The Israelis had a strategy for dealing with the U.S. veto threat, the same strategy that has seen over a thousand of Rafael’s LITENING targeting pods produced for delivery worldwide: they had a U.S. partner. Export orders for the Lavi would have been fulfilled by a U.S.-based assembly line to be set up by Grumman Corp.
Grumman produced the composite wings and vertical tail for the Lavi, and had no jet fighter of its own in this same size class. The contract between IAI and Grumman, calling for a parallel U.S. assembly line was signed only months before the program was cancelled.
Forget about export orders to smaller air forces around the world. A Grumman/IAI Lavi would have been a threat to F-16 sales to the U.S. Air Force. The Lavi was intended from the beginning for the strike role. The F-16 was not. It would have made far more sense for the U.S. Air Force to procure a U.S.-made Lavi for the Wild Weasel role than to develop the F-16CJ.
How much realistic help could Israel had provided to Chinese aviation industry given they themselves had zero experience of producing a 3rd generation fighter, except few prototypes. Even their 2ng Gen designs were derivatives of Mirage series. Whatever the help if any, might be of no use at all in the end given a completely different airframe than Lavi. I understand all avionics are Chinese, Engine is Russian/Chinese and you cant use FBW system like plug and play without major modifications and testing.
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