Hatzerim,
Where the lions rest
 
by Anibal Baranek, Argentina

   In the middle of the biblical Negev desert, at the heart of Israel, the glories of the Heil Ha Avir-the Israeli air force-rest to the admiration of everyone fortunate enough to reach that place.
   It is not secret that the modern state of Israel was established in the year 1948. Neither is top secret information the fact that, since it was born, this country-with a surface little bigger than Argentina’s smallest province-has been at war with its neighboring Arab countries.
   Since 1948 the Israel Defense Forces faced every kind of threat. From tanks, Scud missiles and commando raids to terrorists strikes, granade carrying birds and other even more stranger threats.
   At the center of this constant struggle for survival was the Heil Ha Avir. First equipped only with little Piper Cubs and other ships alike, whose offensive capability was limited to lunching soda bottles and stone rocks over the Arab soldier. Eventually, with more modern planes that reached Israel by Hollywood-like means; the air force built itself a capability to face the united Arab forces.
   This little force grew from a group of mercenaries flying aircraft with more risk to them than to their enemies, into the super trained pilots that today regularly defeat them using good planning, excellent training and some of the best aircraft in the world. Thus they defeat the numerically better foe with a very high standard of quality.

The Museum

 
   The museum at Hatzerim pays homage to many of the aircraft that served in the Israel Air Force. From the S-199(Checz copies of the german Me-109), the Mustangs and the Spitfires that fought in the Independence War to the Phantoms and A-4s that still remain in service and including the "French époque":
   The Mirage IIIs, the Mysteres and the Vaotours that were part of the Heil Ha Avir  during the fifties and sixties. There are also many variants of the british Gloster Meteor.
   There is a M III with kill markings (there were two in the airforce which managed to shoot down 13 Arab ships each). Many of this same aircraft entered combat not only over the middle east but also on the South Atlantic Ocean flown by the Fuerza Aerea Argentina during the Malvinas/Falklands war.
   Of course there are many variants of the IAI Nesher, Kfir C-2 and C-7. The first one was an unlicensed copy of the Mirage V and was engined by an Atar Engine. The Kfir family was made of improvements of this model mostly including new engines(the american J-79 used by the Phantom), reinforcements in the landing gear to augment the useful cargo, canards and avionics made in Israel. The story of how Israel managed to build the Mirage V against the wishes of France is a long subject and involves french  and Switzerland nationals as well as the Mossad.
   Many of the Neshers were sold to Argentina as Dagger A and B(the single and two pilot).
The Heil Ha Avir employ some 200 Kfirs as fighter bombers. A few of them were exported to countries such as Colombia and Sri Lanka but the use of the american J 79 engine  put serious barriers to its export. But perhaps the most known export was to the United States itself. The US Marine Corps leased a handful of them to employ them as Aggressors in dissimilar air combat training as F-21.
   The museum does not only have israeli aircraft. The Arab countries are represented by an assortment of british and soviet types that served in the air forces of Siria, Egipt and Jordan. Of special note are the MIG 21 and the MIG 23. The first one is painted with the numbers 007 in regard to the Mossad operation that brought it to hebrew land, the other painted with israeli camouflage including the stars of David.
   Other parts of the museum show remains of a Su-7 and a Mig 19 which also felt to hebrew claws.
   The combat aircraft are not the only aircraft to be seen. Super Frelon, Bell UH-1H and Cobra , Hughes Defender and Aerospatiale Gazelle helicopters mix with an E-2, a restored KC-97 and a Boeing 707 used as a cinema.
   For visitors more interested in shooting aircraft there are many antiaircraft guns and missiles on show including soviet SA-2 and SZU-23 and Hawk missiles.
   There are unmanned vehicles(UAVs) for training  and surveillance as well as light types such as the PA-18, Cessna 206 and Pilatus PC-6.  Other interesting aircraft in the museum are a Republic Seabee and a DeHavilland Rapide.
   A visit to the museum can turn up exotic surprises as  Hatzerim is an active air base.
It is normal to see Tzukit (Fouga Magister) aircraft and A-4s flying over visitors. The new F-15E also fly from this base according to foreign sources.
   But not only the new ones fly over the Negev. The museum keeps some classic types in flying condition, among them a black Spitfire-flown by Ezer Weitzman, who would became Israel’s president, during the Independence war.
   The road  itself into the museum is an adventure for those who like aircraft. Going to the museum the author was fortunate enough to see F-16s, F-15s and Apache gunships.
It is so because Israel is a state prepared for war and as the dissolved Strategic Air Comand used to say, "the price of peace is eternal vigilance".
   This metaphor applies to the israeli skies. It is not unusual to see an F-4 flying at low altitude or feel the earth shake when a Yassur(Sikorsky CH-53) fly overhead. The space over Tel Aviv is crisscrossed by the contrails of the airliners and the surveillance aircraft who keep a constant watch to deter any attack.
   The Israeli air force has been since its beginning the cutting edge of the hebrew sword.
Its pilots, gunners, mechanics and all the other man and women have became just the best, because the alternative is not only defeat but total annihilation of the state of Israel.
 
