stability and thus its control system was “fly by wire.”

The Lavi made extensive use of U.S. provided composites in the wings, the vertical tail and canards — indeed, 22 percent of the structural weight was composite materials. It had an Israeli designed, highly sophisticated avionics and radar suite but a conventional upright seat and central control column rather than the slanted seat and sidestick controller of the F-16. Another innovative idea was the semi-conformal weapons carriage, with seven very low drag hard points under the fuselage. On paper, this gave the Lavi much greater range than the F-16 with 16 percent less fuel capacity. But as the program developed, as predicted by the U.S. defense establishment, the whole proved greater than the sum of the parts.  The integration of the engines, airframe and avionics proved too much for IAI’s inexperienced design and engineering team, the project was plagued with delays, and costs soared.

On Dec. 31, 1986, the Lavi made its maiden flight, but soon afterwards, the U.S. GAO and the Office of Management and Budget examined the program. GAO estimated the cost per aircraft at $17.8 million and OMB at $22.1 million, three times the original estimate. By this time, the Israeli Air Force felt the Lavi did not represent a sufficient advance over the F-16 to justify its higher cost and delayed delivery. The IAF quietly joined the U.S. Defense Department in urging its cancellation and the purchase of more F-16s.

The Israeli government finally canceled the project on Aug. 30, 1987, a decision approved by only one vote. IAI workers, many of whom were let go at this point, protested vigorously but to no avail.

Because so many of its claimed advanced capacities were “paper” and never demonstrated, it is impossible to say how good the Lavi was, but it did demonstrate the capabilities of Israel’s aerospace industry and some of the aircraft’s sub-systems were marketed and sold well as separate systems.

(For questions or comments, contact Dr. Michel at marshall.michel@spangdahlem.af.mil.)