It should be posted either this weekend or the next.

Pentagon denies seeking Yaron’s dismissal

By Nathan Guttman and Aluf Benn

WASHINGTON – The United States Department of Defense denied yesterday that Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith is demanding the resignation of Israeli Defense Ministry director general Amos Yaron.

But Israeli sources said that General John Jumper, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, recently canceled a planned visit to Israel because he was unwilling to meet with Yaron. The Pentagon instructed Jumper to refrain from meeting Yaron, the sources said, and when Israel refused to accept this boycott, the visit was canceled.

According to reports in the Israeli media on Wednesday, Feith is demanding Yaron’s head because he believes that Yaron misled him over an Israeli defense sale to China.

A Defense Department spokesman said yesterday that the U.S. is worried by Israel’s technology sales to China, but views this as a problem of policy, not of personalities, and has no intention of interfering with Israel’s senior defense appointments. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Danny Ayalon heard similar comments from senior Pentagon officials with whom he spoke yesterday.

But Israeli sources said that Feith has severed all ties with Yaron in recent months. Former Israeli Air Force commander Herzl Bodinger tried to mediate, they said, but the American official insisted: “It’s either me or Yaron.”

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said yesterday that he fully backed Yaron and has no intention of replacing him.

Though American officials denied that Yaron is an issue, they stressed that the policy dispute over Israeli-Chinese deal is real. Israel claims that the deal involved routine maintenance of a system that had originally been sold to China with American approval. But the Pentagon claims that Israel upgraded the system, thereby violating its commitment not to transfer American technology to China without Washington’s permission.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/515620.html

Israeli AF planes in Ugandan hands.
Let this thread grow! 😀 😀 😀

The pilot behind the Fuga’s canopy (touching it) is a father of a friend of mine. He was one of the Israeli pilots that brought the Fugas to Uganda. A very nice find, he was happy to see it.
Thanks 😉

Hi

I use a Canon 300D/Digital Rebel camera. All the pictures, except the Super Hornet one, was taken with a Canon 75-300mm lens. The Super Hornet one was taken with a Sigma 170-500mm lens.

If you like you can find more pictures at my homepage. I have just redesigned the page, so if anyone drops by feel free to send me a comment on the look and usefullness of the site 🙂

Regards

Wow, a machine way over my league, both because of money and photographing skills.
Well, I’m happy with my Z2 (which is a nice camera, 10X optical zoom, nice mega pixel and all, yet a joke next to your’s).
How far were you standing from the planes?

Some of these were posted on this forum in the past, others are just picked up while surfing the net. But I need some help to ID them for my personal collection. You can think of it as a kind of quiz, only I don’t know the right answers 😉

1 – MiG-31 rear cockpit??
2 – note the yoke
3 – Are these the cockpits of the Su-25K and Su-25KM?
4 – elta ELM-2032, but which aircraft carriers this radar?
5 – Radar d’Ouvres…ww2 radar? german?
6 – Lynx from ….?
7 – F-16 from ….?
8 – Strikemaster from …?
9 – Hind from …?
10 – USAAF …..?

3. Su-25 before and after the Elbit/Aerostar Scorpion upgrade.
8. Dan (dan_pub) will know.

Additional details:

F-16s were from 110 and 117 tajeset, callsign Eshkol and Izmal

Direct escort provided by two pairs of F-15A (lead by Moshe Marom and Eitan Ben-Eliyahu). Another pair of F-15s were patrolling over Western Iraq near Jordanian border, additional four F-15s were located over Dead Sea to prevent Jordanian fighters to mix in the possible battle with IrAF.

From 16 bombs, 14 hit the target but two Mk84 failed to explode. A sole French worker died in Osirak.

After the bomb drop all pilots confirmed their positions, except Eshkol-4 (Ilam Ramon) which was busy with evasive maneuvres. A sole Iraqi MiG approached to intercept the aircraft, but the pilot did not have enough courage to attack.

The Opera mission lead to US stopping delivery of last 22 F-16s in the Peace Marble I programme (later called off), as well as all Iraqi officers with the rank of Captain and higher responsible for the air defense of the Tammuz-3 sector being immediately executed by the autocratic regime.

Unconfirmed reports from 1981 state that Iraqi defenses located unknown aircraft in the area at that time, but the targets were identified as Iranian fighters.

RF-4E(S) Peace Jack No 498 from 119 Matos features two kill markings on its nose, one Iranian and one Iraqi roundel. It is supposed that this machine has been used for recon mission during the preparation of the mission Opera.

A few minor corrections:
tajeset= Tayeset
Izmal= Izmel
‘Matos’ is “plane”, you meant squadron= Tayeset
And in Hebrew, unlike English, we can only say (for example) ‘Tayeset’ 119, and not 119 ‘Tayeset’.
F-4E (S) 498 shot down only an one Iraqi aircraft, a MiG-21. It later served in the ‘One’ squadron. You can see an excellent picture of it in airliners.net
Look for pictures of Ofer Zidon.

from which air base they departed from

if possible, the name of the pilots and how the IDF chose them..
(I heard that they carefully chose pilots who were billingual in Hebrew and Arabic, could any one clarify this?)

the route they took (I know they chose a specific route and flew closely together to appear as one giant aircraft on the radar).

They took off from Etzion AFB, 15:55 pm. In 17:35 they were over the target.
Names are mostly unavailable. Another known pilot is Amos Yedlin. They were the cream of the IDF/AF. They were inteviewd personally by the then Chief of staff that died couple of weeks ago, Refael Eitan (Raful).
The route was generally from Etzion to Aqaba, then over Saudi Arabia to Iraq. King Hussein of Jordan saw them on his yacht 😎