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F-16 Engines Stolen From Israeli Air Base
Hugh Pickens writes "Defense Tech reports that several F-16 engines weighing 3,700 pounds each have been stolen from a base in a central part of the country. Israeli officials played down the loss, saying the engines were old or retired and likely stolen for scrap. U.S. security and aviation experts contacted were not so dismissive of the missing engines and said that some countries would see value in having them and taking them apart. 'They're still more modern than anything in the Iranian air force inventory, and they would even be helpful to China in their jet engine development,' says Richard Aboulafia, noting that modern technology engine design remains 'a black art' and that competitors would love the opportunity to study them. This is not the first time jet engines have gone missing. In June 2011, Israel reported the loss of eight F-15 and F-16 fighter engines from a base at Tel Nof near Jerusalem when investigators found the engines had been taken away on large trucks, prompting speculation that the thieves had help from inside the base. In 2009, two F-5 engines were stolen from an airbase in Malaysia, tracked to Argentina and ultimately located in Uruguay."
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Those new settlements in the West Bank have to be built out of something.
with gps attached.
I admit, I have the engines. I hooked them up to my Delorean and the Mr. Fusion I've been keeping in my garage.
The Israeli government have discounted earlier reports of Iranian involvement, and are now looking for a Mr. Wile E. Coyote.
The export of military technology to so many different nations, depending on the political wind of the moment, makes this a highly likely occurrence.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
And this is why we shouldn't be giving the Israelis our military technology.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/engine-china-stealth-fighter/
A nice plane without engines is useless. Over land through Iran to China
Did they check for any giant engine shaped trees or bushes that mysteriously appeared in the area? They could be hiding under their noses!
Oh right. Israel is our foothold in the middle east and as long as they're universally unpopular, we have a reason to invade their neighbors. I keep forgetting. Well, we might as well give them a few more to make up for their loss.
A lot easier and cheaper to do R&D with a working prototype in hand. Big problem for the US. You can always have the best equipment, but you're also always helping your enemies to catch up.
If Wikileaks were to have leaked the engine plans online then Slashdot would have cheered in triumph - Information wants to be free!
However, when the *physical* engines disappear it's the fault of those sneaky Israeli rats who should have never had OUR engines in the first place.
The prime suspects are the Israelis themselves. They'd love to get into the fighter-aircraft business or even the jet engine business. Seriously, this is Israel, the penultimate security state. You don't get stolen military hardware out of Israel unless the government knows about it.
Just get a XXL titanium cartridge at the Jerusalem Staples and 3D print some new ones? Duh?
I'd like to know if I'm clicking on Wikileaks before I click, asshole. Most of you might not care, but some people do.
( yeah yeah... should have looked at the url before clicking... I know )
They have the engines, and can copy them at will. But they decided to steal the engines from themselves so they can copy them.
Yes! That is how the World Wide Jewish Conspiracy works! They do something like this that way, they can plausibly deny having stolen the designs. See, if there are accused of stealing the designs and someone points out that they were in possession of the engines all along, they then can say, "But they were stolen so it can't be us!"
See? You just don't have the reasoning ability to see this clever and crafty Jewish plot! And when I find my lighter, I'll light up another toke and explain how BOTH Bush and Obama are in on this with the help of Fox News!
They want you to think they are enemies!
If you hover your mouse pointer over the link it will show you the address. I know you are probably new to the internet so I will give you this one for free. The price jumps next time my friend.
Dear Editors:
Thank you for putting a WikiLeaks link in the story summary. I know I could have hovered over it with the mouse cursor and seen where it linked to, but I was expecting an actual news story and not WikiLeaks. You do realize that anyone who works in the Defense Industry, military, or other US Government contracting positions could lose their job over clicking that, right? It's not likely that they would be "caught" so to speak, but I thought this was a news aggregator, and would, you know, have links to the news. Thankfully I am no longer in the defense industry, and do not have to worry about losing my job.
For those of you who are about to freak out on the US Government's rules realize this: When you do work in certain areas you agree to not seek out information that is covered by a "Need to Know." The US Government has specifically said that those who work in sensitive areas are not to visit WikiLeaks, and have warned all employees and contractors. The reason is pretty simple. If you explicitly agree not to do something as a condition of employment, and you do it anyway, then you probably aren't a very trustworthy person. And anyway, I think that a proper news story would have been more informative and read better than a diplomatic cable, or whatever that document was.
I think the most likely explanation is that somebody was paid a big fat bribe to ship the engines to a country who wanted them: China, Russia, Iran, India (?), etc.
Seriously, this is Israel, the penultimate security state.
