Word: 16s
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...nonetheless respect Begin for his forthright stands. As part of its plan to strengthen Israel, no matter who won the election, the Administration late last week acknowledged that it would send six F-16 warplanes to Israel on schedule later this month and would "soon" release the four F-16s that had been held up after the Israeli airstrike on the Iraqi nuclear reactor...
...raid jolted U.S.-Israeli relations. An upset Reagan Administration (see NATION) condemned the attack and then suspended "for the time being" the delivery of four additional F-16s that were ready to be shipped last week from Fort Worth to Israel. The U.S. Congress will soon face the question of whether Israel violated the 1952 agreement under which the U.S. provides weapons to an ally for "defensive" purposes only. Congress is likely to find a delicate way to avoid any substantive action...
...jets. However, the first batches of 75 light, agile F-16 fighters, ordered from the U.S. in August 1977, had arrived in Israel. The Israeli Air Force had the innovative notion of making a bomber out of a fighter designed for jet-age dogfights. Tests showed that the F-16s, equipped with special bomb racks and additional fuel tanks, could just make the 1,300-mile round trip to Baghdad without aerial refueling if they were not attacked and made only one bombing run on the target...
...local time on June 7, the first of the F-15 support fighters that had been stored in underground bunkers lifted off from Israel's Etzion airbase in the eastern Sinai. The F-15s avoided using their afterburners to conserve fuel. Soon the F-16s joined them, and the jets headed east, flying low, the escorting F-15s above and on either side of the bombers...
While the six twin-engine F-15s provided a protective umbrella, the specially armed F-16s screamed into their bombing runs. The lead plane fired a pair of video-guided precision "smart" bombs, to punch through predetermined spots in the domed concrete. The following aircraft launched their own explosives through the jagged holes: a dozen conventional bombs weighing 2,200 Ibs. each. After a series of shattering roars, the roof collapsed, burying the reactor's radioactive core under hundreds of tons of concrete and steel debris. Fire raged through the site. Two of the attackers, carrying cameras rather than heavy...