The Nachshon Squadron is the eyes and ears of the whole Israel Air Drive, because it is aware of find out how to grasp quite a lot of capabilities for planning and executing any operation that requires air exercise.
A modest ceremony was held on Tuesday in one of many hangars of the Nachshon 122 Squadron on the Nevatim Air Drive Base to mark the squadron’s change of command.
Lt. Col. P. will change Lt. Col. N. when the latter takes workplace, and he didn’t imagine that this is able to be the long-term case.
What started with the failures on October 7 continued into a large conflict on seven fronts, the spotlight of which was the 12-day conflict as a part of Operation Rising Lion, when the Nachshon Squadron led the Israel Air Drive (IAF) in assaults all through Iran and opened the skies to fighter jets.
When Lt. Col. N. was inthe IAF, roughly a yr earlier than he was appointed squadron commander, he wrote a thesis on the Air Drive’s shock within the Yom Kippur Battle. A month and a half after taking workplace, in early September 2023, he gathered all of the pilots and personnel of the squadron and offered them intimately together with his analysis and conclusions.
“Once we failed, I requested myself the place we failed and in the identical breath, what I may have finished otherwise. We have to stand up, we will not concentrate on the previous,” Col N. mentioned.
A feminine air pressure crew member making ready to strike Iran, June 2025. (credit score: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit through Maariv)
The Nachshon Squadron is in the beginning a reconnaissance squadron that’s supposed to watch Iran, Gaza, and different areas.
“How did this occur? There’s the Basic Employees investigation, and we’re studying find out how to be higher,” Lt. Col. N. added. “We’re a part of this failure, too. It could be our failure, much more than for others.”
The Nachshon Squadron is the eyes and ears of the whole Air Drive. It is aware of find out how to deal with quite a lot of essential capabilities for planning and executing any operation that requires air exercise, from attacking in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, or Iran. From touchdown forces deep in Syria to rescuing the wounded from the battlefield.
“We’re very a lot within the air world: operations, management, administration, and dealing with fighter jets. For those who take Syria, that is mirrored within the mission of offering an intelligence response throughout the operation to keep up air superiority after which additionally on the bottom,” he added. “A few of the issues moved from data collected up to now, by way of the varied components, and you should introduce intelligence in actual time.”
Israel’s eyes on the Center East
The aerospace trade is already working exhausting on constructing an array of dozens of remark satellites that can hover in house and supply a 24-hour image of the Center East. The Nachshon Squadron understands that the State of Israel is not going to decide to provide them up so shortly.
“Now we have issues that we nonetheless deliver which can be distinctive, that different methods don’t. The ability construction is altering, and methods are being added and altered, even whereas we’re preventing. ‘The Oron’ is an amazing undertaking, and the conflict accelerated it, but we all know find out how to present intelligence in actual time,” The squadron commander added. “When working within the air, we deliver relative and efficient benefits. We open the skies ahead.”
For instance, in Operation Rising Lion, the Nachshon Squadron labored to replicate and supply operational options to the IAF in preparation for quite a lot of goal strikes in all phases of fight.
“I’m a part of those that deliver the knowledge and capabilities in order that we’re as ready as doable within the pressure and as a military,” he defined.
The Nachshon Squadron has three configurations of plane. All are govt plane constructed to satisfy necessities and geared up with radar, optics, and distinctive communication methods. The assorted plane are referred to as: Itam, Shavit, and the final one is a complicated intelligence plane that was totally operational two weeks earlier than Operation Rising Lion.
Lieutenant T., 21, an air reconnaissance officer, is a part of the workforce establishing the brand new plane within the squadron. The position is new to the squadron and was created because of the brand new plane’s reconnaissance capabilities.
“Through the conflict, we operated constantly day and night time, defending the nation’s skies. We do not have navy personnel within the position of air scouts, so we had an enormous and tough two weeks,” he mentioned.
Lieutenant T. mentioned that his skills as an air scout within the superior plane are to gather tactical targets on the bottom and in addition to detect threats within the air.
Though he has already flown in many of the Center East, together with targets within the third circle, the exercise in Gaza additionally touched him on a private degree: “I’ve fairly just a few pals there, fighters for whom I perform protecting operations. There’s nothing higher than a paratrooper pal of mine from childhood, who I studied with, telling me on the cellphone that he feels secure when I’m within the air over Gaza.”
In line with Lieutenant T., the distinction between the squadron’s plane and the HTMs is important: “Our plane is multi-mission and able to accumulating numerous targets concurrently over a big space.”
Among the many squadron’s veterans is Reservist N., an airborne controller. He defined that the airborne controller’s position is to handle air visitors and missions in intense air fight. “It has the potential to be a really advanced occasion, however while you observe for it and put together for it correctly, it turns into easier.”
Main N. spoke in regards to the exercise he took half within the first assault on Iran in Operation Rising Lion.
“It is the second after we go away the briefing and notice that the second now we have been ready for 20 years has arrived. A historic level and our alternative to be the physique that protects our households and kids. I arrived right here 20 years in the past, I’m 40 years outdated, just a few extra years, I might not have been a part of this historic occasion.
“On a private degree, the sensation that now we have the flexibility to exit and do that mission, and after I see the strains on the map and see that we’re passing one level after one other… I had a number of nights after I thought that tonight it will occur, and they’d flip it round. One thing then made me really feel that this time we’d not flip round.”
“That morning, I left my cellphone off in order that I may very well be as targeted as doable. If you land on the bottom, in all probability in mild of the assessments that had been made earlier than the operation, there’s a sigh of aid and a stay up for the battle that lies forward of us, interested by the household at dwelling and getting into the battle with nice pressure,” he continued.
“On October 7, at 6 a.m., I used to be on a civilian aircraft on my option to France to choose up my companion for aliyah. The tough feeling of lacking out on that day was felt upon touchdown. I take into consideration the whole lot we had been unable to do this morning every single day. My companion, whom I introduced right here, and I wish to guarantee her a secure dwelling in Israel.”
Nachshon Squadron’s uniqueness
Captain A., a pilot within the squadron, defined the distinctiveness of the Nachshon Squadron that distinguishes it from different IAF squadrons.
“We do not have a sister squadron. Take every other squadron, whether or not it is transport or helicopters, and there is one other squadron that may do the identical factor. Solely now we have Nachshon plane, and all of their capabilities are distinctive to us. Every plane brings its personal distinctive skills that aren’t discovered anyplace else within the IAF.”
“All of the planes are Nachshon planes, however now we have three platforms, every with a distinct mission and completely different individuals from completely different models working every aircraft. Because of the range, we contact on completely different positions of the IAF: Defending the nation’s skies, deep missions and patrols,” he concluded.
