Operation Moked: The Premiere of the Anti-Runway Bomb

In the run up to the 1967 Six-Day War in the Middle East, the Israeli Air Force was significantly outnumbered by the Arab air forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan and Iraq as well. Egypt's air force alone had 50 percent more comparable combat aircraft than the Israelis. As early as 1953 it was clear that neutralization of the Arab air bases would be vital in any future conflict. By 1960 operational planning centered around executing a simultaneous strike on all the Arab bases in range of Israel. The operations branch commander of the IAF, Rafi Har-Lev, and the top navigator in the air force, Rafi Sivron, began work on Operation Moked- the simultaneous neutralization of the Arab air bases.

The MATRA BLU-107 Durandal on a USAF F-111
(Wikipedia)

The basis of the planning was intelligence- not only were the dispositions and activity cycles of the Arab squadrons determined, but they also were able to secure information on the runway thickness and design of the bases. Planning began in earnest in 1963 and was continually updated by the flow on intelligence from reconnaissance and human sources.

Since trapping the Arab combat aircraft on the ground was key, the Israelis and the French (before their abrupt change in foreign policy under Charles De Gaulle shifted away from Israel in 1967 after the Six-Day War) co-developed a new type of bomb specifically designed for destroying runways. After its release, a first rocket acted as a braking rocket to slow the munition to get it to the optimum penetration angle. A second rocket then fired that drove the bomb through the runway and within six seconds the explosives detonated, creating a larger crater than would have been possible with a conventional bomb. Israeli Military Industries (IMI or "Taas", it's Hebrew name) was the lead contractor for the new weapon.

Aircraft carrying the new bombs would target eighteen air bases in Egypt, six bases in Syria, and two bases in Jordan. Once the runways were knocked out, the rest of the strike force could pick off the grounded Arab aircraft with guns and rockets. On 5 June 1967 at 0700 hours, the command went out from the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv "Execute Moked". One-hundred sixty aircraft took off in the first wave. Jordanian radar detected the strike force but assumed that they were US Navy aircraft of the Sixth Fleet which were known to be in the region. At 0745 hours, Egyptian fighter aircraft were finishing up landing after their dawn patrols of the airspace adjoining Israel. Maintenance crews and pilots were in the process of heading to breakfast before the next patrol cycle began and that was when the Israelis struck. As each aircraft delivered the new runway bombs, they swung around and commenced strafing runs against the flight lines of trapped aircraft. While ten percent of the strike force was lost, within six hours the air forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were neutralized. As Mordechai Hod, the commander of the Israeli Air Force said before the attacks "A jet aircraft is the deadliest weapon in existence- in the sky. On the ground, it is useless."

Operation Moked was a hugely successful gamble. The Israelis committed nearly all of its aircraft to the strikes, leaving only 12 fighters to protect Tel Aviv, something that the IDF commanders didn't fully reveal to the Israeli government.

Durandal test round dropped by a Mirage III
(Sistemsadearmas.br)

The runway cratering bomb was further developed starting in 1971 by the French weapons firm MATRA as the Durandal, named for a mythical French sword. The Durandal differed from the 1967 anti-runway munition in that after release, a braking parachute was used to stabilize the bomb instead of a braking rocket. There is a oft-repeated misconception that Durandal was used in Operation Moked, but that would have been nearly ten years before Durandal was available. Rather, the 1967 weapon was a distinct program that led to the current Durandal weapon. The Durandal was put into production for the French in 1977 and in 1982, it was evaluated by the United States Air Force for use by the General Dynamics F-111. It would subsequently be cleared as well for the McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle and received the designation BLU-107 and was used to great effect during Operation Desert Storm. The Durandal was designed for a shelf life of 11 years and if was carried on three sorties and not used, it was withdrawn from use. As such, the BLU-107 Durandal is no longer in use by the USAF.

Further reading:

Operation Drugstore: The 1982 Air Battles Over the Bekaa Valley
Foxbats Over the Sinai
Selling the Skyhawk to Israel and a Watershed Change in American Foreign Policy
Birth of the Lion: The Development of the IAI Kfir

Source: Air Combat Reader: Historic Feats and Aviation Legends, edited by Walter Boyne and Philip Handleman. Brassey's, 1999, p235-245.

Operation Drugstore: The 1982 Air Battles Over the Bekaa Valley

In 1976, the Lebanese Civil War had been raging for a year when the Syrian military poured across the border into the region to ostensibly stabilize the situation. Securing the Bekaa Valley and the main Beirut-Damascus highway that crossed the central part of the country with massive numbers of troops and armor, soon the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and its Muslim allies in Lebanon were receiving support from the Syrians. To cover the Syrian left flank facing Israel, the Syrian 10th Armored Divsion was arrayed across the Bekaa Valley with three brigades of surface-to-air missile units to protect them from an Israeli attack. A total of 19 batteries covered the valley consisting of two SA-2 batteries, two SA-3 batteries, and fifteen new SA-6 batteries. During the next several years the Israelis provided support to the Christian factions in the civil war while maintaining a close eye on the strengthening Syrian integrated air defense system (IADS) that stretched across the Bekaa Valley. Overflights to pinpoint the SAM sites required use of Firebee recon drones due to the dense air defense network that the Syrians had established. In the late May to early June of 1982, the PLO conducted a 12-day artillery and rocket attack on northern Israel that resulted in 60 civilian casualties. The last straw for the Israelis came on 3 June when the PLO attempted to assassinate in London the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom.

On 6 June, seven Israeli mechanized divisions with 60,000 troops and 500 tanks crossed into southern Lebanon in three prongs- one up the coastal plain, one through the central mountains, and a third push into the Bekaa Valley to keep the Syrian 10th Armored Division from intervening against the Israeli right flank. On the first three days of the ground invasion, seven Syrian MiG fighters were shot down. By 8 June Israeli forward elements were at the entrance to the Bekaa Valley but weren't able to push any further north as the Syrian forces held steady under the protective umbrella of their IADS, denying close air support to the Israeli ground forces. For several weeks prior to the invasion, though, the IDF/AF had been planning to deal with the Syrian IADS umbrella over the Bekaa Valley. Years of meticulous reconnaissance and eavesdropping gave the IDF/AF the locations, operating frequencies and modes of the SAM batteries in the valley. Operation Drugstore was their plan for not just the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) but what was being called "DEAD"- destruction of enemy air defenses. This is what made Operation Drugstore a landmark operation in air combat- prior to 1982, suppression was the name of the game as it had been practiced in Vietnam by the United States- keep the enemy's heads down while strike packages went in and hit targets. For Israel, nothing less than the complete elimination of the Syrian IADS was acceptable- air superiority against the Syrian fighters was meaningless if the IADS prevented close air support from assisting the ground forces' objectives. 

