Israel Day 5 - Israel Airforce Museum - The Lavi - A Great Fighter That Wasn't

The Museum has the only remaining prototype of the Lavi fighter jet.

Developed in the 1980s, the Lavi ("Young Lion") was developed by Israel Aircraft Industries as a fourth-generation multi-role fighter. Originally designed to replace the Kfir and A-4 Skyhawks in Israeli service. During its development it became a capable aircraft likely able to compete with the F-16 C/D and similar aircraft.

This prototype is a two-seater aircraft, and the initial batch were going to be ordered as two-seaters for initial training with later blocks having the second seat removed to allow for more growth and room for even more avionics and upgrades over time.

Speeds were up to Mach 1.6, a range of 2,000 nautical miles, and it was armed with a 30mm DEFA cannon and advanced missiles and air-ground weapons with an advanced electronics and sensor suite and fully digital flight controls.

However, it was not to be. First, there was considerable American opposition to Israel building an aircraft that could compete with the F-16 in international and domestic sales.

Second and more importantly, building a 4th generation fighter is a darned expensive project. Just as Canada learned with the Avro Arrow back in the late 1950s, building a technological advanced fighter is an expensive proposition.

In short, Israel simply could not afford to build it both because it would annoy the USA and because it was far too ambitious and costly a project for a small country to undertake. The Lavi program was cancelled in 1987.

The last surviving prototype sits on display at the museum, a memorial to what might have been.

The Lavi name lives on in IAF service however, as Israel's new jet trainer aircraft, the Alenia Aermacchi M-346 Master, has been given the name Lavi in Israeli service as it trains the young Lions who will grow up to be Israeli Air Force fighter pilots.

Israel Day 5 - Israel Air Force Museum - The Tzukit

What the FooKit is a Tzukit you may be asking?

The IAI Tzukit is the Israeli upgraded (and some produced completely under license in Israel) French Fouga Magister jet trainer.

Formerly used as an initial jet trainer, a ground attack aircraft in the Six Day War, and as the aircraft of the Israeli Air force Acrobatic team, this 60's era design twin-engined jet has a storied history in IAF service.

Tzukits in the Six Day War accounted for and destroyed over 50 tanks and over 70 other armoured vehicles in close air support missions during the war.

Seating two, the aircraft offers speeds of up to 386 knots, a range of 499 nautical miles or 650 with external tanks, a ceiling of 30,000 feet and a nice fast rate of climb of over 3,000 feet per minute.

Lots of Tzukits are at the IAF Museum, Most in the Orange/White trainer color scheme:

The Tzukit is in that oh, so just almost but not really affordable range for private ownership in the US. Tzukits have been imported and are being offered for sale in around the $30K range.

Tempting right?

That unfortunately doesn't cover the (considerable) operating cost and likely steep refurb costs associated with the imported aircraft to get them certified to fly again, nor the need for an IFR rating, a multi-engine rating, and a type rating for the Tzukit. The training costs alone will total more than the cost of the aircraft itself.

But darn, that plane with its amazing history and capabilities and apparently nice flight characteristics gives me the wantsies rather badly.

Especially as at the museum I could climb into and enjoy it for at least a brief happy moment:

It's a comfy cockpit, easy to get into, controls very well laid out and organized and yep it induces a burning desire to take one home.

The Tzukit has now been replaced in its role in the IAF by the Beechcraft T-6 Texan II.

Israel Day 5 - Israel Air Force Museum - Transports

The Air Force Museum also features some transports used by the IAF.

The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser.

Think B-29 turned into a transport and you'd be right.

It was used for a variety of missions and served in the IAF in from 1964 to 1978. The Israelis added a rear-opening ramp and used it for air-dropping supplies as well as a heavy lift aircraft.

The Israelis called it the Anak or giant and referred to it as "the largest three engine plane in the world", due to the tendency of its engines to malfunction.

A DC-3:

A Beechcraft King Air:

A Nord 2501 Noratlas

The three Nords in the IAF were sold by the French as part of a package deal with the Ouragon jets and the French demanded Israel buy the Nords in order to get the jets. The Israelis ended up appreciated them and bought some more later on and used them for everything from dropping paratroopers to ferrying supplies and dropping bombs.

This brings us to our guide for the entire tour of Israel: Yaacov.

Why?

Well, it turns out he jumped from this very plane.

Yaacov, you see, is a certified bad-ass.

Born in France in 1941, he was one of the hidden Jewish Children. Only he, his brother, and mother survived the Holocaust, the rest of the family including his father, uncle, brothers and sisters were killed by the Nazis.

