Talk:Israeli Air Force

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Contents

[edit] Questionable Information and POV

The section "Records and Highlights" should be just that - HIGHLIGHTS. It is not to be a running commentary on details of war. Look at how much is listed for, say the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, etc. There are wiki articles for each of those wars, this article is just about the Israeli Air Force.

That said, just about everything under "Israel-Lebanon Conflict: July 2006 - Present" is inappropriate to this article, no matter which side of the conflict you agree with. All that should be listed are RECORDS AND HIGHLIGHTS of the IAF. If someone wants to write about the "Israel-Lebanon Conflict: July 2006 - Present" they should write in the wiki article for that. As such, I am removing most of the comments under "Israel-Lebanon Conflict: July 2006 - Present"

But the criticism do represent a highlight... look at the USAF article. Its not a running commentary to put in criticism as long as they can sourced (which they can be). Keep in mind that you don't WP:OWN this article. Sasquatch t|c 19:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


There is an appropriate place to put in details about the conflict, and that is the article ABOUT the conflict, 2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict this section which keeps getting edited is about RECORDS AND HIGHLIGHTS. THAT'S IT.
But this is a HIGHLIGHT... again, look at the USAF ariticle... anyways, i say we eliminate that all together by just making this a history section, then we can include any sourced criticisms... Sasquatch t|c 22:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
How about adding to the "records and highlights" for every war, a listing of all details of those wars? Here's why: because each of those wars has their own wiki page. The reason I have a stick up my butt about this, is that there ar a ton of people monitoring the 2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict page to make sure it's balanced, but this page is one of those secondary pages that people don't notice. I GUARANTEE you that if the comments I just removed such as "the airstrikes are aimed at crippling Lebanon's growing economy" were in the main article, they would be deleted in about five seconds.



I looked through what I had written and corrected any words that may have even remotely appeared to you to have "proved Israel right on every object" (i.e.- changed stated to claimed). I think that we can agree that as it stands right now it is, if not completely unbiased, pretty close to being so.

And, by the way, I did not literally mean that I thought that you were interpreting NPOV as " Nasrallah's Point of View", it was sarcastic humor. Moparmatt 03:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


I didn't meant NPOV for " Nasrallah's Point of View" but for [NPOV].The language you used, showed that you were proving israel right on every object.


First of all, put a space between your comment and that of others, please. It is much easier for everyone to read and discuss that way.

Second of all, I do not feel that saying what both sides claim is an Israeli POV. What I have written is from an objective POV, sharing both sides claims and reporting the facts of this conflict. You stated definitively that AIPAC was actively involved in a conspiracy to cover-up the crashes of Israeli jets... and you had no proof but an obviously kook conspiracy theory website to back it up. You also falsely attributed a statement to an Israeli official to make it seem that he valued his aircraft more than his soldiers.

Just to let you know, NPOV does not stand for " Nasrallah's Point of View", it stands for No Point of View. Moparmatt 21:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


So you have Israeli Pov instead of NPOV


As the individual earlier mentioned, of an Arab POV has reverted the article, I have edited it so that it is not full of anti-Israel conspiracies and rhetoric.

I have edited the section regarding the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict, as the previous edits both distorted the facts distinctly towards Hezbollah, as well as provided non-factual information with citations that did not support these claims. Probably the most egregious example was this deliberate misquotation:

As an IDF Brigadier-General Alon Friedman told the Israeli paper Maariv: "It's possible that in the coming days our ground operations will increase. For this reason the strategy of IDF have been changed to ground attack instead of losing more aircraft to ground fire as these are much costly then whole group of soldiers."[1]

The person who wrote this article was blatantly biased against Israel, as evidenced by the addition of a sickening statement, that a plane is more valuable than human lives, to the original quote.

Further evidence can be found in the individual's misuse of plural and singular tenses, as well as the exaggerations of the amount of casualties inflicted on the IAF.

[edit] Possible Copy Right infringement

The following

* The Israeli Air Force is considered as the strongest air force is the Middle East and as one of the best and most sophisticated air forces in the world. The Israeli combat pilots are considered as the best in world, together with the American pilots, and hold a large number of shoot-downs records.

