The answer:
This is a member of the Mirage 5 family, seen through the entrance of a Soviet-style Hardened Aircraft Shelter.
It is IAI Nesher serial 517, of the Israeli air force, at the Al-Fayed Egyptian airforce base, on October 24th 1973, the last day of the Yom Kippur war.
>rather dramatic occasion
On the last day of YKW, the Egyptian airforce made an all-out effort to support its 3rd army encircled by Sharon’s division. A large dogfight developed west of the Suez canal, and Moshe Hertz ran too low on fuel in his Nesher (IAI’s version of the Mirage 5) to return to base.
Yom kippur war, out of fuel, over Indian country…
>pretty unlikely circumstances.
Two days earlier, the Israeli ground forces had overrun an Egyptian air base in Africa, Al Fayed airfield. Its runway was repaired by IAF engineers, and re-opened just 3 1/2 hours before Hertz ran out of fuel.
He was able to land safely there.
Al Fayed. like most Egyptian AFBs, had been equiped with Hardened Aircraft Shelters on the Soviet model after the devastating strikes of the 1967 six-days war. Hence the unique photo op.
>what this aircraft is missing is as significant as what it has, to find the occasion.
One of the air-to-air missiles is missing, it was launched during the mÊlÃĐe.
>Like AA’s entry, this airplane had something to do with the African continent. Not at all in the same way as the Gull, though.
Hertz was on CAP over the African side of the canal when he got called into this dogfight. He landed at Al Fayed –in Africa.
>It went from a sort of cuckoo’s nest to another one.
This Nesher took off from Refidim, the formerly Egyptian AF base of Bir Gafgafa taken over by the IDF/AF in 1967. He landed at another Egyptian AFB taken over by the IDF.
Open house, please.
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