The History of the Shahak in the IAF:
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The Mirage is undoubtedly the most famous and legendary aircraft to serve with the IAF. By the time the Mirage was in design, Israeli French relations were at a stage were Israeli pilots and engineers were taking part in it's development.
The Mirage was planned as a Cold War Interceptor. The Cold War called for an interceptor that could take off like a rocket, reach the strategic nuclear bomber's altitude as soon as possible and bring it down before it could drop it's bombs.
The new weapon of the 60's was the air to air guided missile, and missiles-only interceptors were the word of the day. The French Mirage took the take off like a rocket thing a little too seriously, and was fitted with a rocket pack that was
fired after takeoff, as the plane razed it's nose up, and propelled the Mirage to an amazing 75,000ft in the nick of time.
But what Israel needed was an air superiority fighter, a fighter that will combat other fighters, not large unmaneuverable strategic bomber. So Ezer Weizman, (commander of the IAF 1958-66), demanded the rocket pack replaced with cannons,
and the option to replace the rocket pod with a pair of 30mm cannons was added to the export versions of the Mirage. The decision to add that guns proved very right when the missiles of that generation turned out to be ineffective against
highly maneuverable fighters. Only when more advanced missiles were fitted to the Mirage later on in it's service, did the number of air victories attributed to missiles supercede those attributed to guns.
70 Mirage IIICJs, 2 Mirage IIICRJ and 4 Mirage IIIBJ (combat capable two seat conversion trainers) were purchased form France, and began arriving to Israel on the 7th of April 1962. They came as a counter to the Soviet MIG-21, that entered service with Arab air forces at the time, and was also a Mach 2 capable, missile armed, radar equipped fighter interceptor. In it's early years, the Mirage suffered from problems with it's engine, guns and radar, some of which were never solved. In it's first years of service 6 Mirages crashed, after their engine failed. Only when the pilot of the 6th Mirage to lose it's engine in midair saw, that if he ejected, his plane would crash into a populated area did the mystery of the failing engine get solved. The pilot stayed in his plane for as long as he could, guiding it beyond the populated area, and placing it in a landing pattern before ejecting. The Mirage kept going without it's pilot, and landed on it's (now empty) external fuel tanks, in a field, just beyond the houses. This miraculous event of a plane landing without it's pilot, gave the IAF's technicians a chance to find out what went wrong with the engine. At high altitude a part of the fuel pump reached extreme temperatures, it melted, and jammed the fuel pump, shutting down the engine. Now that this problem was solved the Mirages at least stopped falling out of the sky for no reason, but another problem was discovered with the engine. As it turned out, when the guns were fired the gasses produced got mixed with the air entering the engines and caused the engine to stall (shut down), not very funny in a single engine fighter, even less funny in battle (were you usually fire the guns). Changes were made, to divert the gasses away from the intakes, and the engine stopped stalling (but still tended to stall when long bursts were fired). But the problems with the retrofitted guns (the plane was not planned with), were not over yet. In it's first 4 years of service the Mirage seemed incapable of hitting a thing. In a number of air battles, Mirages fired accurate shots at MIGs but failed to down any of them. a pair of Mirage pilots decided to take action, and had the guns taken out of one of the Mirages and placed at a gun range. What they discovered were two major problems, the lines of fire of the two guns were too far apart, and simply passed the small MIGs from both sides, and when the shells did hit, they had a delayed charge, that caused them to explode after they passed through the MIG, instead of in it. Once the lines of fire were corrected and new ammo with almost instantaneous charges was ordered, MIGs began dropping out of the sky like flies. The Mirages Radar was so unreliable, that in the next version of the Mirage, ordered by Israel, the radar was simply left out. The final Atar 9B engine problems were solved when in 1971 they were simply replaced with the next generation Atar 9C. These problems with the Mirage did not stop it from gaining more air victories than any other IAF plane. Achieving a total of 282.5 kills, (half a kill is shared with a F-4E), in the course of 3 wars and numerous border skirmishes.
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It achieved its first air victory battles that followed Israeli attempts to farm the demilitarized zone on the Israeli side of the border with Syria, a total of 6 MIGs were shot down that day. In the Six-Day war, the shortage in planes forced the IAF
to give up on fighter escort for it's bombers during the raids against the Arab air bases, in the first part of the war. Except for 12 Mirages (4 in the air and 8 on the ground),
left behind to guard Israel's sky from Arab bombers, all the Mirages were fitted with bombs, and sent to attack the basses containing advanced Fighters, such as the MIG-21. However the Mirage's performance as a bomber was limited, it suffered from
low range, and although it had a potential 4 tons of ordinance, only 1 ton of bombs could be fitted on it's wing pillions, and when fitted did not permit for missiles to be carried. But not all of the Arab air craft were destroyed on the ground,
and out of a total of 58 Arab planes shot down in air combat during the war, 48 were accounted for by Mirages.
After the war, as France placed an arms embargo on Israel, the Mirages were put into an intense maintenance program, aimed at bringing them back to a maintenance level equivalent to that of a brand new plane. As newer air craft entered service with the IAF, (A-4H 1968 3 tons bombs, F-4E 1969 7 tons), the Mirages returned to their original air superiority and Intercept missions. The war of attrition with Egypt was a limited war, and attack on air bases was not an option. So air superiority was achieved in air combat alone. This resulted in over 100 air victories during the long conflict, shared with the F-4E that joined in air to air operations late in the war during 1969. In the 1973 (Yom Kipur war) the Mirage performed in air to air operations only. In the first hours of the war, Mirages and F-4Es stopped a massive attack by Arab jets, bringing down more than 70 of them, during the war Mirages engaged Syrian and Iraqi jets over the missile defended Golan Heights, areas avoided by Israeli bombers because of the extreme SAM threat, (Surface to Air Missile). In the southern front, as the SAM umbrella was pealed off, and the IDF crossed the Suez and advanced into Egypt, the Egyptian air force made a desperate attempt to halt the IDF's advance. The Mirages and F-4Es had a ball, shooting down scores of MIGs. Two Mirages gained a total of 13 kills, and hold the IAF's record for number of kills for a single air craft (one of them in the photo). Another record held by the Mirage is that for longest dogfight, 8.5 minutes, (chasing a Jordanian Hocker Hunter in a desert canyon, 1966).
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Squadrons:
- The "First Fighter" squadron - 1962-1975
- The "First Jet" squadron - 1962-1979
- The "Bat" squadron - 1964-1970
- The "Negev" squadron - 1979-1981
- The "Mid-Land" squadron - 1981-1982
Mirages from the three original squadrons were concentrated in the forth and later the fifth Squadrons, and in 1982/3 the MirageIII ended it's service with the IAF, the last 22 (19-CJ, 3-BJ) active ones were sold to Argentina.
The Mirage was nicknamed "SHAHAK" in the israeli air force, meaning "Heavens". The serial number of each Mirage was a two digit number but for each task, periode or squadron a third digit was added before the two.