  • June 5, 1967 - the Six Day War: The destruction of the entire Egyptian air-force within 3 hours. By the end of the day the Syrian and Jordanian air forces were wiped out as well. The IAF achieved a total air-superiority for the rest of the war, that ended with an amazing victory for Israel. The IAF shoot-down total at the end of the war was a claimed record of 451 enemy aircraft downed versus of its own 10 downed. See: Operation Red Sheet.
  • Obtaining the first shoot-downs for the American fighter jets, the F-15 and the F-16.
  • 1981: The first and only attack in history of a nuclear reactor; The destruction of the Iraqi Osiraq nuclear reactor: Eight IAF F-16 fighters flew to Iraq and bombed the nuclear facilties of Osiraq. Among the pilots that took part in the attack was the late Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut.
  • 1982: The destruction of the entire Soviet-Syrian air-defence system in Lebanon without a single warplane lost; Syria with the U.S.S.R built up an overlapping network of SAMs, and the density of SAM site locations was unmatched anywhere in the world including the U.S.S.R. itself. Also the IAF achieved in dogfights a total of 80 Syrian planes shoot-downs, without a single Israeli plane being shot down.
  • 1985: The bombing of PLO Headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia, the longest combat mission ever undertaken by the IAF.
  • The only documented emergency landing of an F-15 with only one wing. A few months later, the damaged F-15 had been given a new wing, and returned to operational duty in the squadron. The engineers at McDonnell Douglas had a hard time believing the story of the one-winged landing: as far as their planning models were concerned, this was an impossibility.
  • In the United States Air Force and the air forces of several European countries, an ace is a pilot who has shot down 5 or more enemy planes. The Israeli Air force boasts 39 pilots who shot down 5 or more planes, and 10 of these have shot down more than 8 planes.
  • One of these pilots, Col. (Res.) Giora Even (Epstein), stands out as the unquestioned Ace of Aces, having shot down a record 17 (seventeen!) planes in the course of his amazing career. Epstein has held his record for 25 years, and needless to say - is a true IAF icon, and an object of veneration for generations of IAF pilots. And the record is not confined to the IAF: according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the world record holder for jet air victories is an American pilot who shot down 16 planes. Apparently, someone had better tell the Guinness guys about Giora Epstein.
  • 687 enemy airplanes have been shot down in dogfights since Israel`s birth- May of 1948, while only 23 Israeli planes have been shot down by enemy planes since 1948.
  • IAF is holding world records for the air force with the highest number of enemy's warplanes shoot-downs, air combats, special operations, and air to ground operations, since the end of World-War II.
[2]

has some parts copied from here and consist of possible copy rights infrigment. Hence, the page is reverted to previous version. User: 62.0.93.195, your contribution is welcomed, but please try to summarize the data instead of copy it. See also: Wikipedia:copyrights. MathKnight 11:38, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)


The text says Giora Epstein has the record for jets shot down, but in fact Captain Nikolai Sutyagin holds the record with 21 jets shot down on the Eastern Front during World War II.

  • You mean the Korean War.


  • In WW-II there were no JET planes. The pilots were flying PISTON planes. When it is said that someone is holding the world record of JETS shoot downs, it is referred to the era after WW-II...

Regards, Danny

And what about Me-262s? Some were reportedly shot down.

Sutyagin was a Korean War ace who has 21 CLAIMED wictories. I found a site that disputes this claim (as it does for many other aces on both sides) and claims that Yevgeni Pepelyayev was the Korean top scorer with 12 confirmed victories. Of course, Epstein`s record still needs confirmation from a non Israeli-source (though I am certain that a great aviator is in question)

Veljko Stevanovich

The most most successful jet fighter pilot was not the American ace, Capt. Joseph McConnel, but the German ace Oberstleutnant Heinz Bär. McConnel shot down 16 aircraft whilst flying jets during the Korean war, and Bär was also the victor of 16 combats whilst flying Messerschmitt Me262A jet fighters at the end of World War Two.

What makes Bär more successful is that the 16 aircraft he destroyed while flying jets were merely the last 16 in Bär's final tally of 220 aerial victories during the war. No other pilot of jet combat aircraft of any nationality approaches Bär's total record of success.

