50 YEARS OF ISRAELI AF WHAT IFS?

[Radish]

OK, I'm on an Israeli thingy at the moment, and as the Navy's been "covered" and the Army is too, what about 50 year's worth of the Air Force.
But to make it a little more interesting and thoughtful, you must choose only one for the 5 decades of the Israeli Air Force.
So, some possibilities......not necessarily my "tops", but interesting and they'd make super models I'm sure (and that's what it's about, OK):

1950s...Vought AU-1 Corsair, supplied by the US, originally in Sea Blue Gloss with the usual roundels, but later repainted in dark earth and dark blue-grey, with light blue undersurfaces. Yellow, black checked rudder. White codes on the fuselage in front of the national insignia and a unit badge on the forward part of the fuselage, just in front of the cockpit. Very heavily weathered and fully loaded with death.

1960s...Canadair Sabre Mk.6...same finish as the Corsair, but gloss, and with light weathering. Unit badge on the tail and a sharkmouth on the nose intake. Sidewinders.

1970s...North American F-100D, in the sand, tan, mid-green colour scheme with light blue undersurfaces and lots of death for the ground-attack role.

1980s...Jaguar GR.51, in the same colour scheme as above.

1990s...F-18C, with the Kfir ground-attack scheme and colourful tail art.

What d'ya think?

 

[Bryan H.]

Ooh, just five that'll be hard but I'll try...  

1950's - how about some A-1 Skyraiders to go with your Corsairs in the same camo schemes
1960's - Fiat G.91R's to go with your Canadair Sabre's & NA F-100's in the same camo schemes
1970's - Mirage F.1A's also to go with the NA F-100's
1980's - Is there any doubt???  Gotta have A-10's to go with the Jaguar's
1990's - Mirage 2000-5's or if IAI can get the go ahead... forget the Mirage 2000's & go for the homegrown Lavi

Bryan

[Matt Wiser]

OK, Here's my choices:

1950s: F-47 Thunderbolt: better at ground attack than the Mustang, able to take care of itself in a fight, and less prone to battle damage (that big radial engine, especially)

1960s: F-105: Thud, Lead Sled, whatever.  

1970s: A-7 Corsair: Much more capable in terms of weapons capacity and types than the A-4.

1980s/90s: F-14. Need I say more?

Today: F/A-18E/F: Much more improved over the Hornet A/C.

[retro_seventies]

1950s -  DeHavilland Venom, either one of the FB's or just for kicks an NF.

1960s -  RF-101c tactical recce aircraft delivered by the USA in the early 60's and used extensively in operations against israels neighbours (with great success).

1970s -  in the late seventies, israel receives the F-111b as a multi role combat aircraft, complete with phoenix missiles.  By the mid eighties IAI have produced a long range BVR missile of their own, and this is used with the python 3 to arm the F-111b from this point onwards.

1980s -  K3 Viking, bought solely as a "pentration tanker" to accompany and refuel israel's F-111b/F-15/F-16 aircraft on operations beyond israel's borders...ECM upgrades likely.

1990s - Airbus A-320 series based tanker/transport aircraft, to supplement and replace the older examples of the 707 fleet - AWACS version possible in the near future.

[rallymodeller]

My two cents:

1950's: CF-100. Excellent all-weather and night fighter -- probably the best in the world at the time...

1960's: Lightning. Range is not a problem with Israel being so small. Besides, the Saudis have them too...

1970's: A-6 Intruder. Seeing the successes of the type in Vietnam would have an effect. And the Heyl Ha'Avir would be looking at something to carry their non-existent bomb. Would look so cool in cafe-au-lait camo...

1980's: EA-6B's to go with the Intruders. Maybe add a secondary attack capability. And Israel would most certainly go through with the A-6G upgrades, at least as far as reengining and airframe mods...

1990's: Mirage 2000. Kind of an updated Kfir.

[Jennings]

How quickly they forget...

[Shasper]

50's - F-104

60's - F-106

70's - F-5E/F

80's - F-14 / F-20

90's - Lavie / Kfir 2000



My thoughts are also expressed in a alt. IDAF write up on the mainpage.