The opening phase of Operation Drugstore saw large numbers of Delilah ground-launched drones being launched towards the Bekaa Valley, giving the impression of a large Israeli strike force. As the SAM batteries went active to engage what they thought were Israeli aircraft, battlefield surface-to-surface missiles were fired at each SAM battery. One of the missiles used was the Keres, which was an Israeli modification of the AGM-78 Standard anti-radiation missile used by Wild Weasel aircraft. The mobile launcher fired three Keres missiles and even a local modification of the smaller AGM-45 Shrike was used that added a second stage booster to allow a ground launch. In the first ten minutes of the operation, ten of the 19 batteries had been knocked out either due to missile hits or because they had run out of missiles engaging the Delilah drones. Four minutes later, the first wave of ground attack aircraft swept into the Bekaa Valley- 26 McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantoms and a similar number of IAI Kfir C2s, with the Phantoms using AGM-65 Maverick missiles as well as Shrike and Standard ARMs to hit the remaining SAM sites while the Kfirs targeted the control vans and storage areas of the missile sites. With no losses, a second wave of over forty A-4 Skyhawks and IAI Kfir C2s swept in attacking the SAM sites with cluster bombs while the F-4Es returned using laser-guided bombs against any surviving control vans. In just two hours, 17 of the 19 Syrian SAM sites had been destroyed. 

The next phase of Operation Drugstore saw Israeli strike aircraft next hit the Syrian mobile GCI (ground-controlled intercept) sites that provided directions to the Syrian MiG force. With the destruction of the GCI sites and their radars, the Syrian IADS was now blinded as F-15 Eagles and F-16 Fighting Falcons established combat air patrols over the Bekaa Valley. The timing was perfect- as the Syrian commanders realized that their IADS umbrella was being systematically demolished, three squadrons of MiG-21s and MiG-23s were scrambled from their Syrian bases- it's estimated that up to sixty Syrian fighters raced to the Bekaa Valley where the F-15s and F-16s were waiting. They were tasked to hit the Israeli strike forces that were attacking the components of their IADS, but instead found that Israeli Grumman E-2 Hawkeyes orbiting over southern Lebanon had given the combat air patrols ample warning of the inbound MiGs. Because the Syrians relied on GCI controllers to provide them with vectors and targeting information, the loss of the GCI sites meant they were flying into the Bekaa Valley blind while the F-15s and F-16s' longer ranged radars already had them targeted. With communcations and radars being jammed, most of the Syrian MiGs never saw what hit them- ten MiG-21s fell within minutes. At the end of the day, only one F-15 had been hit, and the pilot managed to recover his Eagle safely to Ramat David AB in northern Israel. 

The following morning the last two Syrian SAM batteries were destroyed while the Syrians scrambled more MiG-21s and MiG-23s to make up for the previous day's losses. Since the MiG-23 Floggers were the most capable of the Syrian fighters, the F-15s were tasked with eliminating them and six were shot down in short order. As Israeli armored units engaged Syrian armor in the valley, two waves of Syrian Sukhoi Su-22 fighter bombers were sent into to attack the Israeli units, escorted by a squadron of MiG-21s. It was a turkey shoot as over 20 Syrian aircraft were shot down by the Israeli fighters patrolling the skies of the Bekaa Valley. The Syrians then tried to send in anti-tank Gazelle helicopters to go after the Israeli armor and those were shot down as well. 

11 June was the last day of continuous fighting as a cease fire was to go into effect later than day. Hoping to stave off defeat and entering the ceasefire at a disadvantage, the Syrians poured their MiG-23 Floggers into the battle against the F-15s and F-16s, leaving the MiG-21s to escort the strike version of the Flogger, the MiG-23BN. Several Syrian MiG-25 Foxbats made high altitude runs over the Bekaa Valley, hoping to distract the Israeli fighters into looking "upward", distracted from the inbound MiG-23s. At lower altitudes, two waves of Syrian MiG-23BNs would attempt to hit the Israeli armored units once again where the Sukhois had failed the previous day. The Syrian fighter sweep failed as their presence was once again known thanks to the E-2 Hawkeyes. Six Floggers were shot down in their first pass over the valley. Another six MiG-21s were shot down as well and the MiG-23BN attacks had little effect on the Israeli positions. 

By the time of the ceasefire took effect, the Syrians lost 30% of their air force in just one week of fighting for a total of 88 aircraft shot down. Of those 88 kills, 44 belonged to F-15 Eagles and 33 belonged to F-16s. Israeli losses have never been fully admitted, but it's believed to include one F-16, one F-4E, one Kfir C2, two A-4s and several helicopters. Following the battle in the skies over the Bekaa Valley, the Israeli Defense Forces Air Force (IDF/AF) was secretly debriefed by US military experts from the US Air Force and other branches of the military. The lessons gleaned from Operation Drugstore would strongly influence Coalition tactics on the opening night of Operation Desert Storm. In what was called "Poobah's Party" (from the callsign of Brigadier General Larry Henry, a leading USAF tactician and expert on air defenses), approximately one-hundred drones were fired from ground sites in Saudi Arabia to trigger the Iraqi IADS into action to they could be targeted for destruction by Coalition air assets. With the stealthy Lockheed F-117A Nighthawks going "downtown" to Baghdad to take out the command and control centers of the IADS, individual radar and SAM sites then were left on their own to find their own targets in the midst of some intense jamming. Iraqi radar sites could burn through the jamming, and when they did, they detected the drones of Poobah's Party. Sites that hadn't expended their missiles on the drones found themselves targeted by F-4G Wild Weasels. 

Source: F-15 Eagle Engaged: The World's Most Successful Fighter by Steve Davies and Doug Dildy. Osprey, 2007, p146-147. Photos: Wikipedia, USAF Featured Art Gallery

The Mach 3 Phantom

In the 1960s the development of high-performance reconnaissance cameras offered greater resolution, but at a price- many of these systems were large and heavy and the current high-altitude spyplane of the time, the first generation variants of the Lockheed U-2, were unable to carry them. One of the premier recon optical systems developed at this time was the General Dynamics HIAC-1- a long range, oblique camera with a focal length of 66 inches that allowed stand-off reconnaissance from high altitudes. The first examples of HIAC-1 were heavy- the prototype camera system weighed over 3,500 lbs, much more than any other camera system in use at the time (excepting the very big Boston Camera carried by the B-36 and C-97 in the 1950s that weighed 3 tons and had a focal length of 240 inches). The only aircraft in the USAF inventory that could carry the HIAC-1 was the RB-57F, a modification of the Martin B-57 Canberra. In 1962 General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas, had the contract to maintain the RB-57D fleet which suffered from wing spar fatigue. Since General Dynamics had acquired quite a bit of experience in working on the long-span RB-57Ds, they were asked by the Air Force for an evolved version of the D that could fly higher, carry a heavier load (like the HIAC-1) and not have the same wing spar problems that plagued the RB-57D. The RB-57F was the result- with a longer wing, more powerful TF33 turbofan engines and auxillary J60 turbojets, it was what the USAF needed until the later generation of U-2 spyplanes entered service. In fact, two RB-57Fs are still used today by NASA. 