He immigrated to Israel after World War 2 ended, and then when he grew up joined the IDF and became a paratrooper.

He served in the 1967 Six-Day War; The 1973 Yom Kippur War; and the 1982 Lebanon War - side by side in that war with his son who was also a paratrooper.

Since his military service ended he's worked as a tour guide for 30 years and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the entire country and knows everyone by name. He also worked helping settle Ethiopian Jews in Israel when they arrived - we later met one of them and his family in the north of Israel when he remembered Yaacov from years ago and approached him to chat. Like I said, Yaacov knows everybody. It was always a fun moment, that happened multiple times during our trip, when other tour guides at sites would approach us when we were with Yaacov, chat with him, and then tell us we had the best tour guide around, after all, he had trained some of them!

78 years old and the man could walk us into the ground with ease, and he enjoyed every moment of teaching us and showing us Israel. I daresay he truly is the best tour guide in all of Israel.

Israel Day 5 - Israel Air Force Museum - Got MiGs?

The Israeli Air Force Museum also contains aircraft never used operationally by the Israeli Air Force.

The Israeli Air Force Museum happens to house a lot of MiG aircraft that were flown by their Arab state opponents and subsequently obtained by the Israeli Air Force.

The Mig-15

This Egyptian MiG-15 was shot down during the 1956 Suez campaign and retrieved from the sea.

The MiG-17:

This is one of two Syrian MiG-17s that happened to land by accident in 1968 at an Israeli air force base. Navigation was apparently not stressed sufficiently by the Syrian Air Force.

The MiG-19. Well, the tail of one anyways:

This particular MiG-19 was shot down during the Six Day War.

The MiG-23:

This Syrian MiG-23, similarly to the MiG-17, managed to land at an Israeli airbase in 1989 when its Syrian pilot decided to defect to Israel.

And the museum also houses the most famous MiG in Israeli hands:

MiG-21, number 007.

The MiG-21 was the front-line fighter of the Soviet Union and its allies in the 60s and 70s. The West badly wanted to obtain one to examine its flight characteristics and to prepare for dealing with it, whether in the slies of the Middle East or over Vietnam and elsewhere.

The Mossad launched Operation Diamond with the goal to obtain a MiG-21.

The Mossad was able to enlist Iraqi Pilot Munir Redfa, an Assyrian Christian, who agreed to defect, on condition that along with him and the MiG-21 that the Israelis get all of his family out of Iraq to Israel as well.

Munir Redfa then flew the MiG-21 from Iraq to Israel, and his family was successfully smuggled out of Iraq.

It was quickly renumbered as 007 in honor of how it was acquired and then flown extensively by Israeli pilots to examine and learn its strengths and weaknesses.

Once Israel obtained the MiG-21, it quickly shared both information about it and the aircraft itself with the United States, loaning the US the aircraft under the US Code named Have Doughnut program, which took place at the storied Area 51 base.

In 1988, an HBO movie, Steal the Sky gave a fictionalized and dramatized account of Operation Diamond and the defection of the MiG-21.

Israel Day 5 - Israel Air Force Museum - Netz 107

Israel first acquired the F-16 in 1980.

The F-16 is not named the Fighting Falcon in Israeli service. Instead its called the Netz.

Netz 107 was the first of the F-16s to arrive in Israel, but that's not its claim to fame nor why it has a place in the Israeli Air Force Museum.

The word "Netz" meaning “Hawk” was the appellation attached to the F-16 A/B series of aircraft, and Netz 107 is an F-16A.

On June 7, 1981 Netz 107 along with 7 other F-16As and six F-15s flying cover took part in Operation Opera, the attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor.

Netz 107 piloted by Amos Yadlin, was the second plane to attack and hit the reactor, following the attack of the Squadron Commander Ze'ev Raz (yes, leaders lead) knocking the reactor out of commission. This prevented Saddam Hussein from acquiring nuclear weapons a strong desire he had at the time.

Nertz 107 went on to score six and a half air-to-air kills, the most by an F-16 in the world. 4 of these were MiG-23s and two were Su-22s (one of which was a gun kill) and a Syrian Aérospatiale Gazelle helicopter was also shot down by Netz 107. All of these kills took place in 1982.

Netz 107 is one of a handful of aircraft in the world that sports a nuclear reactor kill marker.

The F-16s have done well in Israeli service, from the first air-to-air kill by an F-16 ever on July 14 1981, shooting down a Syrian MiG 21 to today, Israeli F-16s have accounted for 53 enemy aircraft in combat and is the ISraeli Air Forces primary ground attack aircraft today.

