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| ISBN-13: | 9781612347837 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Potomac Books |
| Publication date: | 01/01/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 456 |
| Sales rank: | 935,262 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
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Lavi
The United States, Israel, and a Controversial Fighter Jet
By John W. Golan
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
Copyright © 2016 John W. GolanAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61234-783-7
CHAPTER 1
The First Lion
There is a shadow that hangs across Israeli society, a pervasive presence that lurks in the background of consciousness, intruding, unbidden, into everyday life. It is the ever-present specter of war. Both in its tactical, military aspects and in its broader implications — political, economic, personal — it is the one common reality that every Israeli has shared and struggled to come to grips with. To understand what the Lavi was, and the airplane that it was intended to be, requires an understanding of the underlying pressures behind it and the crucible out of which it was forged. It is therefore rightful that this story begins with the outbreak of one such war, in June 1967.
As the month of June dawned that year, Israel again found itself surrounded by a hostile alliance, its sea lanes cut off, and a world community indifferent to the prospect of its imminent annihilation. During the month of May Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser had ordered the evacuation of the United Nations peacekeeping observers from Sinai. Eliminating the buffer zone created after the previous Arab-Israeli war, Nasser began to mass troops and tanks along Israel's border. The whole process was accompanied by great fanfare, together with promises that this time Nasser would fulfill his threats: this time the Arab armies would succeed in driving the Jews into the sea. The announcement sent the Arab Middle East into euphoria, and pro-Nasser street demonstrations swept through the region. It was a rallying cry for genocide, amplified by the voice of Cairo Radio and promises that "the Arab people is firmly resolved to wipe Israel off the map." There could be no mistaking the blood-soaked aims of Israel's neighbors. As Nasser himself had promised only two years before, "We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood."
Leaders from across the Arab League soon climbed on the Egyptian bandwagon, propelled by popular demand and fears of retribution should they stand in the way of the glorious victory. By mid-May military treaties had been signed between Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, placing the military assets of all three nations, as well as a considerable contingent of Iraqi troops, at Egypt's disposal. The Egyptian army again cut off Israeli shipping through the Gulf of Aqaba, halting Israeli trade to Africa and the Pacific for the second time since Israel's modern-day rebirth.
The promises of previous administrations in both the United States and Europe "guaranteeing" Israel's right of free passage through the Straits of Tiran in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Sinai had been long forgotten by the time that Nasser's army closed its noose. Neither France, nor Britain, nor the United States, which had worked so hard to convince Israel to withdraw, was prepared to maintain the commitments of previous administrations or of prior convenience. Not only were none of them willing to protect Israel's right of free passage through international waterways, none of them were prepared to aid Israel in fending off the impending invasion.
The all-encompassing, gripping tension of those days is often difficult to convey to succeeding generations. In 1967 the standing Israeli army, in its entirety, numbered fewer than 100,000 soldiers. Even with all of its civilian reservists called up, Israel's total armed force would number a meager 264,000. Arrayed against them was a standing Egyptian army of 240,000 soldiers, another 50,000 Syrian troops, 50,000 Jordanians, and a 70,000-man Iraqi army — not to mention contingents sent from Arab states as far away as Morocco or the Arab League's own military reserves. In terms of both combat aircraft and main battle tanks, Israel's air force and armored corps were outnumbered by nearly three to one. And to add to its dilemma, Israel was facing the prospect of an imminent invasion on three fronts, from borders where Arab guns were already within artillery range of Israel's major population centers. Israeli schools rehearsed air raid drills. Blood plasma was stockpiled. Over fourteen thousand hospital beds were readied for the wounded, and ten thousand graves were dug in anticipation of the worst. In the words of Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban, "The chilling wind of vulnerability penetrated to every corner of the Israeli consciousness. When we looked out at the world we saw it divided between those who wanted to see us destroyed, and those who would not raise a finger to prevent it from happening." Israel again tasted the bitter truth. When crisis came, it could depend on no one but itself.
The way Israel responded next, however, was to forever reshape the Middle East. This small strip of sun-bleached sand, this nation of farmers, peddlers, and refugees, would again do the one thing that so many had never expected Jews to ever do: they fought back. On the dawn of June 5, 1967, the Israeli air force, the Heyl Ha'Avir, staged a preemptive strike on the Egyptian airfields and laid waste to 204 Egyptian warplanes — destroying most of them while they were still on the ground. Within six days Israeli armor and paratroopers had smashed through the Egyptian lines and seized the whole of the Sinai, a territory some 120 mi (190 km) across; had conquered the Jordanian-held territories of Judea and Samaria, including Jerusalem and its holy sites; and had captured the Syrian-held Golan Heights. For the first time in Israel's nineteen years of existence there were no terror bases operating on its borders, no snipers within rifle range of its cities, and no Jordanian or Syrian artillery to open fire on its farmlands from their commanding heights above. Against all odds, outnumbered and outgunned, Israel had won.
