Inside the Israeli Air Force's hunt for Iran's launchers

2026-03-27 - 11:44

Maj. (res.) A. was not at all surprised by the sirens that went off at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 28. At that very hour he was sitting in the operations trailer of the Black Snake squadron at the Israeli Air Force base in Palmachim, flying his Hermes drone, an armed unmanned aerial vehicle, on its way to Iran. The opening blow of Operation Roaring Lion was already underway, and A. knew the next move would be retaliatory ballistic missile fire toward Israel. "In the first hours of the operation, my team's mission was to stay poised to fire and pin down sites that might be used to launch missiles," recalled A., 32, who left career service a week before Oct. 7 and has been in reserve duty almost continuously ever since. "It was not easy to reach the target, both because the weather was complicated and because the fighting had only just begun and we still did not know what we would encounter on the way. We reached the target three hours after the attack began, so we knew the enemy was already on alert and eager to launch as quickly as possible." The launch site A. struck in the opening blow was in central Iran and surrounded by air defense batteries. "We assumed there was a fairly high probability that some of our aircraft would be lost during the mission," he said. "But from our standpoint, in the drone array, that is acceptable. Unlike a manned aircraft, losing an unmanned aircraft is less dramatic. It is part of a calculated risk we take, because the most important thing is to complete the mission. Maj. (res.) at Palmachim Air Force Base "On the way, we still managed to see two launches heading toward Israel. It is a horrible feeling," said A., who, once in position over the target, spotted two more ballistic missiles standing upright on their launchers. "The moment the missiles are upright, it means they can launch within seconds," he explained. "Each of those missiles carries a ton of explosives. You look at it from the air and say, every launch I manage to prevent could mean saving an entire world." Another drone flying alongside A. went in first to strike the launchers and missed. The missile remained standing on the launcher, waiting only for the launch order. "We go in as a pair, pushing the aircraft to the edge of its performance envelope, we fire and hit," A. said. "We see secondary explosions on the ground, and I mute the radio and shout, 'Yes!' at the top of my lungs. A celebration. "After a second and a half of joy, you collect yourself and have to function again," he continued. "Then we get a report of another launcher preparing to fire. Again the second aircraft goes in first and misses. We go in after it, fire, and miss too. I am thinking to myself, I came all the way here, with such effort. How do I allow myself to miss? There is a sense of failure, but the launcher still has not fired the missile. We have a little time to debrief what we did wrong and go for another run. This is a flight with a huge number of constraints, the altitudes you are flying at, the speeds you are flying at, all the numbers are at the edge. We go for another attempt, again on the border of the aircraft's and the munition's performance limits, and fire. Because of the unusual conditions, it took the munition a long time to reach the target this time. We wait and wait, and suddenly we see the munition appear at a very low angle and hit. It was tremendous joy." Cat and mouse Since that mission, A. has taken part in many more sorties to Iran. He has bombed Basij facilities and operatives inside residential neighborhoods "a classic mission, because we know how to operate surgically and avoid harming civilians," took part in targeted killings and also carried out strikes in Lebanon. "It is like a factory here," he told me as we walked outside the squadron, while another Hermes aircraft took off in front of us on yet another mission. "I do not even know where that aircraft is headed, there are so many sorties." But A.'s main mission throughout the current operation has focused on hunting launchers. "At the end of the day, the surface-to-surface missile array is Iran's center of gravity in its attacks on us, it is the strategic tool they intended to use to hit us," A. said. "And that is what the Air Force is focused on." Indeed, striking Iran's ballistic missile array is one of the Israeli Air Force's central missions throughout Operation Roaring Lion. Most of the burden falls on the drone array and fighter jets, which, in combined operations and with extensive intelligence support, are flying sortie after sortie deep into Iran. "In a war like this, you are either eating, sleeping or on a mission," A. said. "Once every few days, if you are lucky, you get home for a few hours to see your family." Left: an aerial photograph of launchers. Right: an aerial photograph after the launchers were destroyed. Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit It is a game of cat and mouse, with Israel playing the cat. According to Israeli Air Force data, in the first 24 days of the operation in Iran, nearly 5,000 strikes were carried out against Iran's missile program, more than 700 targets were hit, and about 335 launchers, roughly 70% of launch capacity, were taken out of use. It is an exceptional achievement, and yet Iran is still continuing to launch dozens of ballistic missiles toward Israel. Through Tuesday of this week, about 500 such missiles had been fired in 339 waves of attack. Some managed to penetrate Israel's air defense array, killing and wounding civilians and causing extensive damage. "You are constantly in pursuit, but there is no way to get to everything," A. tried to explain. "Remember that during the missile nights of April and October 2024, we saw hundreds of ballistic missiles fired at Israel in a single barrage, and Iran then had the ability to fire more barrages on that scale, one after another. One of the Air Force's missions מאז then has been to degrade that capability, and we really are seeing the relatively low number of launches in this round." And when you step out of the trailer after a sortie, turn on your phone and discover that a missile hit Beit Shemesh, Arad or Ramat Gan? "It is frustrating, a very hard feeling. You understand that there are things within your power and things beyond your control. But the hardest feeling is when you are sitting at home and not at the squadron. You know, I am a reservist. I would like to start my life. