Nesher not Made in Israel (?)

[+Gepard 11,356]

In the german air magazin "Fliegerrevue" i found an interessting article by Tom Cooper who wrote that the widly known story that the Nesher was made in Israel by IAI was a fake. Cooper wrote that the Nesher was built by Dassault in France and was secretly shipped with US transport planes to Israel.

American technicians reassembled the planes in Israel and then handed it over to the Heyl Ha'Avir (IAF).

He also wrote, that the prove that the Nesher was made in France is the fact, that the planes have french fabrication numbers and signs (Typenschild is the german term).

 

Fliegerrevue 7/2009 page 64

 

If this would be right, the often told story that the Mossad had stolen the Mirage 5 blueprints from Switzerland would be also a fake.

[Nesher 628]

I was made in Israel, ask my parents :P

 

to the story, as far as i know that Israeli mossad got a hold on the blueprints of a Mirage and used it as a base for the Neshers

i don't think every article you see is true

 

Cheers

[+bpao 2]

yes, all my French sources said same think.

 

Dassault big help for structure and an affair with Swiss for engine ( snecma is a state compagny, not breaking embargo possibility).

 

many of my source think 2 empty fuselage have been send to Israel as Mirage IIIC parts (a 5J and a 5DJ)

 

it's not a full licence but it's not a copyright break too.

 

++

Edited August 12, 2009 by bpao

[Silverbolt 104]

I was made in Israel, ask my parents :P

 

 

well, AFAIK the Mirage IIICJ was made in france, all of 'em.

 

you're maybe mistaking with IAI Dagger, no?

 

 

btw, not new this story...its BS IMO, specially for the pollitical point of view.

http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_274.shtml

 

Israel was in an weapon embargo by france, the main weapon supplier, and they're were trying to get be with arabs for the oil, and even today france hasn't a great relationship with Israel.

 

btw, some Dagger parts came in 1972, but Israel had also an partnership with Dassault to built an better Mirage using IAI Technology....some units were built unfinished in Israel, so they had to wait till the war end to put the J-79 on it.

 

the stolen blueprints story maybe or maybe not fake, that's because IAI Had an partnership with Dassault, so they probably had acess to it already.

 

many of my source think 2 empty fuselage have been send to Israel as Mirage IIIC parts (a 5J and a 5DJ)

 

it's not a full licence but it's not a copyright break too.

 

++

 

that's what i hear/read here also.

Edited August 12, 2009 by Silverbolt

[+ST0RM 145]

Anything Tom Cooper writes needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

His book on the IIAF/IRIAF and the claims listed within are pretty far fetched in some cases.

 

Could this have happened? Who knows. Unless you were part of the Mossad team who got the plans and could prove it 100%, then anything can be said as to how these aircraft were built.

 

But really, after all of these years, who would care if France really did build the jets? Would some country request sanctions for something 30+ years ago?

Edited August 13, 2009 by ST0RM

[+Gepard 11,356]

Yeah, true argument, thatswhy the ? in the title.

 

I think it should be possible to check it out. Perhaps a Nesher is displayed at a museum, and so it should be possible to look wheter they have type shields and production numbers which indicated that they are made by France or not. Perhaps our Mr Nesher from Holon could visit an israeli museum (isnt there one at Hazor?) and check it out. I dont know where else the Nesher bird is displayed.

[Silverbolt 104]

Yeah, true argument, thatswhy the ? in the title.

 

I think it should be possible to check it out. Perhaps a Nesher is displayed at a museum, and so it should be possible to look wheter they have type shields and production numbers which indicated that they are made by France or not. Perhaps our Mr Nesher from Holon could visit an israeli museum (isnt there one at Hazor?) and check it out. I dont know where else the Nesher bird is displayed.

 

i think he can't, those were sold to Argentina.

[MigBuster 2,884]

i think he can't, those were sold to Argentina.

 

What I thought - and renamed Dagger - Israel may have kept a few possibly though?

[Silverbolt 104]

What I thought - and renamed Dagger - Israel may have kept a few possibly though?

 

i'm not sure how many were sold, but i think the production was about 50.

maybe our Argentineans friends know...

btw, IIRC the M5 that were build for Israel were sold to Belgium, tha were late re-sold ironically to one of biggest enemies of Argentina in continent that time, Chile.

Edited August 13, 2009 by Silverbolt

[JediMaster 451]

French components, Israeli components...all made in Taiwan!

[Silverbolt 104]

French components, Israeli components...all made in Taiwan!