The Six-Day War was a turning point in many ways. It marked the first time that the United States began to see Israel as a potential partner, with a significant role to play in the balance of power in the Middle East. The war taught both the Middle East and the world the rising importance of airpower in modern warfare. But it was also the point at which Israel relearned valuable lessons about dependency and about the hazards of relying on foreign powers for its supply of weapons.
Until the Six-Day War, France had been Israel's principal supplier of modern combat aircraft, with the French-built Mirage IIICJ forming the backbone of the Heyl Ha'Avir. In practice, the Mirage III was less agile than the Soviet-built MiG-21s, which then filled out the front lines of the Arab air arms. Further, although it had been designed primarily with the interceptor role in mind, in 1967 the Mirage had been called upon to play a pivotal role in the air-to-ground operations that had devastated the Egyptian air bases in the opening hours of the war. In spite all of its shortcomings, however, the Mirage III was the most potent all-around fighter in Israel's arsenal and had been the centerpiece of Israel's air force modernization plans.
Israel had ordered a follow-on batch of fifty specially reconfigured Mirage fighters, known as the Mirage 5, which were to be built to Israeli specifications and optimized for the attack role. The sale had already been finalized, and the aircraft paid for, prior to the outbreak of war. The Mirage 5 increased the number of weapons pylons available on the airplane from the three seen under the Mirage III to seven. These and other modifications increased the airplane's bomb load from a maximum of 2,000 lb (910 kg), to 9,260 lb (4,200 kg). The new airplane also eliminated much of the original French electronics suite, including the Cyrano radar that had proven so troublesome. Simplifying the electronics package had also provided the Mirage 5 with additional space for an extra 110 gal (420 L) of fuel. While the Mirage IIICJ might have been the star performer in Israel's air-to-air success of 1967, in the view of Israel's tactical planners, what they needed to win the next war was a fighter with more range and more bomb load. The Mirage 5 was intended to provide them with that airplane.
All of this came to an end in June 1967 when the French government of Charles de Gaulle reversed its arms sales policies and imposed an embargo on sales to Israel. The embargo included the fifty Mirage 5 fighters as well as a deal for a dozen missile patrol boats. For over a decade, the unwritten Israeli-French alliance had played a pivotal role in Israeli defense planning. Israel's naval commandos had received some of their very first training from their counterparts in France. Israeli officers attended French military academies. French and Israeli intelligence agencies regularly exchanged reports on developments throughout the region. There had even been a pilot-exchange program, providing Israeli fighter pilots with all-weather flight training in Europe — which they would otherwise seldom have exposure to in the skies of the Middle East. The French-Israeli alliance that had been forged during the Algerian civil war in the early 1950s began to unravel as the French withdrew from Algeria and sought to ingratiate themselves with the oil-rich Arab Middle East. The French would go on to sell the Mirage 5 fighter, with all of the refinements that the Israelis had requested, to both Egypt and Libya, but not to Israel.
The loss of the French warplanes and missile boats came as a severe blow to the Israeli armed forces. Although the United States would eventually step in as Israel's principal arms supplier, the Heyl Ha'Avir was left with no immediate replacements for lost or damaged fighters and without a source of spare parts for the ones that they already had. The memory of this betrayal would be etched deep into the minds of those Israeli officers who, decades later, would champion, and ultimately oversee, the development of the Lavi fighter. Moreover, France was not the only European power to renege on its arms deals with Israel following the Six-Day War. Within a short time Britain too would succumb to visions of cheap oil and would likewise back out of an agreement to supply weapons to Israel.
Under a covert agreement made in the early 1960s, the British had agreed to supply Israel with a number of 1950s-era Centurion tanks, as part of a larger deal that was to have included supplies of the British Chieftain main battle tank, then under development. The British wanted Israeli assistance in adapting the Chieftain for desert conditions, and two prototypes were sent to Israel for testing in 1966. The aging Centurions, which the British badly wanted to unload, did arrive. The promised supplies of Chieftains did not. Britain joined France in publicly declaring an arms embargo against Israel in 1967, and in 1972 it terminated the secret Chieftain-Centurion arms agreement, with no Chieftains having ever been delivered for Israeli use. For decades to come those same battle-worn and many times updated Centurion main battle tanks would form a central component of Israel's armored corps. The Chieftain, meanwhile, went on to arm Israel's neighbors in the Jordanian Arab Legion. Both the French and the British were short-lived arms partners. Betrayal was an experience that Israel's logistical planners had grown accustomed to.
But 1967 was a turning point for this also. For the first time Israel's leadership determined that they would not accept the prospect of being forced to find a new source of arms with every shift in the political winds, nor would they accept making due with upgrading hand-me-downs already several years out-of-date by the time that they arrived. The Israeli government determined that it would have the fighters that the French had promised, as well as the missile boats. And U.S. arms supplies or no U.S. arms supplies, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would never again be held hostage to the politics of a foreign power.
