Israel · Government / Military · Formed 28 May 1948
Born mid-war in 1948 from a handful of smuggled and surplus aircraft, and forged by decades of conflict into one of the world's most combat-experienced air arms.
The Israeli Air Force was established on 28 May 1948, days after Israel declared independence and while the country was already at war. Its first fighters were Avia S-199s - Czechoslovak-built derivatives of the German Bf 109 - smuggled in and flown by a mix of Israeli pilots and overseas volunteers, soon joined by ex-Czechoslovak Spitfires. From those improvised beginnings it grew into a force defined by audacious operations, most famously Operation Focus in June 1967, the pre-emptive strike that destroyed the bulk of three Arab air forces on the ground in the opening hours of the Six-Day War.
Israeli squadrons have flown the Mirage III, F-4 Phantom, F-15 and F-16 through repeated wars and countless smaller actions, racking up more jet-versus-jet victories than almost any other air arm and shaping how several of those types were developed and upgraded. Today the force fields large F-16 and F-15 fleets, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and the F-35I "Adir", a uniquely Israeli-modified variant of the Lightning II - making it the first air force outside the United States to use the F-35 in combat.
HaKirya, Tel Aviv, Israel