 

''Russian components, American Components...all made in Taiwan!''

Lev, in Armaggedon

[censored 0]

In the german air magazin "Fliegerrevue" i found an interessting article by Tom Cooper who wrote that the widly known story that the Nesher was made in Israel by IAI was a fake. Cooper wrote that the Nesher was built by Dassault in France and was secretly shipped with US transport planes to Israel.

American technicians reassembled the planes in Israel and then handed it over to the Heyl Ha'Avir (IAF).

He also wrote, that the prove that the Nesher was made in France is the fact, that the planes have french fabrication numbers and signs (Typenschild is the german term).

How much more unbelievable can this get? As if the United States needed to ship French aircraft to Israel. Why? Because the Mirage was so superior to the A-4 Skyhawks and F-4 Phantoms that they were already supplying to Israel? It's amazing what some people will believe.

 

The Israelis produced the Nesher to get out from under the endless cycles of arms embargos that they had experienced with Europe. Israel's political leaders wanted an Israeli arms alternative that could not be cut off at the whim of Paris, London or Washington.

 

If this would be right, the often told story that the Mossad had stolen the Mirage 5 blueprints from Switzerland would be also a fake.

So according to Tom Cooper, Alfred Frauenknecht - the Swiss engineer who supplied the blueprints for the Mirage to the Israelis - served 4 1/2 years in prison for no reason. I'm sure it was all just a Mossad plot. According to this line of reasoning, the all-powerful Mossad was able to fake Israeli production of the Mirage 5, fake having stolen the blueprints and sent a Swiss engineer to jail for no reason, but was unable to actually produce the airplane in Israel. Yeah, right.

 

Cooper needs to leave the conspiracy theories to the UFO crowd.

[+Gepard 11,356]

To believe is one thing, to know the truth is different. And to know the truth it would be neccessary to check it out.

I found following picture of the Nesher in the net:

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Israel---Ai...next_id=0841989

It is taken at Hatzerim IAF museum, if i have understood it correct. But Hatzerim is some 1000 km away from my home, so i cant check it out myself. Perhaps one of our Israeli friends could do it?

[Nesher 628]

Gepard, what exactly do you want to check in the Nesher in Hatzerim?

it's a bit more than 1000 km from Germany :)

[+Gepard 11,356]

Normaly the fabrication numbers are placed in the wheelbay. At the MiG-21 it is in the main gear, but also in some cases in the front wheel bay. Its only a guess, but i think at the Nesher it could be placed at the same places. I would try to look at this places and try to find out wheter there are some sort of fabrication type shields with the name of the manufacturer or the "Made in Israel" or "Made in France" or such things.

[+pato poli 73]

Hello!

 

Well, i got a video when a Mirage 5 Dagger pilot said "if you look inside, you can read "made in France" everywhere! The israelian maybe put the pieces together, just it"

 

The Mirage 5 Dagger where originally Mirage 5 Nesher, and actually Mirage 5 Finger....more than 20 years of upgrade program to put a civilian GPS on it....our politics are great!!!!! jajajaja

[censored 0]

Well, i got a video when a Mirage 5 Dagger pilot said "if you look inside, you can read "made in France" everywhere! The israelian maybe put the pieces together, just it"

 

While an interesting anecdote, it does not answer the question at hand. Argentina was black-listed by the US and UK after the Falklands War. As was already reported long ago, any of the electronics gear that had previously been supplied (through the Israelis) from Marconi Electronic Systems (UK) had to be replaced by equipment supplied by Thomson-CSF (later renamed Thales - France). The fact that you can find "made in France" hardware in today's cockpit is interesting - but it does not settle who made the airframe.

 

In principal, it wouldn't surprise me that the French might announce an embargo and then secretly break it. What makes the Tom Cooper article so completely unbelievable is his insistence on US involvement. If the French wanted to break their own embargo, they would not have needed the US to help them deliver the parts, and the Israelis would not have needed the US to assemble them. The Israelis had been servicing the Mirage for nearly a decade. The US had zero experience supporting this airframe. Added to the fact is that this particular author - Tom Cooper - is best known for his books on the Arab and Iranian armed forces. You know, the same guys who brought us "Baghdad Bob"? These are Tom Cooper's sources. The fantasies that he has repeated from them in the past make his credibility more than suspect.

 

What is a proven fact is that a Swiss engineer was caught red-handed, delivering Mirage blueprints to the Israelis - and served jail time for it. If someone wants to claim that the airframes were assembled from parts made in France and delivered to Israel (a possibility), they need to supply something other than suspect sources.