Always the impossible, the history of the Heil Ha Avir
 
   Although its operations are surrounded by secret, its combat success has always raised a high attention into the operations of the israeli air force. Because of this, many incredible missions have became public knowledge along the years.
   Even today it is strictly forbidden to photograph  military items. The museum of Hatzerim is a welcome exception to this rule.
   Since its creation the Heil Ha Avir proved once and again that there are not impossibles. At the war of 1956, P-51 Mustangs cut telephonic communications in Egipt by slicing the  telephone wires with their propellers. In the Six Days War the air force changed all air power doctrine when it destroyed three arab air forces in a few hours.
   In 1970, during the Attrition War, two of the newly arrived CH-53-which were not yet in official service-crossed the Suez channel and stole a new soviet radar from the egyptians.
   The arab newspapers  of the next day showed cartoons of CH-53 flying to Israel carrying the pyramids and the Sphinx underneath.
   In that time two hebrew Phantoms killed two Mig 21 not by shooting but by maneuvering.  The two F-4 were returning to their base after bombing Egipt when they discovered the migs closing in their tails. Knowing the limited range of the Fishbed and how far they were from their base the israeli pilots established the arabs were low on fuel. Thus they started to fly aggressively preventing the arabs from shooting at them but neither shooting themselves. Finally the Phantoms disengaged and returned safely to their base discovering latter that both Migs had run off fuel and crashed.
   In 1976 the hijacking of an Airbus A 300 from Air France and its diversion to Entebbe with israeli citizens as hostages put the government in a serious problem. They had never dealt with terrorirst and if they did it may have promoted further attempts.
   But Uganda was very far to attempt a commando raid and rescue the hostages. It was, once again, an impossible mission. Anyway, they did it.  The commandos arrived in Uganda at night aboard a four aircraft C-130 force. A Boeing 707 was aloft as airborne command post and a second one followed it configured for sanitary evacuation.
   The first Hercules landed at the airport without notifying the control tower(the ugandan forces were supporting the terrorists) and deployed beacons to easy the landing of the rest of the aircraft. Then it started to unload the strike force. A group of soldiers attacked the ugandan combat aircraft based in the airport. Another closed in the building were the hostages were kept.
   In a lighting strike they rescued all of them(less one who had been sent to a  hospital)and killed all the terrorists. Then they climbed to the Hercules and returned back to Israel for a well disserved hero’s wellcome.
   The bombing and destruction of the nuclear plant at Osirak, Irak in 1981 right under the collective noses of the air forces of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Irak itself was just one more of those "impossible missions" that seems to be the norm in this air force. Even though at the first moments it was said that the F-16 used normal MK 84 907 Kg bombs, it was recently divulged  they used guided ammunition.
   No aircraft is safe. When the Heil ha Avir put its aim in the Mig 25, the soviet counterpart of the SR-71, it soon shoot down three of them. One was brought down by a Hawk missile that in theory couldn’t reach it. Another two fell victims to F-15s.
   During the Lebanon invasion a Phantom pilot that had ejected was rescued literally in the faces of the terrorist forces send to capture him.
   In this operation two Cobra gunships were employed to provide close support for a Bell 205 who would actually pick up the pilot. But due to intense enemy fire the "slick" couldn’t close in. Finally one of the Cobras flew very close to the pilot who climbed in one of the skies and was so rescued.
   This novel rescue method was repeated three years latter when four soldiers from a reckon team were unable to board the CH-53 sent to extract their team. Facing the prospect of being made prisoners two Cobras were sent to take them.
 