When the Israeli government moved next, it was with all the stealth and cunning that its intelligence agencies could muster. The embargoed missile boats were quietly sold off to a Brazilian "fishing" company. A few days later they showed up in Haifa harbor, flying the Israeli flag. As for the fighter planes, while the French government might have been unwilling to supply weapons to Israel, the leadership of Dassault Aviation — which produced the Mirage — was equally unwilling to return payments already made. Dassault continued to supply aircraft components, assembly jigs, and even blueprints in secret, all in accordance with the previously signed arrangement. This left only the jet engine, which was produced by the French manufacturer Snecma, for which the Israelis still needed fresh deliveries and spare parts. As it turned out, Switzerland had also entered into a contract to license-produce the Mirage. Through the good offices of a few Swiss agents, the Israeli intelligence institute, or Mossad as it is more commonly known, borrowed the blueprints for the Snecma design. With the blueprints in the hands of Bet Shemesh Engines, and with a steady supply of parts and production tooling from Dassault, Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) — a company that only a decade earlier had been known for maintenance of propeller-driven transports — had entered the jet fighter age. This was the beginning of an IAI fighter legacy that would one day lead to the Lavi.
When Israel had declared its independence in May 1948, Lod Airport — the future site of Israel Aircraft Industries' factory and headquarters — had been on the front lines of a contested battleground. The Israeli air force had comprised a few light monoplanes and transports. Under British rule, the Jews of Palestine had been forbidden from bearing arms and the new state's arms industries had been confined to those few that could be carried out in secret — with a handful of underground factories producing homemade hand grenades and Sten guns. The future site of Israel Aircraft Industries was on the edge of a dusty airstrip that was barely distinguishable from any other far-flung corner of the British Empire. Herds of sheep and goats could routinely be seen scrambling among the rocks and nearby hills. At the time, the site looked more likely to produce a donkey cart than a jet fighter in the next twenty years.
Israel Aircraft Industries would begin its existence in 1953 as Bedek Aviation, providing repair and maintenance services for the newly formed Israeli air force as well as for El Al, the Israeli national airline. The first real opportunity for Israel Aircraft Industries to become a manufacturer of airplanes, and not merely a repair house, came when they were awarded a license to deliver the French-designed Magister trainer for the Israeli air force. The Fouga Magister was a two-seat, subsonic jet trainer, which was to provide Israeli Flying School cadets with their first introduction to jet-powered flight. Only the most imaginative of minds could conceive of the Magister as being the forerunner to a modern jet fighter. But while the Magister may have been a far cry from the sleek Mirage, it did provide valuable experience, introducing IAI to basic techniques for component manufacture, airframe assembly, and quality control.
The initial fighter aircraft produced by IAI were manufactured directly from the French design. The Israelis called the aircraft the Nesher (eagle). It was a carbon copy of the Mirage 5, with only minor changes from the French prototype, mostly to the avionics suite. Some forty of these aircraft were produced in time to see service in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
But the Israeli air force was not completely satisfied with the airplane, and in the following years IAI's engineers set about developing a new, evolved aircraft. The result was the Kfir (lion cub), the first prototype of which flew in 1973. While clearly paying homage to their earlier Nesher production experience, the Kfir afforded the IAI development team with their first experience in integrating a complex weapons system, balancing between the competing demands of aerodynamics, structures, avionics, and weapons. Among its many differences from its predecessors, the Kfir utilized an American-built J79 jet engine. Far more powerful than the Atar engine that the Mirage had relied upon, the J79 boasted up to 17,900 lb (79.6 kN) of thrust, compared to the 13,230 lb (58.8 kN) that the Atar 9B had produced. The Kfir was slightly more compact than the earlier Mirage, and the new American engine also operated at higher temperatures, requiring the addition of an air scoop at the base of the vertical tail to cool the aluminum structure that housed the engine. In virtually every performance category that mattered for an attack jet, however, the Kfir was superior.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Lavi by John W. Golan. Copyright © 2016 John W. Golan. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
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Table of Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations,List of Tables,
Preface,
1. The First Lion,
2. Superpower Relations,
3. The Lion's Den,
4. The Next Lion,
5. The Power of Decision,
6. Encountering Turbulence,
7. Mysterious as a Ghost Ship,
8. Funding Measures,
9. The Lion Unveiled,
10. Inside the Department of Defense,
11. With the Sky at Stake,
12. In the Ministry of Defense,
13. Broken Wings,
14. Jerusalem Takes Stock,
15. America in the Mirror,
Appendix Nomenclature,
Appendix 1: Aerodynamics and a Philosophy for Design,
Appendix 2: Stability and Control,
Appendix 3: Airframe and Structure,
Appendix 4: Propulsion and Defining the Mission,
Appendix 5: Avionics, Electronics, and the Man-Machine Interface,
Appendix 6: Armament and Combat,
Appendix 7: Performance and Bringing the Pieces Together,
Notes,
Bibliography,
Index,