Ves B)  

[Davey B]

50s: Me-262's built from 'reparation' parts (hey, they got bastardised bf-109's, so why not?)

60s: Mirage IIIEJ

70s: gotta be the A-7E!

80s: F-14s. Lots of F-14s.

90s: AC-130? F-117?    

[Jschmus]

My thoughts are also expressed in a alt. IDAF write up on the mainpage.


Ves B)

Maybe I should refer this to the mods, but that link on the main site actually takes one to Ollie's write-up on Canadian Recon aircraft in Europe.  I like that article, but I'd still like to read yours on the IDF-AF.

[Radish]

OK babies, here's some more....

1950s...A-26B/C Invaders, in vatious schemes, such as all gloss black, later black with dark earth and dark blue-grey uppersurfaces. Tatty, weathered, worn with wingtip-to-wingtip death.

1960s....F-105D/F Thunderchief, at first in the later A-26 scheme, but afterwards the upper surfaces are repainted in the sand, earth, mid-green colours. Light blue undersurfaces.

1970s.....F-5E/RF-5E for Reserve units of the IDF, as well as for foreign volunteers flying in times of stress, conflict, etc.. Standard 3 colour uppersurfaces and grey undersurfaces, but with bright orange identification panels to distinguish them from Jordanian F-5s.

1980s....F-20s...as for the F-5E, but later in the 2 Compass Ghost Grey scheme and thirdly, in the later "Kfir/F-16" scheme, where the mid-green of the 3-colour uppersurfaces is replaced by a green-grey.

1990s.....F-19s....as above for the later F-20s, or all-over matt black with only the Blue Star Of David insignia and blue numbers(all eronious, of course!)

Tail art on everything except the F-19s.

Hey babies, let's rock  

[elmayerle]

50s: Me-262's built from 'reparation' parts (hey, they got bastardised bf-109's, so why not?)

I'm going to have to finish and send Martin my revisions to the Me109TL history I did for Dan on the Luft46 site, it has the Israeli's getting Czech-built ones and doing "interesting" things with them.

[NARSES2]

Only three contributions to this :

1948 War - Hurricanes : II's or IV's
1956 War - French built Vampires
1967 War - Folland Midges

After that my aircraft knowledge starts to dry up as my interest fades I'm afraid

Chris (The Old 'Un)

[Hatchet]

'50s: F-100. Has the added benefit of making JMNs think it's a Super Mystere until they look closely
'60s: F-105s
'70s: Lightning
'80s: Tornado IDS
'90s: Typhoon

I want to do a whif IDF/AF someday, even have some of the kits for it now. there's so many possibilities, F-111, Mirage IV, M2K, Rafale, TSR.2, (Super) Hornet, A-10, A-37, Hawks, Buccaneers.

 

[Shasper]

My thoughts are also expressed in a alt. IDAF write up on the mainpage.

Ves B)

Maybe I should refer this to the mods, but that link on the main site actually takes one to Ollie's write-up on Canadian Recon aircraft in Europe.

I suspect a plot here ..................................


Ves B)  

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

OK, I'm in....

1950's P-47N's - Loads of them around, lots of ex USAAF personnel in 'Palestine' to service & fly them. Intially RLM 02/Light Blue to match the 'Mules' then Tan/Blue Grey/Light Blue.

1960's Hunters (Natch) - Initially British equivellant of the Tan/Blue Grey scheme (I'm thinking Light Earth and Dark Sea Grey with 'Aluminium' undersides), later repainted by the Israelis in the three-tone desert scheme.

1970's (Been mentioned a couple of times in this thread) A-7's in the three-tone camo (some with 23rd TFW style sharks teeth   )

1980's The A-7's are joined by A-10's in the same scheme.

1990's to today, F-20's instead of lawn darts  :f16:  (ughh !) - some in the later pastel three-tone desert scheme, others in air-superiority greys.

NOTE TO RADISH.....
NEVER, and I mean NEVER, put a five plane limit on anything to do with desert camo WhIf's generally and Israeli stuff particularly - you have NO idea how bl**dy difficult it was for me to make these choices.... I'm goin' now to take lots of asprin and have a lie-down in a rubber room for a couple of days  

Ian