“Scramble!  Scramble!  Scramble!”  Air raid alert sirens are going off.  Yom Kippur, the most holy day of the year on the Jewish calendar has just gone from a lazy day of routine Alert-5 duty to a race to the jets.  It is October 6th, 1973.

There is virtually no information to go on, other than the Scramble alert.  Being on alert status both jets, mighty F-4E Kurnass’, already have power on and alignments done.  Almost as soon as you get strapped in and engines are running a call comes from the tower that orders have come to stand down.  Jerusalem is a long way away and you are the flight lead.  Time to decide...

Historical notes:  This mission is based on the historical first Egyptian Air Force strike on Ophira Air Base in the south of the Sinai Peninsula.  This first wave of aircraft came in low over the water and was first detected not by radar but by a visual observer with binoculars.  His initial report of what he saw streaking across the water low was laughed off.

The strike on Ophira consisted of 16 MiG-21s and 12 MiG-17s.  They were met by two F-4 Kurnass’ led by Amir Nahumi.  He was in fact ordered to stand down as there was a HAWK SAM battery adjacent to the field.  He and his wingman elected to ignore their orders and launched anyway, as the first wave of fighters began hitting the field.  At the end of the fight the two Israeli jets shot down seven MiGs, one of which was piloted by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s half-brother, Atif Sadat.