Lebanon, 1982. The Israeli air force in action
 
   Perhaps a way to understand the success of the air force is to notice how they combine all branches of air power to reach their goals. If in particular missions one is surprised by the courage of the pilots, it is in analyzing big scale operations that surprise becomes admiration.
   In June of 1982 the state of Israel decided it was necessary to enter in the chaotic Lebanon. It was the operation "Peace for Galilee" and the Heil Ha Avir was faced with a difficult task.
   They needed to gain air superiority to support the ground operations. The main problem were the sirian occupation forces that had established an air defense net based in the soviet style. They had SA-2, SA-3 and SA-6 ground to air missiles, SZU-23 antiaircraft guns and portatile SA-7 missiles.
   The mix of the SA-6 and the SZU-23 had proved its accuracy during the Iom Kippur war. On the first days of that war many israeli aircraft had been shoot down by one of this systems while trying to avoid the other.
   Also it was expected that Migs based in Siria itself would support its ground troops because in few minutes they could reach Lebanon. It was necessary to kill this protection for israeli ground forces to advance.
   The first israeli aircraft to take off were command and control ones. An E-2, started to orbit over hebrew skies to look for arab aircraft. An electronic warfare B-707(the israeli variant of the RC-135) established the electronic battle order of the sirian forces.
   Next to take off were the UAVs(unmanned air vehicles), some of them carrying reconnaissance equipment and others carrying radar reflectors that made them seem like fighter aircraft in the sirian radar.
   The sirian missile batteries "painted" this echos and started to shoot at them with ground to air missiles. Some of them hit their targets but the congratulations were short as the first wave of antiradar missiles(Shrikes and Standards) arrived after being lunched by Phantoms II that had loitered at low altitude. While the sirian radars painted the unarmed UAV the F-4s used those radiation to guide their own missiles against the radar in typical Wild Weasel fashion.
   With a single hit the sirian radar network had been seriously damaged but it was only the beginning. Waves and waves of Phantoms,  Skyhawks and Kfirs converged on the missile sites and destroyed them with cluster bombs and Maverick missiles.
   Meanwhile the sirian air force was having serious communication problems due to the jamming of the B-707s. Even so, sirian Migs took off and headed for Lebanon. They were too brave for their own good. While the sirians didn’t know what or where their were facing, the israeli E-2 had a Hawkeye´s view to direct the air battle.
   It was the hour of the F-15 and F-16. Guided by the E-2, the israeli fighters shoot down 82 sirian aircraft with out suffering losses of their own. So the sirian air force was effectively put out of combat and israeli air superiority over Lebanon was assured.
   Simultaneously the AH-1G and Hughes Defender gunships paved the way for ground forces while CH-53 and Bell 205 inserted Commandos.
   It was a text book performance about the way to employ air assets in modern war. 10 years latter the Us Air Force would repeat this  on a much bigger scale.
 
Conclusions
 
   Since 1948 up to the present the Heil Ha Avir grew from a idealistic, mercenary group to became an elite team made up of men and women strongly trained and motivated. The challenges faced through the years cemented a tradition of excellency and an example for the new generations. The Israeli Air Force is, like Israel itself, small and lively, more modern than most countries but proud heir to a tradition that goes back to David and Goliath.
   With a glorious past and an uncertain present -as it has always been- the Israel Air Force still flies into the future while performing the present’s  deeds  The goal is one, the peace.

   Many thanks to Mr. Anibal Baranek who wrote this article and gave me permission to publish it on my page. This article is copyrighted by author. Please contact Mr. Anibal Baranek to get his permission if you are going to publish it anyway.
   Serge Batoussov.