USAF RF-4C with the large G-139 pod.

Over the course of the RB-57F's operational career, Israel had made repeated requests of obtaining the RB-57F and the HIAC-1 for its own reconnaissance needs, but the requests were always denied by the US State Department and the Defense Department on the grounds that the technology used in the RB-57F would upset the strategic balance in the Middle East. However, a compromise was reached- by 1971 the HIAC-1 had been steadily improved and lightened to the point that it weighed just under 1,500 lbs and that a pod-mounted HIAC-1 carried by the McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom, already in the Israeli inventory, would be permissible. Also developed by General Dynamics, the pod-mounted HIAC-1 was designated G-139 and underwent an intensive flight test program with a USAF RF-4C aircraft and the first G-139 pods were delivered to Israel in October 1971. The Israelis found the G-139/HIAC-1 system useful as it allowed the Phantoms to get imagery of Egyptian defenses along the Suez Canal without having to enter the SAM umbrella. But there was a significant issue, the pod was still a heavy store and it generated a significant amount of drag- it limited the Phantoms to a maximum speed of Mach 1.5 and a maximum altitude just under 50,000 feet, not to mention the challenge of handling a G-139-laden F-4E at high altitude. As a result, the special projects division of General Dynamics began work in January 1972 on ways to improve the F-4E's performance to offset the burden of carrying the pod. 

Overview of the modifications to make the Phantom Mach 3-capable.

The first improvements came with getting the most out of the Phantom's J79 engines. Engineers found that the Phantom's intakes were limiting the performance possible from the J79. A new inlet was designed that was not only larger than the standard F-4 inlet, but it featured a new shape that better managed the airflow to the engines with series of new variable-geometry ramps. The standard Phantom inlet did have a variable geometry ramp, but it was much simpler than the General Dynamics design which also featured a large bypass door downstream from the inlet to help manage the internal shockwaves that helped slow the air down before it reached the engines. A series of vortex generators down the inlet also helped improve engine performance. The second improvement was based on 1950s research done by NASA's predecessor agency, NACA, called pre-compressor cooling (PCC). PCC was a form of water injection but used the water to cool in the inlet air before it reached the engines. By reducing the inlet air temperature, it increased the mass of the air akin to taking off on a cold day- engine air flow and thereby thrust would be increased. At high altitudes, PCC would boost engine performance starting at Mach 1.4 as the inlet air started to heat up due to friction. 

General Electric, the manufacturer of the J79, was less than enthused about General Dynamics' work on PCC, but did provide some consultations. Work had already been done with PCC on another of General Dynamics' products, the Convair F-106 Delta Dart, but it never was incorporated into the design. In addition, the USAF's Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tennessee had tested PCC in engine test cells with both the J57 and J75 engines. One J75 engine was run at maximum afterburner for 40 hours with PCC! It had also been looked at by Vought for the aborted F8U-3 Crusader III design (though never flown) and McDonnell had used a rudimentary PCC system in 1962 to break several world speed records with the pre-production F-4 Phantom. Based on all this body of work, General Dynamics refined the PCC system so that the water droplets were very fine at 10 microns to cool the air without having any pooling of water in the engine. Two large water tanks were installed on external blisters along the sides of the F-4E, each blister with three tanks. Each blister could carry 2,500 lbs of demineralized water- since the interior of the Phantom was pretty packed as it was, scabbing these blisters on the fuselage eased the modification and engineering process. 

GD wind tunnel model of the RF-4X.

General Dynamics' modifications led to this version of the Phantom being unofficially designated the F-4X- at this point still carrying the large G-139/HIAC-1 pod underneath on the centerline station. With Israeli funding supplementing internal corporate, work on the F-4X continued through 1972 and refinements to the PCC system and inlets led to a calculated increase in the J79 thrust at high altitude well over 150 percent! On 12 April 1973 the company formally submitted the F-4X proposal to the USAF. Additional funding for more work then came from the USAF which was using the podded HIAC-1 system for stand-off reconnaissance in Korea and were encountering the same issues the Israelis were having in using standard Phantoms with the large camera pod. The following year the design was further refined, but with the Israelis having continued misgivings about using the HIAC-1 in a pod, the design leap was made to incorporate the HIAC-1 into F-4X's nose- with the latest HIAC-1 versions getting even lighter than the 1,500 lb version used in the G-139 pod, integrating the camera into the nose improved performance by eliminating the drag-inducing pod. Designated RF-4X, this version of the Phantom was now capable of cruising at Mach 2.4 at high altitude with burst capability to Mach 3.2. This level of performance now began to alarm the US State Department- up to this point Mach 3+ aircraft were the sole purview of the United States and Soviet Union and in some diplomatic circles there were concerns about the Israelis integrating nuclear weapons delivery with the RF-4X. To allay the State Department's concerns, General Dynamics removed the AN/APQ-120 radar from the nose which would now only house the HIAC-1 and its associated environmental control systems. Permission to sell the RF-4X to the Israelis was approved and on November 1974 an Israeli F-4E was flown to General Dynamics in Fort Worth for a mock up study. For five months engineers used the F-4E as the basis of a full-scale mock-up created with cardboard and tape- both the Mach 3 intakes and the PCC water tanks were mocked up on the Phantom on one side as well as the modified nose housing for the HIAC-1 camera. 

Israeli F-4E with the PCC and intake mock-up on one side.

By 1975 several factors were now working against the RF-4X, the biggest of which was time. The Israeli Air Force wanted the system as soon as possible but it was clear that the integration of the camera, intakes and PCC system was going to take more time than originally estimated. With the McDonnell Douglas F-15 winding up its flight test program and soon to become operational in the following year to replace the Phantom in USAF service, it was politically unpalatable to keep funding the RF-4X which offered a level of performance that exceeded that of the Eagle in some flight regimes. The USAF insisted upon further studies of the PCC system despite the fact that there were already nearly 20 years of data on pre-compressor cooling, some of which done by the USAF itself. Compounded with the engineering delays, Israel and the RF-4X proponents in the USAF lost interest and it was quietly canceled later that year.

Despite the cancellation of the RF-4X, General Dynamics did continue work on just the nose-mounted HIAC-1 component of the design for Israel. Three F-4E Phantoms were modified as F-4E(S) aircraft and delivered to the Israeli Air Force from late 1975 to early 1976. It turned out that the Israelis were unable to fund the RF-4X in its entirety and were only able to afford the HIAC-1 component. As a result, the three F-4E(S) aircraft had standard J79 engines. In IDF service the HIAC-1 was code-named "Shablul", the Hebrew word for "snail". The first operational flights began in 1976 with the aircraft capable of flying at 60,000 feet at Mach 1.9. The pilot and systems officer wore full pressure suits from the David Clark Company which also made the pressure suits used by USAF U-2 and SR-71 crews as well as Space Shuttle crews. Many of the missions flown still remain classified but it is known that Iraq was a frequent target through the 1980s. One of the aircraft is now on public display at the Israeli Air Force Museum. 

