Contested beginnings

Hebrew Wikipedia dates the team in its present form to 1954 but records three accounts of its birth. Informal formation flying began at the flying school in 1950 on Stearmans, and on 18 August 1954 two of three Mustangs practising aerobatics from Ramat David collided, killing both pilots. One account has the air force set up an official team under strict rules three months later, flying Harvards from Tel Nof; another, from the instructor Israel Ben-Shahar, dates it to 1958 and the air force’s tenth anniversary; a third points to 15 November 1960, when three Fouga Magisters led by Naftali Altman flew at the wings parade of flight course 32.

Fifty years of the Fouga

For some fifty years, from 1960 to 2010, the team flew the Fouga Magister and its Israeli upgrade, the IAI Tzukit, the type with which it is most identified. In 1966, ahead of the flying school’s move from Tel Nof to Hatzerim, its Fougas were painted blue and white in a scheme designed by Oded Marom, the first official leader, who also drew the team emblem of two ducks in tight formation. From 1983 Tzukits with more powerful Marboré VI engines replaced the original aircraft.

The Efroni era

In 2010 the team moved to the Beechcraft T-6A Texan II, known in Israel as Efroni, after the first aircraft arrived in July 2009; four were fitted to make white smoke. Based at Hatzerim and part of the Flight Academy, the team flies at pilot-course graduations and in the Independence Day flypast, its pilots serving instructors in white flying suits. Two former air force commanders, Eitan Ben Eliyahu and Ido Nehoshtan, flew with it.