Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Hatzor Airbase

(Israel Twitter)Hatzor Israeli Air Force Base,בסיס חיל האוויר חצור‎, (ICAO: LLHS), also titled Kanaf 4 (lit. Wing 4) is an Israeli Air Force military airbase, located in central Israel, near kibbutz Hatzor after which it is named.
The airfield was constructed by the Royal Air Force in 1945, during the British Mandate of Palestine, as RAF Qastina after the nearby Palestinian village of the same name.
On the night of 25 February 1946, Irgun militants attacked the airbase and destroyed several parked RAF Halifax transports. Two additional RAF airfields, RAF Lydda (Ben Gurion International Airport) and RAF Kfar Sirkin, were attacked in what became known as the "Night of the Airplanes". Altogether, the attacks destroyed 20 RAF aeroplanes and damaged several others. Following these attacks, the RAF vacated some of its Palestine-based planes to Egypt.
During the Israeli War of Independence, the airfield was evacuated by the British on 15 March 1948 and taken over by Haganah forces.
On the morning of August 16, 1966, an Iraqi MiG-21 jet landed in Hatzor AFB. Munir Redfa, an Iraqi Air Force pilot, had been persuaded by the Mossad (The Blue Bird – Operation Diamond) to fly the flagship of the Soviet export aircraft industry to Israel. The MiG was the most advanced aircraft in Arab inventories at the time.
Hatzor has a network of eight simulator pods which use satellite footage of countries including Lebanon and Syria to train pilots for deep strike missions.

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