The Israel-Iran War And Defense At Le Bourget
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Welcome to the latest episode of the Czech 6 at the Paris Airshow Defense Edition, recording at the end of day two.

But we're going to be looking far beyond Le Bourget, on the outskirts of the French capital, and look as far afield as, no surprise, Tehran. Joining me to bring you their analysis on what's been unfolding in the Middle East and at the show are Steve Trimble, our senior defense editor, and Tony Osborne, our European defense editor. I'm Robert Wall, Aviation Week's executive editor for Defense & Space.

So let's start with the Middle East, where Israel on June 13th launched wave after wave of air raids on Iran to degrade that country's nuclear weapons program and other military infrastructure. It's been quite a remarkable operation, using elite military personnel and drones within Iran to take down Iranian air defenses, enabling airstrikes that have given the Israeli Air Force seeming air dominance. Steve, what struck you so far about what we've seen?

Well, the most dramatic thing has been the Israeli Air Force operating with not even near impunity, but just impunity over Iranian airspace.

You know, despite these rumors or tweets about Israeli aircraft being destroyed, none of those have been confirmed. And they appear to be very unlikely and any evidence is easily debunked so far. And, you know, that's not a huge surprise. The Iranian Air Force is clearly outmatched against what the Israelis can bring to bear in air power for sure.

But, you know, to not see initially, you know, from the outside looking in an air power response from the Iranians, you know, so their aircraft are very old, you know, F-14s, F-5s, F-4s, probably not in great shape.

but they still have these aircraft, they still have their own missiles, they've been flying them and demonstrating them and using them as somewhat of a deterrent. But to not see them in the air from the outside, it was kind of a shock. Well, do you think they're just, you know, absent without leave or what's going on? Well, you know, it's impossible to know for sure from the outside. All we do know is that there's just been no reports of air-to-air engagements.

There have been some reports today within the Hebrew language part of the Israeli media where they've been interviewing the pilots, the Israeli Air Force pilots. And these are very scripted, managed type interviews. The Israeli national security is still heavily censored in the country. Any discussion about that? So this is sanctioned information that is being released by the pilots to the Israeli public.

And in these interviews, they're saying, several of the pilots are saying that as they entered the Iranian airspace, they saw the Iranian fighters scrambling and getting into the air, but then not engaging, not engaging with the Israeli Air Force aircraft that were invading their airspace. And obviously I have no way of verifying that. The claim is remarkable.

And so, you know, it maybe is part of the propaganda push, but it does. I mean, we didn't see any air to air engagements, you know, on Friday or Saturday or over the weekend. And so, you know, I'm still trying to process that because I still would have expected a the Iranian Air Force to respond. And if they did scramble to actually engage. But if that didn't happen, it really is.

something hard to kind of process and understand what it was that was really going on there. It's very strange. I was going to say, it's really interesting also, there's been no interference from any of the nations over which Israel has been flying over to reach Israel.

I guess the only Air Force that could really do that is Iraq with its fleet of F-16s and F-50s. But they don't seem to run any form of interference. And in fact, we've seen imagery of tankers flying low over Syria and over Iraq, running refueling tracks again.

again, without interference. It's quite a... Of course, Israel has taken down the Syrian air defense as well. Probably those actions against Syria were practice for the big event that is happening now. There are so many things that have happened that all my expectations about...

an Israeli invasion of Iran, you know, going back several years, it's all been turned upside down. Partly it's because there's not a stockpile of ballistic missiles owned by Hezbollah in the Bekaa Valley, because that's all been neutralized, more or less, by Israel in the past year. The Syrian air defense is down. The Iraqis are for some reason not involved.

And then the Iranians themselves are not defending themselves. Like, I expected them to at least try if they were being invaded by the Israeli Air Force. So it is kind of this mind-bending thing. What I would have normally have expected to be this cataclysmic, world-changing event has been, and quite costly to the Israelis,

has played out totally different than my expectations. Going back, my expectations had adjusted somewhat based on what has happened in the past year. But still, it is still hard to catch up with just how devastating the Israeli Air Force was able to be in this scenario. I was going to say, I mean, I also wonder, I mean, obviously we saw the change of administration, let's call it the

the change of government in Syria that then forced the Russians out. Would this have still been possible had we still had significant Russian presence in Hayemim, for example? Would they have also run interference with this? It's that sort of change of circumstances that's allowed this to take place.

