Important was less the modest military success of this operation – one plane was shot down – than the shock to the Egyptian soldiers when they saw with their own eyes that Israel now had an Air Force (see photo of plaque in gallery below).

After the Avia S-199 – imported from Czechoslovakia and a replica of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 made out of parts left over from German war production – additional fighter aircraft were acquired from the stocks of the former Allies, such as the British Supermarine Spitfire and the North American P-51 Mustang.

The IAF Flight Academy, which was initially based at Camp Sirkin east of Petah Tikva, was established at Tel Nof in 1955 until it was relocated to the then newly built Hatzerim Airbase in 1966, where it still is today.

[6] At the beginning of the Palestine War in late 1947, ten Curtiss C-46 Commando cargo aircraft were purchased from the US Air Force inventory and eventually stationed at Ekron Airbase.

[7] In March 1949, shortly before the end of the war, the cargo aircraft also took part in Operation Uvda, the securing of the southern Negev up to the Red Sea, as envisaged by the UN partition plan of 1947.

After Israeli commando units blew up 14 Lebanese airliners at Beirut Airport on the evening of 28 December 1968 in Operation Gift, using French transport helicopters Super Frelon from Tel Nof and naval boats supplied by France, de Gaulle then imposed a total arms embargo on Israel.

[9][10] Despite the French arms embargo Tel Nof Airbase had been steadily expanded over the years, and during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, seven air squadrons operated at the base.

[17] From 1976, the then new F-15A/B Eagle Baz fighter jets were introduced with 133 Squadron "Knights Of The Twin Tail", which made Israel the first country in the world outside the United States to possess this aircraft.

[7] Both F-15 squadrons still exist today, and from 2029 they will receive the latest variant F-15IA (Israel Advanced), which is based on the F-15EX Eagle II of the US Air Force (see photo of an F-15EX in gallery below).

On 1 October 1985, under the name Operation Wooden Leg, ten two-seat F-15B/D Eagle Baz from Tel Nof (two of them in reserve) attacked the headquarters of the PLO near Tunis.

The eight F-15 jets from Tel Nof involved received a corresponding symbol (target cross in the red circle with a blue wooden leg, see picture in the gallery below).