Which state is, therefore, the ultimate security state? Seriously, penultimate doesn't mean "ultimate, except with three extra prefix letters of awesome emphasis!", it means "next to last".
One of the comments in TFA was interesting. (From memory)
Mossad can track down a terrorist cell to a specific house and take it out, but the IDF can't locate a couple of jet engines that rolled out of the base on a flatbed truck!?!?!?!?
Why's that? Because that technology might make it to a country like Iran? ummm... We have given a HUGE amount of high-tech weaponry (including jets) to Egypt over the years and THAT place is now run by the Muslim Brotherhood which has begun cozying-up to some of the worst governments on Earth (including Iran). Israel is not the only country to let this happen... during the cold war, a Japanese firm intentionally transferred American nuclear submarine propeller technology directly to Russia, which resulted in the American taxpayer spending BILLIONS of new dollars to improve our ability to detect the newer quieter Russian subs and to make ours even more quiet.
So... is it that you oppose helping Egypt and Saudi Arabia and others (anybody who might let our tech slip out to our enemies) as well, OR are you just using this incident to disguise a personal predisposition for Jew-hating?
Muslims have huge swaths of land and many nations, rich with natural resources. The Jews (who have repeatedly faced threats and actual attempts of genocide) have only one tiny country, and it seems to be on the only middle-eastern soil that's not floating on oil (smile) so it's always interesting to see the warped and evil mindset of the irrational freaks who want to eliminate them. I'm not Jewish... I'm just a rational human who is fascinated by the freakish irrational behavior of Jew haters... it seems like every evil person on Earth hates Jews, even if they've never met one...
they sold them to the Chinese and make it look like "theft". It's a warning, they will sell the rest of our tech to China if we don't toe the line.
There arent black guys or mexicans in israel. /ba-dum-tish
I think that this reflects a problem on those organizations. Not Slashdot.
My advice, come up with a wikileaks blocker and use it. Why deprive ANYONE else of a link just because?
Another thing. If you're at work, why browse slashdot at work? :P If you're at home, why is it that your employers control what you can or can not read in your house? It's public info.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
Even if the US used NO oil at all, we'd still be all entangled in the middle east... because we have many allies who are (and will be for many decades) fully dependent upon that oil. We could be sitting happily in the US with our own oil, coal, nuclear, wind, hydro, solar, etc energy and yet our economy could crash because our allies and trading partners crash in response to somebody like Iran choking-off middle east oil. Even if our allies in Europe got off oil from the middle east and instead got it from Russia, they'd leave themselves vulnerable to Russian blackmail and without a readily-available supply of middle east oil as a backup things would still be a mess. Our Asian allies need it. Even China, not an "ally" but certainly a trading partner, is becoming more-dependent upon middle-east oil (one reason they will feel increasingly driven to build-up a blue water navy) and will therefore make Americans worry about the region even if we do not directly use its oil. Quite simply, middle east oil is a vital part of world markets no matter how much or how little the US uses.
F-15 and F-16 use the same engines F100 bult by Pratt & Whitney. So the articles need not make a distinction what aircraft they go in.
Maybe try using a bit less tinfoil next time. The whole roll is definitely too much. If you learn to fold it just right and not wrinkle it you can make a really good hat from a small piece of tinfoil.
"the lease is up" - color them red.
Really? You can lease a warplane? I suppose they bought "gap" insurance too.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
How your American tax dollars are spent by Israel.
Freedom is slavery!
Ignorance is strength!
Contrary to what you'd think from what politicians say, Israel is not a treaty ally.
hmmm...
Wow those scrappers sure can go to great lengths to fence their scrap!
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
It's public info.
Whatever you may think of Wikileaks, clearly this is not public info. It is publicly accessible but it plainly says right on the document: CONFIDENTIAL. For those who are held to an expectation of respect for that classification, just viewing it accidentally is as bad as being entirely incompetent.
the israelis do nothing more than incite violence, create problem, and do everything a friend would not do to the US.
USofA
Have gnu, will travel.
In 2000 there was a US Senate inquiry into how a classified targeting system in tanks was given to Israel, stolen by some criminals there, sold to China, then onsold to Iran. The government in Israel wasn't too happy about that stuff ending up in Iran either (especially since Iran gives away their obsolete rockets to people that keep shooting them at Israel).
So it's not really about Israel, but instead some crooks that just happen to live there.