[Biggus 0]

While an interesting anecdote, it does not answer the question at hand. Argentina was black-listed by the US and UK after the Falklands War. As was already reported long ago, any of the electronics gear that had previously been supplied (through the Israelis) from Marconi Electronic Systems (UK) had to be replaced by equipment supplied by Thomson-CSF (later renamed Thales - France). The fact that you can find "made in France" hardware in today's cockpit is interesting - but it does not settle who made the airframe.

 

In principal, it wouldn't surprise me that the French might announce an embargo and then secretly break it. What makes the Tom Cooper article so completely unbelievable is his insistence on US involvement. If the French wanted to break their own embargo, they would not have needed the US to help them deliver the parts, and the Israelis would not have needed the US to assemble them. The Israelis had been servicing the Mirage for nearly a decade. The US had zero experience supporting this airframe. Added to the fact is that this particular author - Tom Cooper - is best known for his books on the Arab and Iranian armed forces. You know, the same guys who brought us "Baghdad Bob"? These are Tom Cooper's sources. The fantasies that he has repeated from them in the past make his credibility more than suspect.

 

What is a proven fact is that a Swiss engineer was caught red-handed, delivering Mirage blueprints to the Israelis - and served jail time for it. If someone wants to claim that the airframes were assembled from parts made in France and delivered to Israel (a possibility), they need to supply something other than suspect sources.

 

 

The US involvement might have something to do with the J79s....

 

If the French govt were involved, SNECMA engines wouldn't provide much in the way of deniability, being state-owned and all. I don't have an explanation for the Swiss engineer. Maybe he was arrested for something else and was offered a bargain in sentencing to be the fall guy for the whole deal?

[+pato poli 73]

Censored im telling that the airplanes have been buyed BEFORE the embargo (maybe 1978). So, if you look inside the plane and found that the wings and fuselage got "made in france" is the evidence that the plane was NOT made in Israel but ensambled there.

 

Maybe the Kfir family, that was born after the nesher, was made and builded in Israel, but about the M-5 nesher i dont think so.

 

Before the 82 war, Argentina have buyed avionics elements to UK, to make the nesher more like the Kfir C-2, with HUD and CCIP thinks. Then the war, then the embargo, and then we finally (30 years later) got the Finger.

 

The Israelians have found that the scnema engine loose power into the desert, with high temperature and thin aire. So, they put the J-79 into the Nesher to got more power.

With the embargo from France, that was an smart move.

[censored 0]

The US involvement might have something to do with the J79s....

The Nesher uses the Atar engine - a French design. There was no US hardware in those airframes.

 

I don't have an explanation for the Swiss engineer. Maybe he was arrested for something else and was offered a bargain in sentencing to be the fall guy for the whole deal?

Why do you want to find some grand conspiracy? Why not accept that the Israelis received the blueprints and manufactured the airframe and engines themselves? The Israelis definitely produced the J79 from blueprints for the later Kfir program. The Atar engine was certainly no more sophisticated than the J79 of the day (I'd argue that it was less so).

 

Censored im telling that the airplanes have been buyed BEFORE the embargo (maybe 1978).

Yes, I know. That's ALWAYS been the story that was told. The Israelis paid for the Mirage 5 before the embargo in 1967. Other than Tom Cooper's article, however, it was always put forward that the French paid the money back to the Israelis, and resold the original Mirage 5 airframes to another buyer. The Israelis had to obtain the blueprints through clandestine means to receive the airplanes.

 

So, if you look inside the plane and found that the wings and fuselage got "made in france" is the evidence that the plane was NOT made in Israel but ensambled there.

But that's not what the video that you quoted says. It says that a pilot, supposedly from Argentina's Air Force, saw "made in France" labels on the airplane. There is no air force that I know where the pilots service their own fighters. The view from the cockpit is going to be limited to the electronics and other gear in the cockpit - not the internals of the wing or fuselage. If you want to make a case for the Nesher airframe being "made in France" then you have to find someone who would have had access to the bulkheads or other internal features - not a pilot.

 

The Israelians have found that the scnema engine loose power into the desert, with high temperature and thin aire. So, they put the J-79 into the Nesher to got more power.

With the embargo from France, that was an smart move.

