Lavis await take-
o clearance at
the end of the
Hatzerim runway,
which they share
with resident T-6
Efroni trainers.U
NTIL A FEW years ago
the Israeli Air Force fl ight
training fl eet was based
around aircraft of primarily
1950s and 1960s vintage: the
Piper Super Cub was used
in the screening phase, the Fouga Magister
(Tzukit) for basic training, and the A-4
Skyhawk (Ahit) in the advanced phase.
With the arrival of new platforms such as
the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon in
the early 1980s, a large gap emerged between
the trainers and the front-line fi ghters. Young
pilots thus came out of fl ight school with
a shortfall in their level of training. This
resulted in a heavy burden for the front-line
squadrons, which had to perform additional
basic training to familiarize new pilots with
the advanced fi ghters.
In the light of this, the Israeli Air Force
decided to revamp its training fl eet. The fi rst
step was the replacement of the veteran Piper
with the Grob G120 (Snunit) in 2002, after
which the Magister was supplanted by the
state-of-the-art Beechcraft T-6 Texan II (Efroni)
in 2010.
The third phase was to replace the A-4.
At the beginning of 2012, after three years
spent evaluating two contenders — the
Italian M-346 and the Korean Aerospace
Industries (KAI) T-50 Golden Eagle — Israel
elected to purchase the Italian trainer. The
main parameters of the evaluation were the
training and instruction aids on board the
aircraft, fl ight safety aids, debriefi ng aids,
and the effi cient integration of simulators.While the T-50 closely resembles the F-16,
the M-346 appears to provide a mix of F-16,
F-15 and Typhoon qualities, and was judged
to better suit Israeli requirements. With two
engines, the Master also has an important
safety advantage over the T-50. The evaluation
concluded that both were capable trainers
but that the Italian design was a better fi t to
particular Israeli Air Force needs, including
preparations for the service’s future fi ghter,
the F-35 Lightning II (Adir).
To date the Israeli Air Force has received
eight from a total of 30 M-346s purchased.
The Lavi will soon replace the A-4 in the
advanced training phase of the fl ying course
and will succeed the A-4 and F-16A/B Netz
in the subsequent Operational Training Unit
(OTU) and Advanced OTU (AOTU) phases.
The Lavi brings many innovations that are
set to overhaul the training of fi ghter pilots
and navigators in the Israeli Air Force. It
includes advanced avionics systems that
allow the addition of new subjects to the
fl ight course syllabus. These include radar,
electronic warfare, and advanced weapons,
such as air-to-air missiles combined with the
use of the Elbit Systems Display and Sight
Helmet (DASH).
Unlike the A-4, the Lavi was designed
from the outset for training, and incorporates
various measures to improve its effi ciency
in the role. The instructor in the back has an
excellent fi eld of view over the front seat,
while all the front-seat actions appear on the
back-seater’s instrument panel. Flying the
Lavi is much easier than the A-4, thanks to itsWith the arrival
of the rst pair of
Alenia Aermacchi
M-346 Master jet
trainers (named
Lavi in Israeli
service) on July
9, 2014, the nal
phase in the
renewal of the
Israeli Air Force’s
training eet began.78 May 2015 http://www.combataircraft.net78-91 Lavi C.indd 78 20/03/2015 11:25