Source/Photos: Israeli Phantoms- The 'Kurnass' in IDF/AF Service 1989 Until Today by Andreas Klein and Shlomo Aloni. Double Ugly Books/AirDOC, 2009, p44-70.

The Last Operational B-17 Flying Fortresses

The Israeli B-17s originally flew without any defensive armament

On the day prior to the expiration of the British Mandate over Plestine on 15 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the independence of the new State of Israel and within hours, Arab forces from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon invaded, starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, or the War of Independence in Israel. At the time of the declaration, the hastily-organized aviation assets of the fledgling state became the nascent Israeli Air Force, which in turn became part of the IDF, Israeli Defense Forces, on 26 May 1948. Initially outclassed by the Arab air forces with only a modest light plane fleet, the air war began to swing in favor of the Israelis on 20 May with the arrival of the first Avia S-199s from Czechoslovakia- the Junkers Jumo-powered version of the Messerschmitt Bf109 leveled the playing field against the Egyptian Spitfires. Despite a UN arms embargo on the participant parties on the 1948 war, resourceful Israelis and supporters worldwide (who were called "machal") insured a supply of arms through rather creative means, often involving subterfuge. Al Schwimmer was a long time flight engineer for Trans World Airlines who organized the transfer of arms to Israeli in 1948. At first Schwimmer got surplus C-47 transports transferred via Panama to form the nucleus of the IDF's air transport arm, but he soon recruited a former government purchasing agent, Charlie Winters, who at the time was based in Miami and was using three civilianized Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses to transport produce between Puerto Rico and Florida. Winters sold the B-17s to the Israelis for $15,000 a piece and organized a team of former USAAF mechanics and engineers to make the aircraft combat ready.

Aircraft 1602 had a Mickey Mouse cartoon on its tail

The three B-17s (44-83811, 44-83753, and 44-83851) were covertly flown from the United States to an airfield in Czechoslovakia that was acting as the European terminus for the aerial supply line to Israel. Bogus flight plans to Brazil were filed to cover their tracks. Winters himself flew one of the B-17s across the Atlantic. He had arranged for a fourth B-17 as well, but this aircraft after eluding authorities in Canada managed to reach the Azores only to be impounded by the Portuguese government. At the Czech airfield of Zatek, the B-17s were further upgraded with improved instrumentation. They were loaded with bombs for the flight to Israel on 15 July 1948, but with the military situation becoming tenuous for the Israelis that summer, during their delivery flight they were diverted to hit Egyptian targets since they were carrying bombs anyway. One B-17 was to hit Gaza City, the second B-17 was assigned the Egyptian air base at El-Arish, and the third B-17 was assigned King Farouk's Royal Palace in Cairo. The first two B-17s had problems finding their assigned targets but the third B-17 did manage to bomb Cairo, which, like the Doolittle Raid's psychological effect on the Japanese in 1942, caused significant anxiety in Egypt as Cairo was felt to be immune from attacks by Israel's rag-tag air force of what was thought to be just light aircraft. The first two aircraft ended up bombing an Egyptian target in Rafiah instead but the overall effect of the raids not only damaged Egyptian morale, it served to boost Israeli morale as well. Since all three aircraft had been hurriedly made combat ready, numerous technical problems beset them on their delivery flight/first combat mission- one of the more notable issues was that the oxygen system kept quitting, which on several occasions during the flight from Czechoslovakia to Israel by way of Egypt had caused some of the crew members to pass out. 

The three Israeli B-17s at various points in their careers

All three B-17s landed safely at Ekron airfield in Israel following their highly eventful delivery flight- the leader of the flight, a former USAAF pilot named Bill Katz, was named commander of a new squadron based at the former RAF base of Ramat David that would operate the B-17s- 69 Squadron "Patishim" or "The Hammers". The three aircraft were camouflaged and serialed 1601, 1602, and 1603. At the time the IDF had been relying on converted transports as bombers, so the arrival of the B-17s represented a significant leap in offensive capability for the Israelis. The following day on 16 July the three bombers flew three combat missions together, the first one to bomb the El-Arish air base that was missed the previous day, the second mission later in the day to bomb advancing Egyptian forces in the south and that night the third mission was against advancing Syrian forces in the north. Over the next several days multiple bombing missions were flown each day against Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian forces. Several attacks were mounted against Arab air bases in the belligerent countries and even several missions were flown against targets in the Syrian capital of Damascus. At first the missions were flown with fighter escort by Israeli Spitfires and Avia S-199s, but as the Arab air forces' losses mounted, soon the B-17s were able to operate without fighter escort. By the time of the armistice in February and March of 1949, over 200 combat missions had been flown by 69 Squadron. With the end of the war, the squadron eventually moved to the new air base at Hazor.

One of the B-17s, aircraft 1602, was modified to carry a search radar under the nose where the chin turret was located. This aircraft through the first half of the 1950s was stripped of its desert camouflage and operated as a maritime patrol aircraft in bare metal colors in the Mediterranean. By this time, enough spares had been acquired to allow all three B-17s to be retrofitted with gun turrets and at least two of the B-17s were kept operational at any given time. By July 1956 the long serving bombers were placed in storage. 

During the 1956 War, Israeli B-17s wore yellow/black identification bands

The Suez Crisis of 1956 brought the three B-17s back out of storage that October. Israeli involvement in the 1956 war began on 29 October with Operation Kadesh, the Israeli invasion of the Sinai Peninsula. On 31 October 1956 the three B-17s attacked Egyptian positions in the Gaza Strip, but a series of mounting technical problems over the course of the war spelled the end of B-17 operations for the IDF. The bombers were finally retired in November 1958 as the last operational B-17 Flying Fortresses in action. 69 Squadron was disbanded as well, but would be reformed in 1969 as the second Israeli Air Force squadron to operated the F-4E Phantom II. Today 69 Squadron operates the F-15I Ra'am, the Israeli variant of the F-15E Strike Eagle. Al Schwimmer, the TWA flight engineer who was instrumental in organizing Israel's air force, would go on after the 1948 War to establish Israeli Aircraft Industries. His activities were called by David Ben-Gurion as the "single biggest contribution by the Diaspora towards the survival of the State of Israel". Charlie Winters was an Irish Protestant who helped the Israelis as a favor to his Jewish friends in Miami. As a result, he was charged by the US District Attorney in Miami for violating US laws and was fined $5,000 and sent to prison for 18 months. Two other Americans were also charged who aided Israel- one was Al Schwimmer, who never served prison time as he was convicted in absentia and was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2000. The other American in the operation was Hank Greenspun, who also never served an prison time and was pardoned in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. 