'They're still more modern than anything in the Iranian air force inventory, and they would even be helpful to China in their jet engine development
No, they arent the mig 29 is a newer and arguably better aircraft than the F16 could ever hope to be. and if that isnt 'modern' enough, the SU 30's bolstering the Iranian air force sport avionics alone that make the F16 look like a model T.
chinas current fleet of J series aircraft are powered by the Saturn AL-31 or domestically produced clones with nothing except the turboblades imported. it has 27,600lbs of thrust, compared to the emaciated 17,600lbs of thrust for the pratt and whitney powering the F16.
in summation: Israel is bang on, the F16 has been a collectors item for quite some time.
Good people go to bed earlier.
yeah lets give more shit to Israel, they are such a great friend - if they aren't stealing our technology outright they are either losing it or selling it off.
'They're still more modern than anything in the Iranian air force inventory'
Yes, except for the F-14's we GAVE THEM (with engines).
I think we should put a small gamma-source in each turbine spindle, so we can track them more easily.
Oops, I lost my F-16 engine. I can't remember where I put it.
They have a history of funneling our technology to the highest bidder. My only doubt is usually after they do it they tell our politicians to fuck off or AIPAC will visit your opponent's campaign office next election.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
We can't have nice things!
What does religion exactly have to do with jet engines?
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Well if I were the agent in charge the first place I would check would be Jay Leno's garage. He's got every other souped up vehicle ever made, but two jet engines on a 1968 Chevy Impala would be way cool.....
We had some old engines, being jews we seen we could make a lot of money selling them to Iran the Chinese anyone else with plans for world conquest.
Bling the crackhead is heading to the scrap metal yard to get paid!!!!
The "chosen" tribe sold those engines to China and are now inventing fairy tales about scrap-metal scavenging arab infiltrating their super-reinforced airbases.
Said tribe already sold the Lavi fighter jet prototype to China (that after USA paid them with 104 brand new "military aid" F-16I Sufa fighter jets to discontinue the Lavi development. Pentagon was extremely enraged about the Lavi sale that later became the chinese J-10 jet and wanted sanctions, but the Manhattan bankers told them to shut up or watch the USD skydive.)
it is isreal selling the tech tp other country as they do not respect their friends. USA keep supporting Isreal and after some time u have to deal with Chaina
Police are on the lookout for a 19 yo kid with a 400 mph hot-rod.
Let me guess : the Mossad will "find" engine parts in Teheran, Gaza stripe & Mevaseret Adumim.
The obvious answer would be to bomb Iran, to drop white phosphorous bombs and shrapnel bullets against the civilian population of Gaza and create a new settlement in E1.
Given the record of Mossad, Bibi and Liebermann, it might not be such a crazy idea.
Problem is, Hamas leaders are just as bonkers.
One word......Decepticons!
Someone has now got a useful collection of material for some serious IEDs
Remember Israel was even caught out dealer arms to both sides in the Sri Lankan civil war at the same time.
If we're so worried about China getting our jet engine tech (and we probably should be), then why is GE allowed to be in a joint Chinese venture to make engines?
The difference in those technologies is the difference between a bus engine and the engine in a Formula One car. Just because you know how the bus engine works doesn't mean you can build a Formula One engine.
Israelis are paranoid about security, their seucity systems and measures are second to none.
This makes you suspect some sort of false flag op could be cooking...
Because as Lenin said: "Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them"
And how well did that work out for Lenin do you think? It seems to me that the necks of the capitalist pigs are still quite intact.
They are in China being copied to the last nut & bolt and sold back to the US aircraft manufactures for 1/3 the price, so you can say that they are not really outsourcing US jobs.
Half of them are thieves, the others are too lazy to care.
No good deed goes unpunished.
I don't hate Jews but dislike them as much as I dislike the Catholic institution for hiding the child sex abuses. I suppose I dislike the zionists who will go at any length to justify their takeover of Palestinians, and call anyone who disagree with them as anti-semitic.
Do I hang out with Catholics and Jews? Yes. I respect their religious beliefs. I don't respect their institutions and political pull, however.
Only LOOKS conservative....due to the liberal bias of the rest of the news organizations.
Israel won't feel the pain of F-16s/GE F110 engines being stolen after all these were American gifts.
Sounds like official corruption.
Reminds me of the South Vietnamese govt and the nationalist chinese govt before it.
Someone needs to go to jail
ich been dier chrome dinette?
The Chinese care not about these old F-16 engines. The Chinese are so far ahead of US engineer building on generation 3 aircraft that it would be the same as you turning in your 2012 Mercedes keys and trade the Mercedes for a 2005 Camry................In case you haven't noticed by now the Chinese have a better 5th generation stealth fighter jet; better than our F-22 and this is fact. They do not need our old F-16 engines however Iran does and this probably who has it.
