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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
By a tremendous effort, Israel assembled a motley group of
combat aircraft when Arab air forces attacked it after the
declaration of independence in 1948. The first airplanes came from
Czechoslovakia, which furnished propeller-driven Messerschmitts and
reconditioned Spitfires from World War II. Czechoslovakia also
trained the first Israeli pilots, although these few were quickly
supplemented by hundreds of experienced volunteers from a number of
countries. The prestige of the air force was enhanced after its
spectacular success during the June 1967 War, and the subsequent
decade saw an unprecedented increase in its manpower and equipment
resources. Since 1971 the air force has also assumed full
responsibility for air defense.
In 1988 the air force consisted of about 28,000 men, of whom
approximately 9,000 were career professionals, and 19,000 were
conscripts assigned primarily to air defense units. An additional
50,000 reserve members were available for mobilization.
The air force commander, who was directly responsible to the
chief of staff, supervised a small staff consisting of operations,
training, intelligence, quartermaster, and manpower branches, at
air force headquarters in Tel Aviv. Orders went directly from the
air force commander to base commanders, each of whom controlled a
wing of several squadrons. As of 1988, Israel had nineteen combat
squadrons, including twelve fighter-interceptor squadrons, six
fighter squadrons, and one reconnaissance squadron.
The mainstays of the combat element of 524 aircraft were of
four types: the F-16 multirole tactical fighter, the first of which
became operational in Israel in 1980; the larger and heavier F-15
fighter designed to maintain air superiority, first delivered in
1976; the F-4 Phantom, a two-seater fighter and attack aircraft,
delivered to Israel between 1969 and 1977; and the Kfir, an
Israeli-manufactured fighter plane first delivered to the air force
in 1975, and based on the French-designed Mirage III. The air force
also kept in service as a reserve older A-4 Skyhawks first acquired
in 1966. All of these models were expected to be retained in the
inventory into the next century, although the Skyhawks would be
used primarily for training and as auxiliary aircraft.
Israel's project to design and build a second-generation
indigenous jet fighter, the Lavi (lion cub), was cancelled in 1987
because of expense. Instead, Israel was to take delivery of
seventy-five advanced F-16C and F-16D fighters produced in the
United States. The air force inventory also included a large number
of electronic countermeasure and airborne early warning aircraft,
cargo transports and utility aircraft, trainers, and helicopters.
Boeing 707s had been converted for in-flight refueling of F-15s and
F-16s (see
table 14, Appendix A).
Israeli air force commanders pointed out that the ratio of
combat aircraft available to Israel and the total of all Arab air
forces, including Egypt and Libya, was on the order of 1:4 in 1987.
Nevertheless, Israel's superior maintenance standards and higher
pilot-to-aircraft ratio meant that it could fly more sorties per
aircraft per day. Israel also enjoyed an advantage in precision
weapons delivery systems and in its ability to suppress Arab air
defense missile systems.
With little expansion of the air force contemplated, emphasis
was placed on motivating and training pilots and relying on
versatile, high performance aircraft. The Israeli air force
repeatedly demonstrated its superior combat performance. During the
June 1967 War, waves of successive bombings of Egyptian and Syrian
airfields caused tremendous damage. The Arab air forces lost 469
aircraft, nearly 400 of them on the ground. Only forty-six Israeli
planes were destroyed. The October 1973 War was marked by a large
number of dogfights in which the Israelis prevailed, claiming the
destruction of 227 enemy airplanes at a cost of 15 Israeli
aircraft. On the other hand, sixty Israeli airplanes were lost in
missions in support of ground forces. In the Lebanon fighting in
1982, Israeli airplanes destroyed most of the Syrian missile sites
in the Biqa Valley. The Israeli air force also dominated the air
battle, bringing down ninety Syrian aircraft without a loss.
The air force had demonstrated its ability to bring Israel's
military power to bear at distant points and in unconventional
operations. In 1976 its transport aircraft ferried troops to the
Entebbe airport in Uganda to rescue passengers on a commercial
airplane hijacked by Arab terrorists. In June 1981, F-16
fighter-bombers destroyed the Osiraq (Osiris-Iraq) nuclear research
reactor near Baghdad, Iraq, flying at low levels over Saudi Arabian
and Iraqi territory to evade radar detection. In 1985 Israeli F-15s
refueled in flight and bombed the headquarters of the PLO near
Tunis, Tunisia, at a distance of more than 2,000 kilometers from
their bases.
Data as of December 1988
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