Bombing, too, was computerized. The weapons system employed a graphic bomb line shown on the screen that locked on the target, allowing the pilot to guide the aircraft along the line until a circle at the end, called the “death dot,” covered the target. The pilot then pressed the pipper, the “bombs-away” button, and “pickled off” the bombs, which could hit within 15 feet of the target. The F-4 hit within 150 feet.
Ivry was convinced the F-16 could give his pilots a much needed technological advantage in attacking Osirak—if the plane performed in actual combat as advertised. But questions remained: When could the fighters be delivered? And how could a radically new aircraft be integrated virtually overnight into IAF doctrine, one of the most complex in the world?
Known as Cheyl Ha Avir, or Corps of the Air, the IAF’s dogma and tactics were highly sophisticated, continually being refined by combat experience. By 1980 the IAF had recorded some 700 kills in the air, and 13,000 total since its inception in 1947—more than all fighter kills by all the countries in World War II combined. Planes were maintained 24–7. Pilots were drilled mercilessly in the assets they had. Given the present timing of Osirak’s completion, to even consider using F-16s against the reactor, the pilots, support crews, and maintenance techs would have to be trained and “expert” in the plane’s electronics, weapons, and navigation systems in six months—a process that normally took two years.
To pull it off, Ivry would need the best and most fearless pilots. And some, perhaps, a little crazy.
In the fall of ’79, the general asked his IAF commanders to recommend their best pilots to begin training in the F-16s. Each commander argued for his nominee, but ultimately Ivry personally selected twelve pilots to attend the USAF’s Operational Training School for the F-16 at Hill Air Force Base outside Salt Lake City, Utah.
The assignment was considered a huge honor and was passed down the normal chain of command. The operational training regimen lasted ninety days. The men would attend in three groups of four, then return for reassignment to Ramat David Air Force Base, north of Tel Aviv in the heart of the Jezreel Valley. Ramat David would be home base to the IAF’s newly constituted F-16 squadron, under the direct command of the base commander, Col. Iftach Spector, a nearly legendary F-4 Phantom pilot in the IAF. Though the ultimate business plan of the new franchise would still have to be worked out, for now its first mission would be to form two squadrons expert in the F-16 and ready to train other pilots. No one outside Begin’s security cabinet and IDF high command knew anything about Osirak.
The first pilot Ivry called to headquarters was Zeev Raz, a thirty-two-year-old lieutenant colonel and father of four. Zeevi, as he was known by his pilots, was a wing commander. Like the general, Raz preferred to skip the b.s. Trim, athletic, with dark hair, he had warm, friendly green eyes that helped soften his brusque, all-business demeanor. In his preoccupation to just get the job done, Raz could be rude, but he was also understanding and loyal, loved to read and study history, and doted on his four children. Neither man had time for the “interior” life. Asked what they “felt” about something, each would look puzzled. Ivry would screw up his wispy mustache and raise his eyebrows, as though such an idea had never occurred to him. In life, there were things a man wanted to do, things a man needed to do, and things a man had to do. What did feelings have to do with anything?
Raz had dreamed of flying ever since he was a small boy living in the tight-knit farming community of Kibbutz Giva in the Jezreel Valley. He had been bitten by the flying bug the day of his bar mitzvah, having been given a telescope as a present. As the guests danced and ate, Raz sneaked out to the backyard and used the telescope to watch a squadron of French Mirages land at the air force base just a half mile from his home. They seemed so beautiful and graceful. And how wonderful to soar far above the earth, free of its cares and problems. But the truth was that, despite his dreams, deep down, Raz, a sensitive, introverted boy who loved to read and think by himself, could never truly see himself as a fighter pilot. So after high school, when he asked to test to enter elite pilots’ training, he was stunned to learn that he had actually passed the exams. Indeed, after he enrolled in flight school, he found that his instincts had been correct: he was not a “natural” flier, the way some people were born musicians or athletes. Learning to fly, to become an Israeli fighter pilot, one of the world’s most elite warriors, proved almost impossibly difficult.
Enrolling at eighteen or nineteen right out of high school, instead of following college as in the United States, only two out of ten candidates made the cut at Hatzerim Air Base in southern Israel. But fiercely dedicated, obsessively thorough, Raz fought his way through to become one of the IAF’s top pilots. By the time he graduated to F-4s, he had proven to be a natural leader as well.