PUBLISHED on August 16, 2025, 11:42 AM EDT – Key Points and Summary: Israel has become the first nation to use the F-35 in “beast mode” during combat operations, a significant milestone for the stealth fighter.
-The Israeli Air Force confirmed its F-35I “Adir” jets conducted strikes in Gaza using an external weapons configuration, dramatically increasing the aircraft’s payload from 5,700 pounds to 22,000 pounds.
-While carrying weapons externally sacrifices the F-35’s stealth, the combat debut of “beast mode” demonstrates the platform’s versatility beyond its role as a stealth penetrator and reinforces Israel’s confidence in its growing F-35 fleet.
F-35 Goes Beast Mode for Israel
When Israel announced it had become the first nation to use Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II in “beast mode” during combat, it revealed how the twenty-year-old platform can be used in combat without its defining advantage – low observability.
The announcement from March, referencing the use of its specially adapted F-35I Adir variant in Gaza, reflects Israeli confidence in the aircraft, which has logged more than 15,000 operational flight hours since October 2023.
“The Israeli ‘Adir’ aircraft is the only aircraft in the world that has carried out operational strikes with an external armament configuration, which increased the attack capabilities,” the Israeli Air Force said on X at the time.
The post was preceded by a statement confirming the arrival of three F-35Is intended for use by the 116 Squadron, the “Lions of the South,” at its Nevatim Air Base.
More than just confidence in the platform, Israel’s statement revealed that the aircraft’s “Beast Mode” functionality can be utilized effectively in combat.
The Israeli Air Force’s reference to the use of an “external armament configuration” means that the aircraft was flown with weapons loaded in both its internal bays – which preserves stealth – and external underwing pylons.
By carrying weapons externally, the aircraft is capable of carrying a much heavier payload.
“Beast Mode” Explained
Beast Mode can be traced back to the late 2010s during demos and trials. U.S. Marines flew training strikes with external ordnance in 2019, and the U.K. publicly showed its F-35Bs fully “tooled up” aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth the same year. Australia also flew F-35As in beast mode during training exercises in 2021.
However, none of these examples were combat sorties.
In stealth mode, the F-35 is known for its ability to infiltrate enemy territory in ways other fighters cannot – carrying as much as 5,700 pounds of internal ordnance. In Beast Mode, however, that payload is dramatically increased, allowing the aircraft to carry as much as 22,000 pounds of internal and external weapons and ammunition.
The exact configuration used by Israel during Gaza strikes was not confirmed, though a photograph published by the air force offered some clues. As reported by The War Zone, the image showed the F-35I in question “assigned to the Flight Test Center carrying four external 2,000-pound class GBU-31 JDAMs” with an additional AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile visible in one of its weapons bays.
Why Beast Mode Now?
So why, years after Lockheed Martin announced these capabilities, was Israel the first country to utilize them?
For the most part, operators keep the F-35 stealthy largely because that’s what it was designed to do. The F-35 was designed to penetrate advanced, integrated air defense systems by being hard to detect – and adapting the aircraft in a way that breaks that function doesn’t make sense when it is already capable of carrying a heavy payload without sacrificing one of its most attractive features.
And, when stealth isn’t required, it is often simpler to use other aircraft or long-range munitions, like cruise missiles, to achieve similar goals.
Israel’s combat debut of the F-35’s least-used feature shows the aircraft can be much more than a stealth penetrator – and its performance has only reinforced confidence in the platform, with plans in place to expand the Adir fleet to 75 aircraft by 2030.
About the Author:
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society. His latest book is The Truth Teller: RFK Jr. and the Case for a Post-Partisan Presidency.
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Raptor1
August 17, 2025 at 11:15 am
Further proof that stealth is not necessary once the AD bubble is popped… which in the case of the “One of the best air defense aystems in the world”, can take mere days.
Why would you NOT carry weapons externally at that point, since not carrying external gives you the throw weight of a mirage 2000 or mig-23, at 10x the expense.