DefenseNews, The Israel Air Force has initiated preliminary plans for a special mission aircraft program to detect and track hostile ground targets far from home bases.
Service officials said the aircraft should be able to perform like the U.S. E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) in its ability to support attack operations through long-range targeting and battle management. Nevertheless, officials here said they expect their program to be much less expensive to procure and operate than the Boeing 707-based JSTARS. They intend to squeeze capabilities of a locally made system into a smaller business jet platform.
In an Oct. 16 interview here, the Israel Air Force's director of operational requirements said the service aims to adapt lessons learned from two ongoing special mission aircraft programs
