Sunday, March 13, 2011

IAI Nesher

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Nesher
IAI Finger at Air Fest 2010
Role Multi-role fighter aircraft
Manufacturer IAI
First flight 1971
Introduced 1972
Retired 1977 (Israel)
Status Active service
Primary users Israeli Air Force
Argentine Air Force
Number built 61 (51+10)
Developed from Dassault Mirage 5
The Israel Aircraft Industries Nesher (Hebrew: נשר, "Vulture" - often mistranslated as "Eagle") is the Israeli version of the Dassault Mirage 5 multi-role fighter aircraft. Most were later sold to the Argentine Air Force as Daggers, and later upgraded as Fingers.
 

Contents

  • 1 Design and development
  • 2 Operational history
    • 2.1 Israel
    • 2.2 Argentina
  • 3 Variants
  • 4 Operators
    • 4.1 Former operator
  • 5 Specifications

Design and development

Dassault Aviation had developed the Mirage 5 at the request of the Israelis, who were the main foreign customers of the Mirage III. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) wanted the next version to have less all-weather capability in exchange for improved ordnance carrying capacity and range as the weather in the Middle East is mostly clear.
The French government arms embargo on Israel (on the eve of the Six Day War and afterwards) prevented the first 30 Mirage 5 aircraft (which were already paid for by Israel) plus optional 20 from being delivered and cut off support for the existing Mirage IIICJ fleet. Officially, Israel built the aircraft after obtaining complete blueprints. However, some sources claim Israel received 50 Mirage 5s in crates from French Air Force (AdA), while the AdA took over the 50 aircraft originally intended for Israel.[1][2]
The Nesher was identical to the Mirage 5, except for the use of some Israeli avionics, a Martin-Baker zero-zero ejection seat, and provisions for a wider range of AAMs (Air-to-Air Missiles), including the Israeli Shafrir heat-seeking missile. Fifty-one Nesher fighters (Nesher S) and ten Nesher two-seat trainers (Nesher T) were built in all.
The Nesher had simpler avionics than the Mirage IIIC, and was found by Israeli pilots to be slightly less maneuvrable. However, it had longer range and bigger payload. The reduced maneuvrability did not prevent the Nesher from giving a good account of itself in air combat during the Yom Kippur war.
Nesher production was phased out from 1978 to make way for an improved Mirage derivative that had been in planned in parallel, in which the Atar engine was replaced by an Israeli-built General Electric J79 engine, the engine used on the American F-104 Starfighter and F-4 Phantom II fighters. The result was the IAI Kfir.

Operational history

Israel

The first Nesher prototype flew in September 1969, with production deliveries to the IAF beginning in May 1971, ending in February 1974. These aircraft performed well during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, claiming over a hundred kills. An estimated 15 Neshers were lost in combat or otherwise.[3]

Argentina

Argentine Air Force Dagger, Jujuy Airport, 1981
Survivors of Israeli aircraft were refurbished and exported to the Argentine Air Force in two batches, 26 in 1978 and 13 in 1980, under the name Dagger, comprising 35 Dagger A single-seat fighters and 4 Dagger B two-seat trainers.
They form a new unit, 6th Air Group, and they were immediately listed with the help of the 8th Air Group (Mirage IIIEA) and the Peruvian Air Force, already a user of the Mirage 5, due the escalating crisis with Chile of that year.
During the 1982 Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas), they were deployed to the southern naval airbase of Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego, and an airfield in Puerto San Julián and despite the distance to their targets and lack of aerial refueling capability, managed to make 153 sorties against both ground and naval targets on the 45 days of operations. In the last role they damaged HMS Antrim (D18), HMS Brilliant (F90), HMS Broadsword (F88), HMS Ardent (F184), HMS Arrow (F173) and HMS Plymouth (F126).[4] Eleven Daggers were lost in combat (nine by AIM-9L Sidewinders fired from Sea Harriers and two by Surface to Air Missiles).[5]
See also: Argentine air forces in the Falklands War
IAI Finger, Tandil, 1999
In the 1979 contract with IAI, the Argentine Air Force stipulated that the Daggers would be equipped with new avionics and HUD systems to take them to the Kfir C.2 (and beyond in some subsystems) standard. The program, named Finger, was underway in 1982 when the Falklands War broke out. With the war over, as some of these systems were made by the British Marconi Electronic Systems, they needed to be replaced after an arms embargo was imposed by the UK. The replacement of such systems took the planes to the final Finger IIIB standard mainly by replacing the British equipment with French-built Thomson-CSF.[6]

Variants

  • Nesher S : Single-seat ground-attack fighter version for the Israeli Air Force.
  • Nesher T : Two-seat training version for the Israeli Air Force.
  • Dagger A : Refurbished single-seat fighter version for the Argentine Air Force.
  • Dagger B : Refurbished two-seat training version for the Argentine Air Force.
  • Finger I :
  • Finger II :
  • Finger III :

Operators

 Argentina

Former operator

 Israel

Specifications

General characteristics
Performance
Armament
up to 4200kg of disposable stores

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