  • Pepelyaev has 19 confirmed kills making him the confirmed top scoring jet ace.

[edit] Israelis beat Germans

"Israeli air force pilots handily beat their German counterparts in "dogfights"..." Many doubt that this was so. Does this controversial and unverified statement belong in an encyclopedic article?

I agree, so I'm going to remove it, at least until a credible source is provided. I just hope it doesn't turn into a revert war. 69.218.239.36 04:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I just added the only somewhat reliable reference I could find here, and have reincluded the paragraph. There should definitely be some comparison between the IAF and other air forces, though this quote isn't perfect. Joshdboz 22:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know ... the anonimity bit seems a little iffy. Do you have any better sources? 69.218.208.195 01:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

This whole article is starting to look kinda iffy. I'm looking at the article on the Yom Kippur War, a featured article, and it said that 102 Israeli Air Force aircraft were shot down (this article brags). So I'm removing the paragraph that says the Israeli Air force has only suffered 23 casualties since its birth. I think this article needs reviewed by an unbiased, yet knowledgable source. 69.211.140.39 20:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


1967 War - the downed planes I believe were shot while on the ground in a sneak attack - preemptive war, other articles in this wiki praise/excuse the preeemptive strike ( get the stories together please - is there an editor? ) ...reviewed by an unbiased,... not very likely ...knowledgable source.... yes this is ( wiki is not made up of fools or uneducated dopes but unbiased is unfortunately not its strong suit ) but take most of it with a grain of salt.

Um ... the Israelis pre-empted the Egyptians, so I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. Oh, and what stories are you talking about? I'm kind of knowledgable on this subject. 70.227.192.22 21:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Non-Neutral POV and Factual errors

The following clearly violates neutrality guidelines:

"IAF has started a campaign to bomb urban areas, highways, Hezbollah positions and international aiports. In these raids at least 400+ have been killed,1500+ have been injured and a majority of them have been hospitalized. Further 500,000+ have been displaced as of 24 July.

In this process a IAF F-16I was shot down over Beirut by Hezbollah ground fire, after she pounced some Hezbollah postions. The pilot is believed dead.-But Israeli and world media especially the American media due to pressure from American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other such organisations;are trying to best of their ability to misconfirm this as this will be big damage to IAF record.[3]"Conspiracy of silence".

On the other hand IDF tries to denies the loss of any aircraft by saying that it was the a long range missile of Hezbollah which fired after "a battery of them" was pounded by IDF jets. Now the Israeli are trying to give it a new colour by saying it crashed while taking off for a combat mission. Another incident involving an IAF F-16I was the crash of such a plane while it was taking off. The takeoff gear was damaged and the Pilots launched out another propaganda. As an IDF Brigadier-General Alon Friedman told the Israeli paper Maariv: "It's possible that in the coming days our ground operations will increase." For this reason the strategy of IDF have been changed to ground attack instead of losing more aircraft to ground fire as these are much costly then whole group of soldiers.[1]

Also after this US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (codi) has arrived to put some pressure on Lebanon to curb the Hezbollah[4],otherwise the US will have to intervene with it's own jets to bomb Beirut because Israelis don't want their soldiers to die while rescuing their fellows. She has also brought bomb with her[5].She has also arrive to give Israel enough time for it brutal action in Lebanon[6]

A helicopter has been shot down by Hezbollah which again Israeli army spokeswoman try to blame on technical

problems in middle of war.[7].Both pilot are dead[8].

This bring the total number of helicopter lost by IAF in this conflict to 3. Another two bumped into each other and were destroyed. What a beautiful explanation for loss. what a possibility why doesn't it happen in peace time?"

In addition, several of the citations say noting about that which they are included to support, or explicitly state the opposite:

[3] is cited in support of the following:

"In this process a IAF F-16I was shot down over Beirut by Hezbollah ground fire, after she pounced some Hezbollah postions. The pilot is believed dead.-But Israeli and world media especially the American media due to pressure from American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other such organisations;are trying to best of their ability to misconfirm this as this will be big damage to IAF record."