It's not like the Iranians haven't responded, obviously. They've fired round and round of ballistic missiles at Israel and also UAVs, obviously, something we've seen before. It doesn't seem like, it almost seems like they're less effective than they maybe were last time. The Israelis seem to have been quite prepared for what's coming. But maybe you guys have a different take on that.

There's been two rounds of this already in April of last year and October of last year, which demonstrated that the Israelis and a coalition of allies through this layered defense approach was able to do this. Now, I still think a big part of this was

Because you don't have Hezbollah with several thousand ballistic missiles and rockets all poised and waiting for this moment, basically, to unleash from the Beqaa Valley into Israel. You know, that is a game-changing part of this scenario.

Despite that, obviously, the Iranians have been demonstrating this deterring capability. They've been rolling out new missiles almost every couple of months. They've come out with a new medium range or intermediate range ballistic missile or what they call a hypersonic glide vehicle. And we don't take a lot of that that seriously. In quantity, that's still a big, serious issue. And several of them have clearly gotten through the Israeli defenses and caused damage there.

But still, you know, they clearly do not possess the capability so far that we've seen to damage Israel materially through a conventional missile attack.

And interesting also, the Israelis clearly have kind of stepped up. And, you know, David Sling, for example, intercepting a ballistic missile, not something it was necessarily supposed to do. They have some ship-based air defenses they used in anger for the first time. But I think the point you are making about Hezbollah is really interesting. I hadn't really thought about it that way in Israel.

They really know last time they had to look at several places and to worry about rockets from coming from Gaza and from Lebanon plus the long-range stuff from Israel and that there's just the risk you're gonna miss something right now. They know they're basically looking at Iran and a bit at Yemen. So it's a very different situation. So I think you're right. They're probably much more focused which is helping their effectiveness. Yeah.

Israel has been preparing for this for decades. I mean, all that weapons development has all been focused against this one particular task. That's why we have those air launch ballistic missiles, those Spice long range guided precision guided weapons. They've all been developed

with the key aim of this specific target set? It's the three-circle strategy for Israel, and Iran was the outer circle. And they have invested significantly in the command and control and the targeting and the firepower to address that issue. Even so, I'm still surprised that

how costless it has been for the Israeli Air Force to do this. So far, no losses at all. And impressively, the level of sustainment of the number of sorties

the availability of the aircraft. We've seen F-16s being really hard worked. The maintenance effort is probably overlooked, but it's incredible, really. It's absolutely astonishing. We should also mention, you know, Fordow and Natanz are not, based on satellite imagery, substantially damaged at this point. And Iran's ability to manufacture nuclear weapons has been set back, but not

eliminated, which seems to be, you know, what's driving all of this. So the threat is still there and, you know, we're still dealing with it. It's definitely a key lesson here for serious high intensity conflict, you know, particularly for Europe as we look to the future and, you know, rebuilding capability, you know,

that high intent, that capability that Israel has shown is probably what's going to have to be recreated in Europe. And again, gets at the mass, right? They've been dropping so much ordnance and firing so many interceptors. But we're not quite leaving Israel. We're just going to use Israel to take us to Le Bourget. Hop, skip and a jump, basically. Because Israel was also in the news at the air show here. Maybe in ways it didn't really want to be, but its own conflict here on the outskirts of Paris. Steve, why don't you tell us about the black curtains?

Right. So we all arrived here yesterday morning and saw these walls up and around the Israeli stands. As I made my way in about 7.30 in the morning, I didn't really know what to make of those. I didn't know if the Israelis did that as some sort of protest or if it was the French who did that to the basically walls around the exhibit booths of the major Israeli contractors, U-Vision, Rafael, Elbit, and Israeli Aerospace Industries.

