Israeli security officials are investigating the theft of eight military jet engines from an airbase near Tel Aviv.
An IDF spokeswoman described the engines as old or retired and likely stolen for their scrap value, and one retired U.S. Air Force general said the episode is more of an embarrassment for Israel than harmful to the U.S.
But U.S. security and aviation experts say the engines still hold secrets that foreign rivals such as Iran or China would love to get their hands on.
“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,” said Richard Aboulafia, vice president for analysis with Teal Group, a Washington, D.C. defense industry research corporation.
“Modern technology engine design is a ‘black art’ to this day,” he said, and so far no country has been able to match the engine design and manufacture of American fighter engines.
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed to Agence France Presse on June 13 that officials had begun an investigation into the theft of aircraft parts, but would not say what they were. However, the Israeli newspaper Maariv quoted Israeli air force officials as saying the parts were in fact eight engines for F-15 and F-16 model aircraft.
The engines -- which could be Pratt & Whitney or GE engines -- each weigh more than 3,700 pounds and were stored at Tel Nof air base near the Israeli capital.
The Israelis don’t know when the engines were stolen. They were no longer in use and most likely taken by criminals intending to sell them for scrap, officials say. Investigators also told Maariv that the large, heavy engines could only have been taken away aboard trucks, suggesting the thieves had inside help.
Department of Defense spokeswoman Lt. Col. Elizabeth Robbins told Military.com that the department has no confirmation of the thefts and referred questions to the Israeli government. The Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to Military.com’s request for information or comment by press time.
“It’s a shocking breach of security, especially for the Israelis, who have a reputation for that,” Aboulafia said.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, an Alexandria, Va., defense and intelligence think tank, said China would also benefit from having some F-15 and F-16 engines to fully examine.
“It’s better than anything the communist Chinese have,” he said. “The engines are all superior in thrust-to-weight ratio and fuel consumption, and even more importantly, they’re very durable.” By comparison, Pike said, the Chinese have “not gotten the hang of jet engines.”
For example, he said the WF-10 engine the Chinese plan to use in its J-10 fighter was developed by reverse engineering the core of a joint U.S. and French engine – the CFM-56 – that was derived from GE’s F101 engine, designed in the 1960s for the B-1 bomber.
“So this is a design which today is four decades old, and they still can’t get it to work,” he said.
The Chinese currently are using Russian-made engines, “and the Russians make crappy engines,” Pike said.
Pike said he would not rule out that some in Israel’s military or government aided in getting the engines out and may even assist in getting them to China.
“They’ve sold all kinds of stuff to the Chinese because they don’t have a dog in that fight” for strategic influence in Asia, Pike said.
Israel has been criticized by the U.S. in the past for transferring sensitive or classified defense secrets to China, including Patriot and cruise missile technology, according to NTI, the Washington-based arms and threat reduction charity and think-tank co-chaired by former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia.
“I don’t imagine Bibi [Netanyahu] knew these things were going missing,” said Pike, referring to the Israeli prime minister, “but it seems someone did.”
But one retired U.S. Air Force general, speaking on condition of anonymity, offered a take more in line with Israel’s.
“If these are early versions of the Pratt and Whitney F-100 and/or GE F-110 engines I do not think their loss represents a major security or technology loss risk,” said the retired four-star, a former fighter pilot who held major command.
“In my view, it is a major embarrassment for the IAF [Israeli air force], but we have sold or provided F-16s to several countries where the engines could have been made available to interested third parties if they really wanted to look at them,” he said.
(Source)
P/S ~ Sape yang tiru sape..???..nasib baik ada APCO buat experiment kat sini awal2 dulu...kikikikiki....
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