2024-08-04 02:49:24
The first F-16 fighter jets arrived in Ukraine on Wednesday, promised by Kiev’s allies from the North Atlantic Alliance to the country, which has been defending itself against Russian military aggression for the third year. The legendary Opera operation of the Israeli Air Force speaks of what the pilots were able to do with the machine, which has been in service for more than forty years.
“Great overload and accurate throw.” A snapshot of the attack on the reactor by Israeli F-16 pilots in 1981. | Video: Aktuálně.cz/YouTube/Isragent
After the United States Air Force, Israel became the first foreign user of the F-16 A Netz. The Jewish state used eight of them to destroy Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981. At the time, he feared that Saddam Hussein’s regime would use him to build a nuclear weapon.
The Israelis attached a Mark 84 multi-purpose bomb weighing 908 kilograms under each wing, and they hung AIM-9 Sidewinder cruise missiles on the ends of the wings in case of air battles. With the additional fuel tanks, the F-16s carried so much weaponry and fuel that the take-off weight was more than a ton over the permitted limit.
The mission itself began just before four o’clock in the afternoon. The Israelis headed for the Saudi border bordering Jordan. In front of his air traffic control, they pretended to be a Saudi Arabian squadron that had strayed over the desert, to confuse the Saudis with a Jordanian air force-style formation.
The fighters flew to a height of thirty to fifty meters and continued for eighty minutes over the desert towards Baghdad. Radio silence had to be maintained and the pilots tried to avoid Saudi early warning systems, the Jerusalem Post reported. Gradually, the pilots dropped the additional tanks.
They then flew into Iraqi airspace. Just before crossing the Tigris River, the formation commander broke radio silence for the first time to warn the others about the high voltage line. An hour and forty minutes after takeoff, the F-16s began to climb sharply with an overload of 7G to a height of three kilometers. “At the top of the climb, they turned on their backs and the pilots started searching for the reactor dome. Then they completed the turn and swooped down on the target. The first F-16A at 17:35,” military technology popularizer Radek Panchartek described the attack for the iDnes.cz server.
The planes attacked with the sharp evening sun at their backs to make the job of Iraqi air defenses more difficult. The first few bombs went through the reactor dome. The other pilots always followed with throws after five seconds. The bombs exploded inside the building, leaving the second formation to target through a cloud of smoke and dust. Watch the video of the attack in the video at the beginning of the article.
Fourteen of the sixteen bombs dropped hit the building. Israeli F-16s were able to destroy a nuclear reactor in just 90 seconds. Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French engineer died in the attack. The planes then headed back and landed at the base near Haifa with almost empty tanks.
From a military point of view, it was a triumph, the Iraqi defense was not able to resist at all, according to the Jerusalem Post. Since the attack on Osirak, F-16s have been involved in many conflicts – from wars in the Persian Gulf to patrolling the airspace over the Balkans to missions in Afghanistan. With more than 4,600 produced, the F-16 is one of the most widespread aircraft in the world. And now they will also help Ukraine.
It is not clear how many fighter jets Kyiv will receive this year, but it will not be more than one squadron of about 20 aircraft, The Washington Post (WP) wrote a few days ago. The fighters are likely to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses. According to the paper, Ukrainian and Western officials warned that the planes were unlikely to have an immediate impact on the situation on the battlefield. According to them, at least initially, they probably won’t fly near the front.
Moscow has condemned Western plans to supply F-16 fighter jets. “It shows that Washington is leading a war gang,” said the spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Marija Zakharova, recalling that Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously stated that the supply of new weapons to Ukraine, including F-16 fighter jets, would only prolong the current fighting.
“Suicide Club.” A giant NATO airbase near Ukraine irritates the Russians. (Full article with video here)
NATO’s largest air base is ready. It lies less than 300 kilometers from Odessa. | Video: Associated Press, Reuters