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Israeli F-16I Navigator Discusses Striking Iran

(The War Zone) Howard Altman - The Israeli Air Force (IAF) is in the midst of one of the fiercest operational tempos in its history. In addition to bombing Gaza, the IAF has attacked targets in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and has executed a high-risk air war against Iran after decades of planning. We talked in-depth to one of the IAF's most experienced F-16I navigators about what it's like to fly and fight in the highly customized Israel-specific variant of the F-16. Lt.-Col. I., a Druze aviator, said, "The F-16I is more likely to be the plane that goes as far as possible, because we have extra fuel tanks." The F-16I has different equipment than other variants of the F-16, "like long-range missiles, weapons or smart bombs." "The planes actually talk to each other....We can see the information inside the other planes without even the need to talk to each other....We can see on the map all the details that the other planes in our formation do, like if they lock on the target. I can see that he locked on a target. So I can take the other target that my wingman didn't." The navigator is a weapon systems operator. "If it's an attack mission, most of the crucial decisions are made by the navigator. I choose the target, I lock on it, I see in my formation which is the better way to attack the target, and I decide how we do this. If it's an air-to-air mission against aircraft or other missions that don't include a ground attack, the pilot is the mission commander....The navigator is also responsible for the defense of each aircraft and the formation and for operating the weapons - the missiles and the bombs." The F-35s "gave us a lot of information that other planes like the F-16I don't have. They have a lot of equipment that helps them determine which missiles are heading towards us....[We] let the F-35 go first, see what's going on, gather the intelligence and information and give it to us and to the other planes, and then we take this information and attack." He took part in the Iran mission. "After we landed from the first mission, we were very pleased with the outcome. We didn't expect this kind of success....This mission is exactly an example of the Israeli Air Force's ability to take a mission and, with precision and strategic depth, execute it at a very high level....Just as we headed back west and we saw all the other planes that were coming from Israel, that feeling was unbelievable, a feeling of success and power, that we are doing something historical." "They didn't fire a single anti-aircraft missile towards us in the whole war. They did against drones, but against jet pilots, not even once....We had a belief that we were going to come back from the flight and we will see our base bombed already. But nothing happened."
2025-07-27 00:00:00
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