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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."
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.
And this is why we shouldn't be giving the Israelis our military technology.
Are you suggesting that socialists like me are arguing, that we should all be given F-16 engines stolen from Israel?
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?
http://www.dailytech.com/GE+Announces+Chinese+Joint+Venture+for+Avionics+on+the+C919/article20681.htm
China and Iran don't need any fancy undercover operations - we'll happily shoot ourselves in the foot if it's called business.
Let me get this straight. They have the engines, and can copy them at will. But they decided to steal the engines from themselves so they can copy them. I see. You, my friend, should cut down on the weed. You and the imbecile that modded you up.
A lot easier and cheaper to do R&D with a working prototype in hand.
And it wouldn't be the first time Israel disappeared some foreign manufactured equipment to get it "off the books" only to come up with some derivative internal products later. In fact, they have concentrated on making major components for foreign purchased platforms for years, rather than building new platforms from scratch. Most of their tech is derivative work.
It seems just as likely, given Israel's apparent lack of concern over these thefts, that they know exactly where these engines are.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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.
I think there is a difference between the info wikileaks was leaking (info on past events), and technical data for currently used devices. I would say that if wikileaks were to release plans to the engine in the P51 I wouldn't car at all. It is no longer in use, as it has been replaced by newer tech. I'm willing to bet that there is not a substantial difference between the F16 engine, and the F22/F35 ones.
I wonder how long it would take to engineer and build a jet engine with the info available on the internet about jet engines and various design issues, for example, keeping the inlet air at below super-sonic speeds while the aircraft is flying at supersonic speeds. There was an article on /. a while back about that, and I believe it included basic solution.
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.
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.
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".
penultimate: that word doesn't mean what you think it does.
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.
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.
Why is everyone assuming they are stealing this technolgoy to copy it?
The F15 and F16 engines are now 20 years old. You can buy the same level of technology from Russia or India these days. Even China has better engines based on Russian designs.
Occams Razor says that these engines are worth more as replacements for older F15/16's that are owned by countries that cant get new engines/spares from the US or cant afford them (Iran is far from the only suspect here).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
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.
My point is that
Israel != Jews.
USA != Christians.
Saudi Arabia != Muslims.
[Country] != [Majority Religion]
You mentioning religion out of the blue when the previous poster said nothing only serves as flamebait.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
I'm not Jewish
But you play an Israeli talking head on the Internets. So I'm guessing Republican?
It's always hilarious to see Israel fanboys equate 'The United States should not be emptying our treasury on behalf of Israel' into 'ZOMG ANTI-SEMITISM!'
Israel has nuclear weapons. Israel has a strong military. Israel has a damned good number of engineering and science folks, to boot.
The fact is, citizens of the US should not be paying Israel's way. That's it. As for the rest - whatever. Personally, I don't give a damn if Israel launches a war of aggression and takes the whole of the Middle East. At least it'd stop our politicians from fucking about with puppet administrations. That's worked out so well for us in Iraq and Iran, after all.
China doesn't need to get old F-16 engines from Israel. They already got their hands on some F-16s from Pakistan several years back. This is well known knowledge.
China has the capability to manufacture relatively modern jet engines. One example is the WS-10A engine they use in their J-15 carrier jet instead of the standard AL-31F engine used in the Su-27. The J-31 uses smaller WS-13 engines, also used in the JF-17 they sell to Pakistan, which is based on the Mig-29 RD-33 engine. They had several production problems namely in FADEC, turbine blade reliability and production capacity but it seems they have solved them. Otherwise they wouldn't be testing airplanes powered with their own engines on their carrier.
You know, Israel actually tried getting into the fighter-aircraft business once.
And I hear it was a pretty good plane, but in the end the US and Israel came to a mutual agreement that's it would be for the best if Israel didn't export a competitor to the F-16 and Israel continued getting subsidized planed from the US.
So I doubt Israel would want to get into the fighter-aircraft business now, and anyway, Israel is doing pretty well on the UAV side of things.
Contrary to what you'd think from what politicians say, Israel is not a treaty ally.
Exercise, let's replace Israel with Liberia:
"Most of everyone's tech is derivative. But somehow, it's only bad if the black people do it?"
"Rarely would someone say something like what the previous poster did without intending it as an insult against black people."
"And I find it interesting that you refuse a link between black people and Liberia, when Liberia was created specifically for the black people, and is officially a Black State" (This one is not really true but I hope it helps further prove my point that the linkage it's completely of your own doing. Not every Israeli is Jewish and not every Jew is Israeli.)
