Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

THE ISRAELI EXPERIENCE
installations and ensuring that any enemy pilot who subsequently chose to
fly over the Sinai would have to do so “blind” without knowing when or
where he might meet Israeli fighters.S6 By nightfall, total Arab losses were
estimated at 380 aircraft, while Israel admitted the loss of “19 pilots, of
whom 8 were killed and 11 are missing. ... Details of our planes lost are 4
Ouragons, 4 Mysteres, 4 Super-Mysteres, 2 Mirages, 1 Vautour and 4 Fouga
Magi~ters.”~’ The Fougas had all been lost while providing close air support
for the Army, most of the others to ground fire; only 2 machines had been
shot down in air-to-air engagement^.^^
About twenty Egyptian aircraft were destroyed in air combat, and
something of the tactics employed can be gleaned from accounts of specific
engagements. A Mirage pilot over the Sinai, credited with three victories in
the war, “discovered four MiG-19s flying around below us. We came down
on them. Number One stuck on to the tail of the last one and brought him
down, then he took on the third and brought him down too,” he reported.
“Then he made room for me. Meanwhile, the two others had discovered us
and turned around to fight us. I had a short battle with them. At a given
moment I was sitting on the tail of the last one and gave him a short burst,
but missed. Apparently my sights had gone wrong. I continued chasing him
until I was in a convenient position for shooting, fired without using the
sights, and hit him with one of my
A Mirage might be expected to dispose of a MiG-19 without too much
trouble but, by the same criteria, a MiG-21 should have been able to do the
same to a Super-Mystere. Not so. “On the first day of the war we took off
to attack a MiG-21 air base by the name of Teykel, located far in the mountainous
area of northeastern Syria,” recalls another pilot.
When we reached the base we were surprised to see two MiG-21s circling above it.
We had to switch from bombing to fighting. I ordered my No. 4 to draw the nearer
MiG into a disadvantageous position. But the MiG was not decoyed easily. He went
after No. 4 until he saw me coming at him. This sent him into a crazy pattern of
aerobatics; he kept firing into the air like mad. I got him in my sights at about 150-
200 meters and let go with two bursts. The first one hit his wing and sent him into a
spiral dive. . . . In the meantime, Nos. 3 and 4 were engaging the other MiG. They
got him in the wing tips. The MiG began to roll over quickly-the
control of the plane-then crashed.m
pilot had lost
From that account there seems little doubt that the MiGs were mishandled.
The Super-Mysteres were far from home, with limited fuel, and the
MiGs were faster, with that “sparkling acceleration” and better rates of
climb. The Syrians should have gained height and then dived on the Israelis
in “hit and run” passes designed to keep them from their homeward course
even if they could avoid being shot down. Instead, the Syrians chose to
dogfight at low altitude, engaging in a “crazy pattern of aerobatics”
virtually guaranteed to topple their gyro gunsights, which lacked stability
at high “Gs,’’~’ a tactic which says more for their courage than their
judgement.
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