Charlie Winters passed away in 1984 having never told his children of his role in the creation of the State of Israel. It was only after the Israeli government sent an arrangement of blue and white flowers did his family learn of his activities in 1948. His ashes were interred in the ancient Templars' Cemetery in Jerusalem. In 2008, Winters was pardoned by President George W. Bush as only the second posthumous pardon in history. 

Sources/Images: Aviation Classics, Issue 8. "The Israeli Air Force and the B-17" by Tim Callaway, p118-119. B-17G Flying Fortress in Israeli Air Force Service 1948-1957 by Alex Yofe. White Crow Publications, 2010.

How A Top Secret Program Restored American Air Superiority

At the height of the Vietnam War, the skies were filled with technologically-advanced American aircraft from both the US Navy and the USAF, yet the air battles were a thread-bare echo of past glories in the 1950s skies over Korea's MiG Alley. By 1967 the Navy had a kill ratio of only 3.7 to 1 (3.7 MiG kills for every Navy fighter lost to a MiG) and the USAF was even worse, with a kill ratio of only 2.2 to 1. By comparison, at the end of the Korean War, the USAF pilots of the North American F-86 Sabre alone had a kill ratio of 10 to 1. While various studies and reports like the Navy's Ault Report offered many suggestions, the basic fact of the matter was that the art of dogfighting as a skill had been lost. In the USAF, for instance, the solution in the 1960s to an increasing accident rate in the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II was to simply ban air combat maneuvering training (ACM)- the accident rate fell, but legions of Air Force Phantom drivers entered the skies of Vietnam with little experience in knowing that their aircraft could and couldn't do in a dogfight with North Vietnamese MiGs. While a the solutions that eventually restored American supremacy in the skies are complex and beyond the scope of today's blog post, the foundations were being laid down in the black world in the latter half of the 1960s. 

The story begins on 16 August 1966 in the Middle East. Operation Rolling Thunder, the sustained air bombardment of North Vietnam, had begun the year prior and would continue until 1968. Monir Radfa, an Iraqi Air Force captain, took off in his Mikoyan MiG-21F from Rashid AB outside of the Iraqi capital for what was supposed to be a local navigation exercise. Instead, he made a dash to the southwest at low level, intending to defect to Israel. The Jordanians failed to intercept him as he streaked low across their country, the RJAF's Hawker Hunters too slow at low level. Once over Israel, he lowered his landing gear and wagged his wings to two intercepting Israeli Mirage III fighters, signaling his intentions and was escorted to Hatzor AB and given asylum. With the MiG-21 being one of the most potent fighters in the Arab air forces that threatened Israel, they immediately set about flight testing the MiG-21 for over 100 hours over the next 12 months, learning its strengths and weaknesses and teaching the Mirage III pilots (the French delta was the main fighter of the IDF in those days) how to defeat the MiG in a dogfight. Initially hesitant to share its prize with the United States, Israel eventually concluded an agreement brokered by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to loan the MiG-21 to the US for study in exchange for being allowed to buy the F-4 Phantom II, the American front-line fighter of the day. At the time the Israelis had made several overtures to the Johnson Administration to purchase the Phantom, only to be rebuffed out of a fear by President Johnson of escalating matters in the Middle East. Now that the Israelis had leverage, the Phantoms would be on their way and the US would finally get to study its vaunted adversary in the skies of Vietnam up close. 

The MiG was disassembled and transported by a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy to the USAF's secret testing base at Groom Lake, Nevada (Area 51). Responsibility for evaluation of the MiG-21 was given to the USAF's Foreign Technology Division (FTD) that was part of the Air Force Systems Command based at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. AFSC assigned all of its programs with the code word prefix "HAVE". For example, the original stealth demonstrator aircraft that gave rise to the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk was code named "HAVE BLUE". In the case of the MiG-21 on loan from Israel, it was code named "HAVE DOUGHNUT". Two categories of flight testing were performed on the MiG- the first type concerned technical analysis- performance, flight envelope, engineering, structures, and so on. The second part of the tests were operational- the MiG would be flown in mock dogfights against US fighter aircraft. Because AFSC/FTD's emphasis was technical in nature, most of the HAVE DOUGHNUT flying concerned technical analysis. 

The first flight out of Groom Lake took place in January 1968 and continued until April of that year before the MiG was returned to Israel. For three intensive months, the MiG was flown in various profiles to determine how it could be detected by both radar and infrared systems, it flew against the bombers of the Strategic Air Command to see how well the bombers' systems could detect and counter it, and infrared signature tests were carried out using a specially-fitted T-39 Sabreliner that could mount the seeker heads of various missiles in the US inventory. Out of a total of 102 sorties flown as part of HAVE DOUGHNUT, 33 sorties were devoted to operational testing in mock dogfights with the USAF and 25 sorties were devoted to mock dogfights with the Navy. 

Not four months after the end of HAVE DOUGHNUT, two Syrian MiG-17Fs on a navigation exercise got lost and inadvertently landed at an Israeli air base. Acquisition of the MiG-17s was of high importance to the United States as the MiG-17, though slow and dated, was nimble and the main adversary type encountered in the skies of Vietnam. Though limited to subsonic performance, VNAF MiG-17s were flying circles around American fighter pilots leading to the dismal kill ratios I mentioned above. After testing by the Israelis, the two MiG-17s were then turned over to the United States for analysis. The first MiG-17 made its first US flight at Groom Lake in January 1969 with the code name HAVE DRILL. The second MiG-17 then flew in March of that year with the code name HAVE FERRY. Both programs wound down by June 1969 and the findings were shared with the Navy's new TOPGUN school that was established to reintroduce dogfighting skills to Navy pilots. In addition, the findings of HAVE DOUGHNUT, HAVE DRILL, and HAVE FERRY were shared with the instructors at the USAF's Fighter Weapons School at Nellis AFB, Nevada, where they would go on to establish the Red Flag exercises. 

On 25 November 1969 a Cambodian Khmer Air Force pilot defected to South Vietnam in the Chinese copy of the MiG-17F, the Shenyang J-5. The USAF pilot who flew the MiG-17 in HAVE FERRY and HAVE DRILL, Col. Wendell Shawler, was tapped by the AFSC/FTD to go to South Vietnam and make several evaluation flights of the J-5 to establish that it had the same flight characteristics as the MiG-17. This short program of just five flights from Phu Cat AB in South Vietnam was code named HAVE PRIVILEGE. 

As a result of these four top secret exploitation programs, both USAF and Navy fighter tactics were changed and pilots were once again trained to exact as much capability and performance out of the aircraft as possible to win the dogfight. It wasn't until 1989 that a Pentagon official confirmed that in the 1981 combat of two US Navy F-14 Tomcats versus two Libyan Sukhoi Su-17 fighters over the Gulf of Sidra that the tactics used had been developed out of mock combat testing with US-operating Soviet fighters. Not long afterwards, HAVE DOUGHNUT, HAVE DRILL, HAVE FERRY, and HAVE PRIVILEGE were declassified. What didn't get mentioned was that a much bigger program succeeded those programs and would remain top secret for 20 years! But more on that program in a future blog post! 

