ron@mlfarm.com (Ronald Florence) (02/28/91)
From: ron@mlfarm.com (Ronald Florence) According to published figures, US and other Coalition aircraft generally get in between 1.5 and 2 sorties per day. In the Six Days War, and in the Yom Kippur War, Israeli planes routinely got in five sorties per day. Granted, the distances flown in the Iraq and Kuwait theater are greater than the Israeli pilots flew against Egypt and Syria, but not enough to account for the differences in sorties per day. How do the IDF mechanics do it? Why can't or don't the US and other Coalition air forces achieve the same turnaround? -- Ronald Florence ron@mlfarm.com
chidsey@smoke.brl.mil (Irving Chidsey) (03/01/91)
From: Irving Chidsey <chidsey@smoke.brl.mil>
In article <1991Feb28.053505.11394@cbnews.att.com> ron@mlfarm.com (Ronald Florence) writes:
<
<According to published figures, US and other Coalition aircraft
<generally get in between 1.5 and 2 sorties per day. In the Six Days
<War, and in the Yom Kippur War, Israeli planes routinely got in five
<sorties per day.
<
<How do the IDF mechanics do it? Why can't or don't the US and other
<Coalition air forces achieve the same turnaround?
They achieved 6 sorties a day because they had to. We did not need
to achieve more than 1.5 or 2, so we didn't. Remember, their national
survival depended on it. They had the choice, 'fly, or die', and they
flew. We had the luxury of not having to stress our air and ground crews
to the limit, and our commanders took the reasonable choice of not doing so.
Irv
--
I do not have signature authority. I am not authorized to sign anything.
I am not authorized to commit the BRL, the DOA, the DOD, or the US Government
to anything, not even by implication. The do not tell me what their policy is.
Irving L. Chidsey <chidsey@brl.mil>swilliam@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Steve Williams) (03/05/91)
From: swilliam@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Steve Williams) >According to published figures, US and other Coalition aircraft generally >get in between 1.5 and 2 sorties per day. In the Six Days War, and >in the Yom Kippur War, Israeli planes routinely got in five sorties >per day. > >How do the IDF mechanics do it? Why can't or don't the US and other >Coalition air forces achieve the same turnaround? This reminds me of something in World War II. Typically, German fighter pilots would fly nearly everyday, at least one sortie per day. By comparison, American pilots flew one sortie every few days. Reason: United States had far more fighter planes than Germany had, and it was not practical for all American fighter planes to go on sorties everyday. Furthermore, it enabled the American planes to have time for service/maintenance which kept them in top flying condition. This also explains why German pilots had high number of kills (several had over 200) whereas the leading American ace had 40 (Richard Bong in the Pacific Theater). As for Israel, I would guess that Israel didn't have as many planes as the United States has.
bentrup@m.cs.uiuc.edu (John Bentrup) (03/06/91)
From: bentrup@m.cs.uiuc.edu (John Bentrup) >>According to published figures, US and other Coalition aircraft generally >>get in between 1.5 and 2 sorties per day. In the Six Days War, and >>in the Yom Kippur War, Israeli planes routinely got in five sorties >>per day. >> >>How do the IDF mechanics do it? Why can't or don't the US and other >>Coalition air forces achieve the same turnaround? I think that much of the sortie rate difference can be accounted for by - distances: Coalition forces were flying much greater distances to their targets. Eg: Riyadh, Bahrain, Diego Garcia, England. - mission types: I suspect that with Egyptian ground forces trying to race across the Sinai, and the very existence of the state of Israel being threatened, that the IAF was more interested in dumping their ordnance and hurrying back for another run than perhaps the coalition forces. No need to worry about collateral damage. No time for exhaustive checks and unnecessary maintenance. - refueling capabilities: The IAF probably had the capability then, but I don't remember reading that they used it. I read that it was common for a U.S. F-15 flying CAP to top off 5 or 6 times per sortie. -- John Bentrup INTERNET: bentrup@CS.UIUC.EDU Department of Computer Science BITNET: bentrup%uiucdcs.BITNET University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign USENET: 1304 W Springfield Ave {pur-ee,convex,ihnp4}!uiucdcs!bentrup