Other than a single airframe flown for flight test purposes, the J79 was never used in the Nesher. The Nesher used the Atar engine - for which the Israelis received the blueprints from Switzerland. As the Israelis discovered in their flight test program, incorporating the J-79 required several modifications to the fuselage to provide adequate cooling for the hotter J-79 afterburner duct and nozzle. The eventual result of that flight test effort was the Kfir program.

 

The bottom line is that other than Tom Cooper's article, written by someone with extensive ties to the Arab and Iranian armed forces and zero connections in Israel, I have yet to see anyone try to claim that the Nesher components were manufactured in France. It's not that I don't believe that the French would break their own embargo, but I simply haven't seen this claim made by a credible source.

Edited August 20, 2009 by censored

[+pato poli 73]

Im refering to the sell to Argentina, not the Israelians first buy. Argentina got those airplanes from Israel at 1978. Argentine pilots go there to make the "conversion" (learn to fly the M-5)

 

Well, our pilot make the check out, around the plane before take off, and they look the landing gears, moving surfaces, the exaust engine pipe...our pilots look into the plane.

 

One of those pilot, in Israel, was making a lot of problems with the controls of the model that Argentina buy, discovering repairs that israelians want declare as "major modifications". So, the israelians mecanics get the brilliant idea of make the "bauptism" when he land after their first fly alone, into JP1 and not water. Our pilot got fever and get healt problems. The Argentina air force send a letter about it to IAF about this incident. You can found more info at "zonamilitar.com.ar"

 

When a pilot not fly, in Argentina, hes with the mecanics or making something usefull, we dont have money to pay them only for fly. They can be at the radar, radio, control tower...anywhere.

 

If you got any doubt, go to "mirageargentina.com.ar", if the answer is not there...dont exist.

[Silverbolt 104]

The Nesher uses the Atar engine - a French design. There was no US hardware in those airframes.

 

they were sold to argentina as ''IAI Dagger'' and later upgraded to ''IAI Finger'' so i think they were already J-79 engined

 

Why do you want to find some grand conspiracy? Why not accept that the Israelis received the blueprints and manufactured the airframe and engines themselves? The Israelis definitely produced the J79 from blueprints for the later Kfir program. The Atar engine was certainly no more sophisticated than the J79 of the day (I'd argue that it was less so).

 

well, that's a way stupid get the refund and get the airframes, i mean, that's non-sense.

btw, AFAIK, Mr De Gaulle wasn't the best Friend of jewish people.

 

The bottom line is that other than Tom Cooper's article, written by someone with extensive ties to the Arab and Iranian armed forces and zero connections in Israel, I have yet to see anyone try to claim that the Nesher components were manufactured in France. It's not that I don't believe that the French would break their own embargo, but I simply haven't seen this claim made by a credible source.

 

agree , but tom cooper already wrote great articles here about un-told stories with OPFOR actors,so he still deserve some credit

[Mannie 21]

 

well, AFAIK the Mirage IIICJ was made in france, all of 'em.

 

you're maybe mistaking with IAI Dagger, no?

 

 

btw, not new this story...its BS IMO, specially for the pollitical point of view.

http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_274.shtml

 

Israel was in an weapon embargo by france, the main weapon supplier, and they're were trying to get be with arabs for the oil, and even today france hasn't a great relationship with Israel.

 

btw, some Dagger parts came in 1972, but Israel had also an partnership with Dassault to built an better Mirage using IAI Technology....some units were built unfinished in Israel, so they had to wait till the war end to put the J-79 on it.

 

the stolen blueprints story maybe or maybe not fake, that's because IAI Had an partnership with Dassault, so they probably had acess to it already.

 

 

 

that's what i hear/read here also.

 

 

Yuri, this is what you need.

you and all who are interested in the family of Israels Nesher/Dagger.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAI_Nesher

[+Gepard 11,356]

An other picture from an israeli Museum i found in the net:

 

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Israel---Ai...1399c12c90ba151

 

 

interessting is the remark:

 

"501 (cn 1) Despite the official story that this is an IAI Nesher, a check of the aircraft ID plates in the wheel wells reveals that this is really the first production Dassault Mirage 5J. On display in the Israel Air Force Museum."

[+pato poli 73]

Silverbolt the nesher dont use the J79, they keep the atar 9C when they came to Argentina. At 1978 in Argentina they became "dagger" and by middle 80s they became "finger" I, II, III, and IIIA as long the upgrade/modernization program grow up, but always with the atar9C.

 

Maybe one of the nesher sold to Argentina was the first tested with the J79, but re-converted to the atar, im not sure.