Source: Red Eagles: America's Secret MiGs by Steve Davies. Osprey Publishing, 2008, p16-20.

Foxbats Over the Sinai

By 1971 the Soviet Union had built up the Egyptian Air Force to unprecedented levels in the Middle East in the years since the 1967 Six-Day War when the Israelis caught the majority of the Egyptian air arm on the ground. Despite the rearmament effort and 20,000 military advisers, the Egyptians were still in no position to confront the Israeli Air Force over the Sinai. The three-year War of Attrition between Egypt and Israel ended in 1970 when President Nasser of Egypt died of a heart attack. With no gains being made by either side, Nasser's successor, Anwar Sadat, ended the campaign and set about the planning of what would be the 1973 Yom Kippur War. While direct Soviet military involvement was out of the question given the atmosphere of detente that was building between the Soviet Union and the United States, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev authorized the deployment of a reconnaissance task force of MiG-25 "Foxbat" aircraft to Egypt to scout the Israeli defenses on the east bank of the Sinai. It was a bold decision given that most new Soviet aircraft are kept secret for several years, let alone deployed overseas. Operational testing of the Foxbat began in 1970 and there were a multitude of technical problems uncovered that left both the Soviet Air Force (VVS) and the Air Defense Forces (PVO) reconsidering accepting the aircraft for operational service. 

The Deputy Minister of Aircraft Industry, Aleksey Minayev, was a former engineer with OKB Mikoyan who had participated in the development of the MiG-25 before assuming his ministry position at the Kremlin. Being well aware of the VVS and PVO hesitations with the new aircraft, it was Minayev that suggested the deployment of the Foxbat the Middle East in the reconnaissance role. He had no trouble in getting the military to agree to the idea as they were anxious to really see the aircraft operate in a realistic environment to see what it could do and decide then whether or not to proceed with the deployment of the aircraft. It was agreed that the interceptor version of the Foxbat would be unsuitable for the deployment as that would have been considered an overt act and a small handful of interceptors would have been unable to hold off the Israelis. Discussion within the Kremlin came to a consensus that sending the reconnaissance version would do more good as they could provide information on the Israeli defenses in the Sinai. 

Four MiG-25s that were undergoing operational testing were selected for deployment. Two aircraft were MiG-25Rs, which was a pure reconnaissance variant and the other two were MiG-25RBs that were dual-role reconnaissance/strike aircraft. Ironically, the RB variant of the Foxbat came about due to a perceived need for a high-speed strike aircraft to counter the Israeli's deep penetration flights with McDonnell F-4E Phantom IIs during the War of Attrition to knock out Egyptian targets. The formal deployment orders were issued in March 1971 and a team of test program technicians that were ironing out the Foxbat's bugs would accompany the task force to Egypt. To save time, the personnel were flown to Cairo-West AB in Egypt aboard Antonov An-12 "Cub" transports and the Foxbats had their wings, tails and engines removed for transport about Antonov An-22 "Cock" transports. However, it was found that even stripped down, the MiGs were just barely too wide and too high to fit into the An-22 cargo hold as the main landing gears were getting stuck in the aft cargo door. A technician suggested reversing the main landing gear legs so they pointed inward and replacing the mainwheels with those from a MiG-21. This provided enough clearance to get the MiGs aboard for transport to Egypt. At Cairo-West, the Egyptians had already built hardened aircraft shelters for the Foxbats and the Soviet team reassembled the Foxbats inside the shelters. 

The first test flights began in April over Egyptian territory. The design bureau for the Foxbat's massive R15B-300 engines, OKB Tumansky, also had a team in place that managed to tweak the engines to allow the Foxbat to "sprint" at full afterburner for a full 40 minutes, well over the previous three minute limit used in operational testing in the Soviet Union. The first operational reconnaissance mission took place on 10 October 1971. Operating in pairs, two MiG-25s streaked up the Mediterranean coast from the Nile Delta to the Israeli-Lebanese border at 70,000 feet at high speed only 17 miles off the Israeli coast. Interceptions were attempted by F-4 Phantoms but failed to engage the Foxbats. A month later, a single MiG-25 overflew the northern Sinai to image the Israeli defenses there. This time the Israelis had two stripped down F-4 Phantoms ready which attempted to shoot down the MiG with AIM-7 Sparrow missiles. The missile's proximity fuses failed to cope with the Mach 3 speeds and detonated harmlessly past the speeding Foxbat. After an increasing number of overflights of the Sinai that resulted in failed intercepts, the Israelis were incensed. As the Soviet pilots maintained strict radio silence, the Israelis had no choice but to station F-4 patrols near Cairo-West AB, hoping to shoot down a MiG on takeoff. To counter this tactic, Egyptian MiG-21s from other airbases would converge on Cairo-West when the Foxbats were ready to takeoff. At least two MiG-21s would streak down the runway at low level, followed by the pair of Foxbats and then followed by another two MiG-21s to cover the rear until the Soviet pilots were at speed and altitude out of reach of the prowling Phantom patrols. 

Missions were typically flown in pairs and operated at over 70,000 feet at full afterburner. At Mach 3, a Foxbat pair could cover in just two minutes the entire length of the Suez Canal that separated Egyptian and Israeli forces. Fuel was burned off at 1,000 lbs per minute as the aircraft maintained full afterburner. The inlet ducts would heat up to 608 degrees Farenheint (320 degrees Celsius) and the aircraft skin would measure 577 degrees Farenheint (303 degrees Celsius). Pilots reported the glass canopy was so hot that it would burn their fingers if it was touched during a mission. The cameras operated automatically as the MiGs covered 1 kilometer a second. In addition, the onboard ELINT sensors would pinpoint the locations of Israeli radars, communications nodes, and ECM units. On descent and approach back to Cairo-West, the Foxbats were again met by Egyptian MiG-21s all the way to runway touchdown. Two missions a month were flown and by the end of 1971 the Soviets were making routine deep penetration flights over the Sinai with impunity. Even the Raytheon Hawk SAM units in the Sinai were useless as they were only medium altitude surface-to-air missiles with an engagement envelope that topped off at 40,000 feet. 

By the spring of 1972 the Israelis were protesting the Soviet flights to the United Nations, but it was Anwar Sadat that ended the reconnaissance flights. Frustrated that the Soviets were not training his pilots in the aircraft and that it was not being offered to him for sale, the last straw came after a superpower summit when both Brezhnev and Nixon agreed on maintaining the status quo in the Middle East. Realizing that the Soviets were not going to help him retake the Sinai, Sadat ordered nearly all of the Soviet advisers out of the country and preceded to plan for war without their assistance. Sadat issued an ultimatum to the Soviets as well that they had one week to decide to sell Egypt the Foxbat or have them out of the country. By the middle of July 1972, the reconnaissance task force had returned to Russia and the performance of the Foxbat resulted in the VVS and PVO accepting the aircraft for formal operational deployment. 