Later F-I6s are not named Netz, each variant has a different name.

The F-16 C/D variants are named "Barak" meaning Lighting.

The latest F-16 Development, the F-16 I is named the "Sufa" or Storm.

Seeing Netz 107 was awesome. A historic aircraft involved in a major event in aviation and world history up close.

Israel Day 5 - Israel Air Force Museum - The Kfir

The last variant of the Mirage to fly with the IAF, the IAI Kfir took the Mirage to a whole new level.

Building on the experience gained in manufacturing the Nesher, IAI created the Kfir, or Lion Cub, a Mach 2 fighter-bomber.

First was the C.1 version:

The C.1 quickly advanced into the C.2 version, including reconnaissance models.

The Reconnaissance Kfir RC.2 version has a distinctively longer nose, packed full of advanced avionics:

Kfirs also come in a two seat variant for training, the Kfir TC.2 including this particular one, which was the first TC.2 made:

And a TC.2 in standard livery for training:

Kfirs have also been leased to the US Navy and Marine Corps for use as aggressor aircraft, designated the F-21. This one came off lease and was returned to Israel.

The Kfir have mainly been used by the IAF in the ground attack role, and can carry an impressive array of air to ground ordnance as this Kfir C.7 demonstrates:

With a primary role as a ground attack aircraft, given the air superiority role was in the capable hands of the F-15 Baz, only one Kfir in IAF service to date has an air-to-air kill.

This Kfir C.2 was the one that shot down a Syrian MiG-21:

Israel Day 5 - Israel Air Force Museum - The F-15 "Baz"

Israel first acquired the F-15 Eagle in October 1976.

Not called the Eagle in IAF service, as that name went to the A-4, The F-15 has the moniker "Baz" IOn IAF service meaning Falcon. As you might guess, the F-16 Fighting Falcon has a different name in the IAF as well.

In IAF service, the F-15 has an impressive 61 to none kill ratio, including shooting down MiG-25s. No Israeli F-15s have been lost in combat, but at least three have been lost in training accidents.

This particular aircraft at the museum is responsible for 4 of those kills, sporting 4 Syrian aircraft kill rings.

That the F-15 is a superlative aircraft is beyond question. In Service with multiple nations, it has a 102-0 kill ratio.

Even when damaged, the F15 still can bring its crew home.

In 1983, an Israeli F-15, damaged in a collision, during a training exercise lost an entire wing but was still able to land safely, a testament to the strength and excellence of the aircraft design and the cool head of the pilot.

You can see and hear the pilot involved in that event retell what occurred:

In 2011, an Israeli F-15D suffered severe damage from a bird-strike from a flock of Pelicans. It was repaired using the parts of a single seat Israeli F-15, most likely a C model, and has been named FrankenBaz or FrankenEagle. The repair cost $1 million, cheap when considering a replacement F-15D runs about $40 million.

Even as Israel begins to acquire the F-35, the F-15 will continue to serve as an air superiority fighter and intends to continue to fly updated versions in tandem with the F-35.

Israel has continued to improve the F-15, improving its avionics and weapons systems while in its service.

The F-15E Strike Eagle has also been placed into service by the IAF with a modified version to fit Israeli requirements, the F-15I Ra'am (Thunder) currently in service with Israel's 69 Squadron, The Hammers.

Israel Day 5 - Israel Air Force Museum - The F-4 Phantom II

Now for The Old AF Sarge's aircraft of choice.

Israel acquired the F-4E Phantom II, receiving their first batch of aircraft in January 1968. It was Israel's main fighter aircraft through the Yom Kippur War.

The F-4 Phantom was called the Kurnass - "Sledgehammer" in Israeli service, and the RF-4E, the reconnaissance version was called the Orev - "Raven".

The Phantiom's first air-to-air victory in Israeli service took place on November 11, 1969 when a Phantom shot down a MiG-21.

Israel also updated the Phantom to their Kurnass 2000 / Phantom 2000 standard, with updated avionics including a look down-shoot down capability.

This Phantom clearly sports the Kurnass 2000 livery:

The Museum has multiple F-4s on display.

After touring the museum area, I noticed that behind the main area of the museum, hidden behind a hill and separated by a barrier, there appears to be a boneyard for aircraft with an F-4 in it:

In Israeli service, The Phantom has 116.5 air victories, and 55 Phantoms were lost in action with most lost to SAM and ground fire.