Not only does the article say nothing about attepmted media cover-ups benefitting anyone, but the citation also attempts to use an opinion article as backup for a factual statement.

[4] is cited as support for the statement "For this reason the strategy of IDF have been changed to ground attack instead of losing more aircraft to ground fire as these are much costly then whole group of soldiers." The article makes no such assertation

[5] is cited as support for the statement "...otherwise the US will have to intervene with it's own jets to bomb Beirut...", when in fact the article itself quotes Ms. Rice as saying "We are looking at what kind of international assistance force makes sense, but I do not think that it is anticipated that U.S. ground forces are expected for that force,"

[6] is cited as support for the statement "She has also brought bomb with her" Ms. Rice is not even mentioned in this article.

[edit] Npov

the lines in bold were comment by somebody of arab Pov.The source 2 was about the Influence of [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] on media.this might be an opinion but it is fact that this committee has too much influence on media.what happens to anyone who says anything against zionist. jews are a different story? the source 3 show what have been changed "instead of bombardment troops are moved in" does this source needs to mention it in clear words that israeli air power is something of show and then get a office bombed which will be blame on al-qadea. source 4 does US need to martyr her own soldiers for the casue of protecting her captors.and why must US intervene with ground troops when it has so called precision missiles to fire on bireut and landing on tel aviv.what a wonderful guidance system these have.to confirm check record of BGM-109 Tomahawk. about source 5 the bomb deal was finalled on as quickly as she arrived in mid east.did you read the date and time. about source 5 does not this confirm the arab pov

President Bush said Saturday that his administration's diplomatic efforts in the Mideast will focus on strategy for confronting Hezbollah and its supporters in 

Syria and Iran.

"Iran's regime has also repeatedly defied the international community with its ambition for nuclear weapons and aid to terrorist groups," Bush said. "Their actions threaten the entire Middle East and stand in the way of resolving the current crisis and bringing lasting peace to this troubled region."

---Thank you for proving my point!!

If this "American/Israel Public Affais Committe" does indeed have undue influence on the media's portrayal of Israel, wouldn't it be more appropriate to create a new entry in which to raise those points, and then link to that internally?

I didn't say the "bomb deal" was or wasn't finalized coincidentally with Ms. Rice's arrival in the Levant. All I said was that the article cited to support that statement in fact said absolutely nothing at all to that end. It still doesn't.

why do need a article which will be deleted after a hour only.the article cited have the same date as the visit of Rice.She is there to give support to Israeli operations is this not a true story or still it look fiction.And what is israeli operation a senior bully crushing on one class children after a one class student hit him with a pencil.About the recall of aircraft if you a little knowledge of Aircrafts every aircraft down is investigated and sorties are sometimes canceled after a crash is know.so does the iaf do if you have someting of in.you are doing the samething to that person as the [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] do any one speaking the lang. of Witness they blame him/her to be of wrong view and they themselves have many experts on thier hand, to pour in their knowledge in support of US and Israel.they try to blame every thing to something which should be a workmanship mistake or a technical problem not the work of their opponents.like the exp. is here somebody wrote the article,and he or she was blamed as having arab pov.what about all those who have a Israeli pov.does the statement of a witness is wrong and somebody who have just seen it on tv is true at all costs.And i could like to ask how do the a organistion such as Hezb got a shipment of long range missiles, was the cia sleeping or they just want to blame Iran for everthing that goes wrong with their intel. why does not there is something called arieal recon photo by israel of any long rang missile in hezb store room or on the move.

[edit] Cleaning the F-15 trivia

The trivia about an "emergency landing of an F-15 with one wing" is absolutely fasle. As a pilot of many hundreds of flight hours I can swear this is not possible because you need to have a balance of lifting forces in both sides of the aircraft's center of gravity. Flying with a part of wing missing is possible (but not usual), flying without a wing is not. You can find a set of pictures of the dammaged aircraft wich are bad fakes. In those you can see different weapons configurations on the same aircraft and a naked people on the runway below the plane (second picture) !!! That's why I think cleaning this trivia is a good thing for wikipedia. you can join me as " seb' " on the french wikipedia.


