THE JEWISH NEWS

Israel's controversial new military jet, the Lavi,
may be the hottest thing in the air when it takes off
late this year. For now, though, it has to duck
the flak of domestic and U.S. critics.

THE

FIGHTER
OF THE
FUTURE

PETER HELLMAN

Special to The Jewish News

6

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C °
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o

n July 10, 1970 an
Israeli F-4 in which Menachem Eini was flying was
hit by a Soviet-built surface-to-air missile (SAM)
during a low-altitude bombing run over Egypt.
Eini turned the damaged Phantom homeward, but
just ten seconds before it would have entered
Israeli-controlled airspace, the plane's hydraulic
system failed. As Eini puts it, "My airplane died."
For want of those ten seconds, Eini, who ejected
just before the F-4 crashed, spent the next three
and a half years as a prisoner of war.
Now a retired general, the 47-year-old Eini is
determined to keep other. Israeli pilots from suf-
fering a similar fate. Working out of a vine-
covered, ultra-secure town house in central rIbl
Aviv, he's the director of the biggest technological

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