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
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?
GE has a long history of doing this. They licensed their steam turbines to Toshiba as early as the 1970's (and still maintain a joint venture with them). Then they licensed them to Hitachi. Recently, they have been playing the game with Doosan (Korean multinational).
I wouldn't worry too much about stealing gas turbine technology though. This is basically a mature technology now with only incremental improvements every couple years. If you wanted to play the gas turbine game, stealing an engine or 5 would help, but it would be cheaper and less risky to just send people to the various conferences on such technologies throughout the year. In this industry, the secret design is important, but the manufacturing capability and production engineering is more important. If you just steal an engine you still have a long way to go.
If you were starting a gas turbine program from scratch, you would need a big pile of money (500 million would probably do it), some engineers skilled in thermodynamics, separate engineers skilled in materials, production engineers, etc. You can have GE, Siemens, Alstom, and Rolls Royce's engineers defect to you if you want it bad enough (money and benefits talk loudly in this industry). Then you need to locate a supplier of exotic alloys and large forgings (not as difficult as it sounds), buy some 5 axis CNC machines for airfoils and some larger vertical tables and lathes for the rotors and casings. Get yourself some machinists and millwrights and you're in business. This is out of reach of a small or medium size company, but a Fortune 500 company or medium-size government could do it if they wanted it badly enough.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
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?
Because as Lenin said: "Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them"
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.
- Iran does not have F-16 or use airplanes that use them.
- Iran has access to new Russian jet engines (RD-33 and many other types), American engines (TF-30 turbofan, J79 and J85 turbojets etc.) and french Snecma 9R-50. Also according Jane's defense a Venezuelan F-16 was transferred to Iran for research. They already have 2 F16-A engines in hand.
- Iran produces localized J-85 engines (for their F5 derived Saeghe fighters) and possibly limited number of TF-30 (for their 30 years old but still operational! fleet). They would most probably consider one of those engines for industrial production (as they have 40-45 years of experience with them).
This is a "partial" list of engines available to Iran :
Turbojets:
J85 14kN
Snecma Atar 42kN
Tumansky R-195 (su-25) 44kN
J79 50kN
AL-21F (su-24) 75kN
Khatchaturov R-35,R-29 (Mig23,27) 83kN
Turbofans:
RD33 50kN
TF30 65kN
Read it. Learn it. Live it. This website will provide you with all the facts and tools you need to solidly refute any socialist debaters who argue we should all be provided government entitlements and destroy wealth by stealing it and handing it out to the underclass. Educate yourself, and those around you. Our way of life depends on it.
Your post is a perfect example of Poe's law. I cannot tell at all whether you are parodying a fundamentalist, or are actually a fundamentalist. Congratulations!
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
stealing it and handing it out to the underclass
Pitting members of the proletariat against one another is a technique known as 'divide and rule', or in this case, 'divide and rule by thieving kleptocrats' .. the basic idea is that if you, say, have two neighbors and you can keep them bickering against one and blaming one another for everything that goes wrong, they won't notice while you rob both their houses (and will blame one another). Well done for playing your part like a good little pawn *pats head*.
The more phony divisions you sew, the better - e.g. pit old vs young (e.g. tell the older generation they're poor because the younger generation is eating Social Security and tell the younger generation they're poor because the older generation are living high off the hog off their labor ... meanwhile both feel poor because you are robbing them both blind, but they will instead bicker and blame one another ... it helps if you can deliberately construct a convoluted robbery system in which there's just enough of a grain of truth both ways for it to seem plausible, e.g. pyramid-scheme-based retirement funds or government debt).
The only "divide" in the country should be that between the moral and the immoral, between thieves and honest folk.
"The other position." Is that the one when they start talking about a person who's simultaneously a socialist fascist stalinist nazi, empty suit evil manipulative genius, god-hating atheist antichrist with an Angry Black Man for a pastor, who (despite being an empty suit) will surely crush America under social security administration tyranny with an iron fist after duping the entire American legal system into covering up his Kenyan past (despite having held no government position that would remotely give him such power at the time) but (despite being an evil genius) can't speak without a teleprompter, who's surely coming for your guns (And if anyone points out he hasn't made a single move to, it's proof he's planning to)...
One would think that it's obvious that no one else defends this viewpoint because this viewpoint is manifestly insane, bringing to mind the delusional/hallucinating aspect of psychosis.