–This is true. You can contact Boeing if you want and ask them. DeepSpace 09:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

-2nd. From the Wikipedia article on the F-15, with link: "On May 1, 1983 during an Israeli Air Force training dogfight, an F-15D collided with an A-4 Skyhawk. The right wing of the Eagle was, unknowingly to pilot Zivi Nadavi, torn off roughly two feet (0.6 m) from the body. The pilot disobeyed his instructor's command to eject and managed to land the crippled aircraft successfully. The aircraft was able to land because of the large horizontal surface area of the tail and the amount of lift generated by the engine intake and body [7]."

World War Two German Aircraft

I believe this part of the early history text is incorrect. The Avias were Czech built BF109 airframes with Jumo engines, and were never used by the Germans in this configuration. I cant think of a single German WW2 aircraft that was used by the IAF. The Avias came from the Czech's, the P51's came from Sweden and the Spitfires came from Czeck's.

If you would read Fighter Wing, by Tom Clancy, this incident was also cited as a testament to the rugged reliability of the F-15. Of course, it requires a good enough pilot to compensate for the lift force, but I'm sure the Israelis have lots of those

Some asshole has wrote something about the Hizballah and Muslams and used this page to express his ideas about the IAF.

To the original writer oof this article - please rebuilt this article.

thanks.


--

So borring to always repeat the same things to clean this so old trivia...

M.D via Boeing let us know many times this is absolutely incorrect. This trivia was created by Patrick Havens who lives in Napa, California.

On this website [[8]] you can find a set of 8 pictures of showing this landing "with one wing". On the 2nd picture , you can see on right, below, a naked people (or puppy??)

On pictures 3-4-5-7, you can see different weapon configurations on the left wing : Aim-9 sidewinder and no fuel tank on picture 4, no sidewinder but fuel thank on all the others !!!! on picture 3 if you're good , you can see the photograph cut, but not the 2 ft left of the wing.

On this website [[9]] you can see a picture of 1993 of the f-15 in question, whithout the 5 killmarks pretended by your website. Watch carrefully... this f-15 is owned by USAF, not IAF !!! first fly ever of a f-15D is February 26, 1979, so it couldn't have 5 airkills duirng this time. Besides, the pictures shows the F-15 flaps are open during the landing, despite the pilot needed to reduce the lift of this wing. Furthermore you cannot see any correction applied by the rudder, the elevators or roll flaps....

I hope I help you to open your eyes... if not, just buy a flight manual or have a talk with a good flight instructor... you don't have to be ashamed to believed this story, even some beginner pilots believed it to.

lastly, despite this false trivia, it is right that IAF is one of the very best of Air Forces in the world , because of its jet and its pilots. if you have any questions --- my profile is " seb' " on the french wikipedia.

This isn't the place to be discussing the F-15 trivia. Take it to the F-15 Talk page.--chris.lawson 23:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merging History and Records and Highlights

Looking at other air force articles such as USAF or RAF or Royal Canadian Air Force, perhaps we should just maintain one history section on this article? Thoughts? Sasquatch t|c 20:00, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] name of article

Shouldn't it be Israel Air Force (without the genititve-i? (like Israel Defense Forces) --Pax:Vobiscum 09:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps not - the official website for the IAF calls itself the "Israeli Air Force". Ottershrew 22:52, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CH-53 Caption

I've removed part of the recently added text to the caption accompanying the CH-53 photo. I see that text as subtle POV pushing - over-emphasizing the fact that one such aircraft was shot down in the recent war over Lebanon, while none of the other aircraft photos in the article have anything similar. The editor who insists on adding that text claims he's doing so becuase the aircraft are not well-known. In that case, I wonder if he;d be Ok with a caption that says "CH-53 landing, similar to the ones used to ambush Iraqi convoys in the Yom Kippur War" ?

I will not be ok with such a caption because aircraft crash is major incident and there is no need of mention which aircraft ambushed which convoy.User talk:Yousaf465

You claime dthat you added the caption becuase people are not familiar with the aircraft. I'm glad to see you've backed of that nonsensical charge. An aircraft being downed in a war is a hardly a major incident - it is a trivial, common and expected event. You are merely POV pushing. Isarig 05:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)