And very quickly throughout the day, we became aware that this was not the Israelis making that decision, that this was a decision by the French government, according to the air show organizers, and that there had been meetings taking place the day before. As you reported, Robert, that according to the Israelis, the French wanted them to remove some offensive missiles. I put offensive in quotes because it's a little bit difficult to define exactly what that means in this context.

And the Israelis refused. They all left. And when the Israelis came back, they were locked out of their own booths that they had paid for. And as I was walking to another event, I happened to be walking by while Rafael, executive, the director of their Iron Dome program, was giving an impromptu news conference in front of this wall that had been erected

uh saying uh in in you know clearly perturbed at this circumstance uh and saying that they have been shut out of their own booths uh they have not been allowed to conduct business in the normal way here they have not been kicked out of the show they're allowed to continue to walk around and meet with people outside of their booths but it's you know he said this is not what we came here to do we you know this is just part of doing our business and we're being denied that opportunity

The reaction was not subtle. I mean, they are... I mean, and they, you know, they've been here for decades, as I pointed out. They've been coming to the show for a long time, a big presence, spent oodles of monies here, obviously. Well, I can also understand the reaction in the sense that, I mean, this is...

everywhere, right? Major events that include Israeli contractors, not just in aerospace and defense, but really in any industry are being targeted by protesters because of the situation there. And yeah, I'm not here to say who's right or wrong or anything like that, but it's just the situation. And if

certain, especially in the aerospace and defense area, if certain organizations start saying, no, you can't show the Spice Bomb or you can't show David Sling, you know, or whatever it is at this event, that that could cause problems for them just around the world. They were almost denied the ability to exhibit here in Paris at Eurosatori back in 2022, I think it was.

Last year, I think, wasn't it? And was it last year, too? Yeah, sorry, I don't remember. It's all a blur at this point. But that got worked out at the last minute, and they were allowed to. I think it was last year, actually, yeah. So, yeah, and, you know, the Israeli response is basically based on, you know, they need to defend their ability to do their business overseas in the normal way that other companies are doing, no matter which country they're from. And we see...

every country in the world represented here with the exception of Iran and Russia at the moment. I mean, interesting also, you know, Israel had just reported record defense exports and the Elwit CEO kind of made the point, well, they're kicking us out because the French government and industry are just jealous that we're taking their business in Europe. It's probably important to say also, this is one of the few trade shows now that still has a public day and these halls are open. So who knows what's

what kind of groups that could have sort of allowed into the show to potentially protest or whatever. Well, there's a lot more going on than that, obviously, here at the Paris Air Show, on the defense side in particular this year, with everything that's going on with increasing defense spending in Europe. We're a bit short of time, so let's do a bit of a rapid-fire round. Kind of, if you only had one thing you can leave our listeners with that you've learned so far at the show...

caveat to our listeners, we're only on day two. We have much more time to go. So don't hold us against it, it against us if something big comes tomorrow. So what would that be? Tony, why don't you go first? Yes. Okay. So certainly I think compared to previous Paris Airshows, there's a lot less navel gazing. There's less focus on the future, but more on the present and the immediate future.

issue around European rearmament and I thought one of the most clearest answers to this was the appearance of the Rafale and the sort of the relatively near future upgrade with the UCAV that will be tethered to it but behind it

was a model of the future combat air system uh next generation fighter that had been almost sidelined it was no longer the the big deal that it was because the the big focus is on those present-day fighters but we're also seeing things like uh developments of uh low-cost munitions we're seeing sort of deals on uavs and so on to do that immediate realignment so that's the

I think that's the key thing here. Do you really think having the next generation fighter model at the side of the Dachau Socho, the location was driven by the focus on today or might it have been something else? It could also have been sort of Eric Trappier's clear dislike of

The development process, I refer there, of course, to the Dassault CEO who's been very open in his dislike of this program and sort of the work share around it. I'm fairly sure he would have played a part in this. But I do think that there's a messaging there that, you know,

Maybe, just maybe, the Rafale takes centre stage at the moment as they make this grand, grand push to rearm Europe. Yeah, there's definitely some messaging there. We can debate what the message was. Don't put baby in a corner, I think, as it's said in Dirty Dancing. Steve, how about on your side?

