Operation Babylon

50 Artist's Proofs: Signed and Numbered by the artist

Overall Size: 26.5"X39"
                                                                
Image Size: 20.5"X31"

Print Method: high-quality offset lithographs on 100lb Lustro Dull Cover stock

Remarqued A/P's are available (Additional $250.00)

Plane Type: F-16 Fighting Falcon

At sundown, on Sunday, June 7, 1981, the Israeli Air Force destroyed the nuclear breeder reactor at al-Tuwaitha, Iraq. The reactor was  
designed to produce nuclear weapons for Saddam Hussein, the bellicose dictator of Iraq, who had made no secret of the fact that he intended  
to use these weapons to destroy the state of Israel. The raid was conceived in absolute secrecy and brilliantly executed by eight highly  
trained pilots in the strike package flying F-16A "Netz" attack fighters, modified by Israeli engineers for long-range attack, and by  
another eight F-15 fighter pilots who executed top-cover and communications during the raid.


The two F-16 Netz aircraft seen in the painting were the last two over the target, which was attacked by four pairs of F-16s in trail. Both  
pilots, "Relik" Shafir (foreground aircraft) and his wingman, Ilan Ramon, seen behind Shafir, emerged from a furious cauldron of  
antiaircraft ordinance put up by the Iraqi defenses unscathed, as did the six pilots that preceded them. All of the aircraft returned safely  
to Israel, following the mission. Ilan Ramon, who subsequently became Israel's first astronaut, was later to die tragically in the American  
space shuttle explosion over Texas in 2003.