Sadat launched the October 1973 Yom Kippur War and made startling gains against a complacent Israeli military while the Syrians attempted to retake the Golan Heights in the north. As the course of the war gradually came to favor the Israelis, Sadat was at a point where he was considering accepting a cease-fire. To prompt him to end the war quickly, Brezhnev ordered two MiG-25s back to Egypt to conduct a series of reconnaissance missions over the Suez Canal to prove to Sadat the Ariel Sharon's units had crossed the west bank of the Suez into Egypt and the Egyptian Third Army was completely surrounded by the Israelis. The imagery shown to Sadat forced him into accepting the cease-fire ending the October war. The Foxbats stayed until 1974, but most of their missions by this point had been focused on monitoring US naval activity in the eastern Mediterranean. Once again frustrated that Egypt was still not being offered the Foxbat and that he had no authority over their use, he ordered the Soviets back out of the country again in 1975, ending the last active Soviet involvement in the Middle East. 

Source: OKB Mikoyan: A History of the Design Bureau and its Aircraft by Yefim Gordon and Dmitriy Komissarov. Midland Publishing, 2009, p324-345.

Selling the Skyhawk to Israel and a Watershed Change in American Foreign Policy

For a better part of the 1950s and 1960s Israel relied on France as its main combat aircraft supplier with the IDF/AF having flown the Dassault Ouragan, Mystere, Super Mystere and Mirage III as well as the Sud-Aviation Vautour in the strike role. But reliance on a single nation for arms worried Israel's government and by the late-1950s increasingly advanced Soviet designs were being purchased by Arab client states and the general perception in the world market was that French designs were falling behind the designs coming from the Americans and Russians. American concerns about growing Soviet influence in the Middle East created an opportunity for Israel to finally get access to American combat aircraft that had previous proven elusive due to diplomatic concerns.

In 1965 Jordan began to finalize purchase of MiG-21s from the Soviet Union, and as a moderate Arab state that had enjoyed decent relations with the United States, found that the Royal Jordanian Air Force would have access to US fighters in an effort to swing Jordan out of the Soviet sphere of influence. The United States offered to sell Jordan the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter and the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson asked the Israelis to not oppose the sale. Israel, sensing a chance to modernize the IDF/AF, stipulated that it would not oppose the sale as long as a similar class of aircraft were sold to Israel.

Throughout the spring of 1965 diplomats from both the United States and Israel met to negotiate a formula that would allow the sale of American arms to Israel provided that the Jordanian deal be allowed to proceed without objections. President Johnson, however, attached the condition that American aircraft would only be sold if comparable types were not available from European nations. The Israelis touched upon their operational requirements during negotiations and insisted upon 75 aircraft as part of the US commitment. Initially the Douglas B-66 Destroyer was offered, but it was quickly agreed to let the IDF/AF experts handle the specifics. Israel's military requirement was for two classes of aircraft, one in the heavy attack class to replace the Vautour and Super Mystere and a light attack class for a replacement of the Mystere and Ouragan. The French duly offered a proposed new version of the Vautour called the Super Vautour and the proposed Mirage F2, but both would not be available by 1970 at the earliest which wasn't acceptable to the IDF/AF. The Dassault Mirage IV was also mooted for an associated reconnaissance requirement, but it didn't fit the scope of the Israeli need. That left primarily American designs in the running.

At the 1965 Paris Air Show, the IDF/AF Chief of Staff, Ezer Weizman, and Yossi Sarig, a former Vautour squadron commander and head of the IDF/AF's operational planning, visited the Dassault chalet for a presentation on the Jaguar as a possible candidate for the light attack requirement. Halfway in the presentation, Sarig whispered to Weizman that the Jaguar would not meet the baseline mission profiles the IDF requested, so Weizman ended the presentation prematurely and walked out with the Dassault delegation angry. He went straight to the chalet of Douglas Aircraft and made arrangements for presentation later that day on the A-4 Skyhawk.

The IDF/AF (Heyl Ha'Avir) called its procurement program Plan Samuel, which called for 30 heavy attack aircraft and 120 light attack aircraft. The aforementioned Douglas B-66 Destroyer was rejected for the heavy attack requirement and the McDonnell F-4 Phantom II, Grumman A-6 Intruder and Vought A-7 Corsair were settled upon as the candidates. The light attack candidates were the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter, and the North American F-100 Super Sabre. Plan Samuel was presented to a joint State Department and Defense Department group in Washington in October 1965 and the reaction by the Americans was quite negative. Too many aircraft were being asked for and it was felt that the Israelis hadn't exhausted their European options yet. Believing that the American option was out, Israel nonetheless found itself engaged in backroom diplomacy as President Johnson wished to honor its commitment to supply Israel with arms given that they had not blocked the F-104 sale to Jordan.

As a result in February 1966 US officials gave Israel their best possible offer which was for 48 aircraft that had to be the least capable of the types that had been short-listed for Plan Samuel. The contracts for the purchase of the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk was signed on 18 March 1966 but was kept secret with the code name Operation Rugby in order to allow arms sales to both Jordan and Saudi Arabia to proceed. Israel had stipulated its own modifications for the A-4 Skyhawk while the United States insisted upon the deletion of specific advanced features like the bombing computers, radar warning systems and AGM-45 Shrike anti-radar missile launch capability. The combination of Israeli requirements and American conditions for a downgraded Skyhawk resulted in a new variant, the A-4H Skyhawk, the last of which was delivered in late 1968.

The purchase of the A-4 Skyhawk represented not just a fundamental change in Israeli defense policy, but it also represented a significant change US defense and foreign policy in the Middle East which up to that point had been one of primarily non-engagement. Spurred on by Soviet inroads and the creation of client states in Syria, Egypt, and Iraq, American foreign policy forever changed in the Mideast with the sale of those Skyhawks to the IDF/AF in the late 1960s.


Source: Israeil A-4 Skyhawk Units in Combat (Combat Aircraft series, No. 81) by Shlomo Aloni. Osprey Publishing, 2009, p-6-16.

For the first ten days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Egyptians held the clear advantage in the Sinai having crossed the Suez Canal on the first day of the war on October 6. The massed Egyptian formations that were firmly established on the east bank of the Suez Canal were protected from attack by Israeli warplanes by a dense network of SA-2 "Guideline" SAM sites on the Egyptian side of the canal. Combined with an overwhelming advantage in tanks and soldiers armed with anti-tank weapons, it was not until the Syrian offensive into the Golan Heights had been repulsed and pushed back into Syria that the tide began to turn in favor of the Israelis.