So I go with U.S. companies coming in here with collaborative combat aircraft, CCAs. So they are showing their full-scale mock-ups of the General Atomics YFQ-42 and the Enduro YFQ-44. These are the two CCA prototypes that are being funded by the U.S. Air Force to go potentially into production, one of them anyway, next year, and then go into service shortly afterwards. And

This is a new type of aircraft. It's got its autonomy. It's just like any other UAV, except it also includes an autonomy control system. So it can operate on its own in collaboration with other of these types of CCAs or with crewed aircraft. And so...

The fact that they're here means that those manufacturers see an opportunity to market them and sell them in the European market and further abroad, right?

And in fact, I talked to David Alexander, the president of General Atomics, Aeronautical Systems, Inc., who confirmed, in fact, yes, they are in the process and very close to getting the licenses they need from the State Department to actually export or to start presenting information to potential export customers about what they're

YFQ 42 can do. And I just talked to Endural, um, and they're announcing here at the show that they are partnering with Ryan Mattel, uh, to offer among other things, new versions or, uh, uh, uh, new mission configurations, and even up to a co-production of the fury, which is the generic term for the YFQ 44, not, not the U S air force model itself. That's not part of it, but, um,

a European variant of that that they consider to be called the Fury. And that's interesting too, because this is a non-traditional defense OEM now. It has a bigger market cap than most of the defense contractors, but they're still not considered a traditional prime and they operate in a different way. And they're partnering up with one of the big defense primes in Europe that has a very, you know, sort of established presence there in Germany. So,

Just to add to what Steve was saying, there was definitely a fight back here of the American companies. I was in a press conference with Boeing earlier, and they were highlighting the investments they were making in Europe. They are definitely trying to fight back against

issues such as Trump tariffs, what President Trump has said about trying to, talking about Canada and Greenland, but also things like the kill switch, which has obviously got a lot of attention a few months ago around, could America turn off platforms like the F-35? That got a lot of attention. So there was definitely clearly a fight back here by the American companies to try and regain that trust,

to get back into Europe. Yeah, we still care about Europe, even if the administration does not. All right, well, I'll go back to my old faithful, the A400M, surprise, surprise. But it does feel like the program might be a bit of a pit of a point. You know, it's been...

A bit of a headache for decades, almost. You know, really a bit of a problem child. A lot of questions in the last few months, even kind of raised by Airbus. We need more business or else the program is at risk of eventually shutting down or in the not too distant future, even if not imminently.

But it does feel at the show that they got an agreement with France and Spain to accelerate some purchases. That smooths out production at the minimum rate of eight a month for the next few years. That also buys them time to kind of gen up some export orders.

We were talking to the program boss, real sense of confidence. I think those export orders are now coming. They've increased the payload capacity, which they, as he points out, resonates well in certain markets, which are warmer than even Paris right now. So it

And they're starting to talk about adding new capabilities, cruise missile and drone deployments. And firefighting, obviously, is one as well. So it's really interesting. Maybe a bit too early to say it's entirely past its problems. Tony, as you pointed out, there are still some issues around some bits and bobs here. Certainly around the engines, propeller gearboxes, availability propellers.

But nations are getting more and more availability. They're flying a lot more. They're doing more and more missions. They're relying on it. They're beginning to sweat it a bit, that bit more. They're trusting it. They're replacing C-130s with it. So these are all signs of a positive go. I think Gert Weaver, the program head, said, you know,

Most of the troubles are now behind it. It's just getting a few more sold. And that's the big... Just right in time. 20 years late. Well, you know, actually the C-130J, when it came into service, actually had a lot of these same issues. Well, it was around the same time as the A400M. Yeah.

All right. Play nice. This is not Airbus versus Dassault. Play nice, kids. We'll argue about this offline, maybe. All right. And with that, we're going to leave you for today. Thank you for listening. And please check back for the commercial edition of the Check 6 at Paris podcast.