The article should read... Israeli's are lying back stabbers who sold the engines to China
They probably sold it to some outsiders to make some more money so they can get additional funding from the USA
Did you check out Craigslist???
Note, not fair and balanced within itself, it's obviously wildly on the right. But it provides a fair balance for the blatantly far-left media outlet MSNBC and the rest that are generally left-leaning (CBS, etc.).
But I'd bet you'd just like the airwaves to be filled with the leftist echo chamber, with no challenging viewpoints.
No big deal. Israeli F-16 don't run the same engines as they do in the US. They run 40+ year old technology. Maybe even older.
Mexicans will steel anything
The reason the US is giving away these jets to Israel is so Israel wouldn't manufacture its own planes (it used to and made pretty amazing planes for their time).
Even as scrap metal they are worth several hundred thousand dollas because of the exotic materials used assuming you know someone with a high capacity electron furnace to melt them down with.
The air seals and turbine blades are worthless but the compressor, shaft and bearings may still be good, then again who will you sell these to Big Lots?
All parts are laser marked and uniquely identified. So good luck pawning them.
No one noticed several semi-truck loads of materials sneaking away?
I hope they keep their plutonium pits under better guard.
I remember reading a story about a couple of F-16 engines being hi-jacked from Ogden AFB years ago. We expected to see something akin to the Darwin Award story about the dude that hooked up C-130 jetos to his car and plowed into the side of a mountain not soon after...
Karma: Bad
One advantage of reading Hebrew (disclaimer, I am an Israeli) is that you get somewhat more complete versions of these stories.
Here's a summary of one version from Maariv, one of the daily newspapers - http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/420/687.html
The thieves took 9 metal rings, each 1m in diameter.
It's not clear whether they were not in fact misplaced within the base.
Theft of metal in Israel is quite common, especially of scrap metal from army bases, which are sprawling affairs.
No one took 9 complete engines out of the base. The guards are stupid, but not that stupid.
An F-16 engine is about 65% of an F-16 by weight & volume. It's a single engine plane. It's an engine with wings and a chair tied to the top. Can I put on a set of coveralls that say "Al's Jet Engine Repair", drive with in with a 1987 flatbed truck, borrow a forklift from a line mechanic, load 'em and drive away? How stupid is the Israeli military? Not very. How corrupt is the Israeli government? Very. Most Israeli's think so. Is everyone afraid that some higher up was responsible and doesn't want to know? Israel may have it's precarious position compromised by the greed of its own people. Take everyone on duty that night and put their feet in a tub with a chironex fleckeri, commonly known as a sea wasp, a species of box jellyfish. They will tell you everything they know and make up what they don't. Sort out the facts and do the same at the next level. When you get to the top, recover the engines. After you do or if you don't, take the top guys out in the desert and shoot them. Don't bury them. Let it be known that they were shot, not buried and and animals are currently splitting up the bodies based on how big and how mean the animals are. Doing this once should put an end to this bullshit.
Why anybody would consider them more trustworthy than Iran or China is something of a mystery. Israel has proven itself to be perhaps the most duplicitous outfit ever.
typical Israel selling secrets behind our backs to other contries. Just like the deal they made during the kennedy administration to get a nuclear bomb from China and then Kennedy was killed. Cant trust them.
Aw c'mon; there can be no sympathy for professional thieves. Is all of Israel corrupt?
Jews always want to make news even though they stole them and put them somewhere and they need a scapegoat and that is Iran ............and and excuse for jews to attack iran...........nothing new.......same shit just after years after years
hehehe some retard will probably strap one to his car and try to lauch himself into orbit heheheheheheehheeh dumb kids hahahahahahaha
I find this one really hard to believe. Having worked int the Arcraft Industry for many years, I know that you cannot hide the engine in your vest pocket. SO! How the hell do you get these engines out withoue being seen? You teleportation them to Iran, ho else could you do it? Those damn Iranians stealling our ideas again, first our drone, no engines, what next our wives?
Sorry, but "most people" don't agree on the meanings of just about anything when it is convenient to do so. Relativism can just go fuck itself - experts know more than non-experts about the subject they have expertise in so there's no need to pretend that the definitions they put forward are "unclear" just because people are don't like it when minor aspects of a different ideology also occur in their own.
This sort of relativism bullshit has been especially rampant while PR agencies are pretending climate experts do not know any more than non-experts, but it's been around for a while and really is an major inpediment to an informed democratic society (or if the leaders believe this bullshit and ignore their experts, any society).
Searching probably won't help now, and they are not going to be doing it with every shipping container from now on to forever.
It wasn't F-16 engines, it was just specific parts