In the middle of the night on October 16, an Israeli paratroop brigade under the command of Colonel Danny Matt crossed on the west bank of the Suez, establishing a bridgehead for follow on Israeli forces to push into the Egyptian rear. Already two Egyptian armored divisions had crossed the canal to supplement the large forces established nearly along the entire length of the east bank of the Suez. Prepared to engage Egyptian armored units, Matt's brigade carried over 300 LAW missiles as well as bazookas and recoiless rifles until sufficient Israeli tanks could cross the canal to provide support. Through the night, however, Gilowa wheeled ferries were used to carry Major Giora Lev and his fourteen Centurion tanks to the Egyptian bank of the Suez along with a company of infantry M113 armored personnel carriers.

After an initial raid led by Major Lev against an Egyptian supply depot housed in a former airfield, he was contacted by General Haim Bar-Lev, commander of the southern front in the war. Bar-Lev gave him a most unusual order:

"I'm putting you under the command of the air force commander." Tanks? Under command of the Israeli Air Force? The chief of the Heyl Ha'Avir, (Israeli Air Force), General Benny Peled, then came over the radio with an even more unusual order:

"Do you see the flowers on your map?"
"What flowers?"
"Do you see numbers in red?" Next to each was what Major Lev thought looked like a daisy.
"Yes, I see them."
"Destroy all those in your area. Out."

Lev assigned his brigade commander, Haim Erez, to take a force of 21 tanks to destroy the "flowers". Erez was just as mystified as Lev as the significance of the flower markings on their maps. Destroying several small Egyptian units, missile transporters and supply columns on the way, Erez's tanks came upon the first site which turned out to be an SA-2 missile site, one of several in his sector that provided a protective umbrella over the Egyptian bridgeheads in the Sinai. A reservist with Erez was an engineering student and explained that the "flowers" were the distinctive six-pointed layouts of the SA-2 launchers with the control equipment and radars in the center. On a sixty-mile run from Colonel Matt's bridgehead that brought Erez's force within 30 miles of Cairo and back, they had destroyed enough SA-2 sites to create a hole in the SAM umbrella that would soon be fully exploited to turn the tide of the war in Israel's favor.

It marks the only time thus far in military aviation history that tanks were used in the role of the suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses, a role traditionally carried out by specialized aircraft (like the USAF's Wild Weasels) or specialized missiles (like the Shrike or the Standard ARM).

Source: The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East by Abraham Rabinovich. Schoken Books/Random House, 2004, p386-391.

When Israeli Aircraft Industries created the Kfir fighter-bomber by replacing the SNECMA Atar turbojet with a more powerful GE J79 engine, the additional modifications required to accommodate the American engine (which was shorter but heavier) along with the avionics needed for the strike role and the heavier undercarriage to increased takeoff weights with heavy bombloads degraded the performance and maneuverability of the the first generation Kfirs. Rather than try increasing the thrust of the J79 engine, IAI engineers decided the solution would have to be an aerodynamic one.

The addition of canards was favored early on and Dassault cautioned IAI about adding canards to the aircraft based on the French experience with the Mirage Milan canard test aircraft. Despite the warnings, no other solution was seen as being viable, so flight testing of the canard proceeded on the Technolog, a two-seat Mirage III that first tested the installation of the J79 engine.

Nose strakes near the tip of the nose were also found (even before the canard solution was reached) to improve high AoA performance but this came at the cost of buffeting at high AoAs, something that would have been unacceptable in air combat. The buffeting was cured on the suggestion of one of the IAI test pilots to add a wing leading edge saw-tooth which helped smooth the local airflow.

These modifications improved the Kfir's performance with the addition of wing area in the form of the canards that shifted the aircraft center of gravity forward, reduced the stability margin enough that the aircraft would be more responsive. The vortices that came off the canard smoothed the airflow over the delta wings which enhanced their lift and performance particularly at high angles of attack. The saw-tooth leading edges also slightly increased wing area and the vortices created by the saw tooth augmented the canard-produced vortices.

The combination of these modifications only added 187 lbs of weight to the new Kfir version designated C2. The side benefit of the structural strengthening of the fuselage for the canards (fuselage Section 10) is that that area was able to also accommodate an additional pair of weapons pylons under the intakes, giving the Kfir a total of five underfuselage pylon stations.

The Kfir C2 entered service with the IDF in 1977. The earlier Kfir C1s only got the nose strakes and a much reduced canard as the structural strengthening and modification to full C2 standards was deemed not worth the effort. Many of those earlier-variant Kfir C1s flew with US Navy and US Marine Corps adversary units in the 1980s as the F-21A Lion.

Source: International Air Power Review, Volume 15. AIRtime Publishing, 2005, "Warplane Classic: IAI Kfir- Israel's Lion Cub" by Shlomo Aloni, p137-139.

Having built up its experience base with the local assembly of the Fouga CM-170 Magister jet trainer in the late 1950s, Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) used the Magister as the basis for its first jet design, the B-101 business jet. The B-101 combined the wings and V-tail of the Magister with a new fuselage and external jet nacelles on the aft fuselage. However, it was soon realized that the target cruise speed of Mach 0.8 wasn't possible with the wings of the Magister. Five different design configurations followed that included a T-tail, swept wings and at one point, a trijet, but the project was eventually cancelled in May 1963.

IAI would get back into bizjets again several years later when Rockwell Standard acquired Jet Commander of Oklahoma. As Rockwell already owned North American Aviation that produced the Sabreliner, the US Department of Justice required that Rockwell had to sell one of the two business jet concerns to comply with anti-trust statutes. As the US military was already operating the Sabreliner as the T-39, the complete Jet Commander program was offered for sale including 49 unsold airframes. In September 1967 IAI was the winning bidder and the Jet Commander evolved into the Westwind.

The Westwind led to the improved IAI Astra which first flew in March 1984 and in turn with cooperation with Yakovlev, led to the IAI Galaxy which first flew in December 1997. In 2001 General Dynamics' Gulfstream Aircraft purchased the Astra and Galaxy programs and they were were rebranded as the G100 and G200 with the G150 a further development that launched in 2002 of what was the IAI Astra.

Source: Air Enthusiast, September/October 2003. "Golden Heritage- Israeli Aircraft Industries at 50" by Shlomo Aloni, p17-30.

Unique amongst airborne early warning aircraft, the IAI/Elta Nachshon Aitam uses two different transmission bands for its radars- L-band for the conformal side antennas and S-band for the nose and tail antennas. Utilizing a Gulfstream V airframe, the use of a different frequency band for the nose and tail antennas allows for a smaller antenna that results in less performance penalties on the overall airframe.

Source: International Air Power Review, Volume 25. "Technical Briefing: IAI/Elta Nachshon, Israel's special mission Pioneers" by Shlomo Aloni, p83-84.