The Amazing Saga Of How Israel Turned Its F-15s Into Multi-Role Bombers

Tyler Rogoway 5/08/15

When the F-15 was created, it was created to be a pure air-to-air fighter, with the philosophy of “not a pound for air-to-ground” guiding designers. So how did Israel end up turning their F-15s into deadly long-range multi-role strike aircraft well before the F-15E Strike Eagle became a reality? Here’s how.

In Need of a Game Changing Fighter

Israel’s love affair with the F-15 began out of the need to procure a fighter that could trump the increasingly complex fighters that surrounding Arab states were amassing from Russian and French sources. Both the F-14 Tomcat and the F-15 Eagle were tested by Israel Air Force pilots in the US during the mid 1970s, with the Eagle being chosen hands down over the Tomcat. In Hebrew, they call it the “Baz.”

Israel received the first of its initial order of two single seat F-15As and two, two seat F-15Bs in 1976 under the Peace Fox foreign military sales program. These aircraft were largely used as test, training and evaluation planes so that the Israeli Air Force could prepare for its full order to arrive. Another 19 F-15As and two F-15Bs were delivered by 1978, entering active service with 133 Squadron at Tel Nof airbase.

The Baz represented a quantum leap in capability for the IAF, with the service having flown the F-4, A-4 and Mirage series prior to it, and was far and away the most capable fighter aircraft in the region during the 1970s. Well, at least aside from Iran’s then growing F-14A fleet.

The Baz was truly a national source of pride in Israel at the time of its arrival and remains so to this day, with only the IAF’s very best pilots selected to fly it. Obviously the aircraft’s strict air-to-air focus helped with this image as the jet was viewed as a guardian of Israel, a weapon that would ensure the country’s ability to exist through overwhelming air superiority capability.

Israeli F-15A and Bs were quick to live up to their hype, shooting down five Syrian MiG-21s over Lebanese skies on June 27th, 1979. More Syrian kills followed that September. Then, on February 13th, 1981, the Baz shot down the very aircraft that spurred the F-15’s original development in the late 1960s, a high and fast flying MiG-25 Foxbot, also of Syrian origin.

Israeli F-15s went on to support Operation Opera, the IAF’s daring raid on Iraq’s nuclear reactor. Six F-15s would provide counter-air escort the eight newly received F-16s that would do the bombing. The high-risk mission was a massive success.

The Baz fleet would then go on to score dozens of kills against Syrian MiGs during the Lebanon War of 1982. IAF Brig. Gen. Moshe Marom-Melnik explained just how powerful the Baz was even against waves of Syrian MiGs

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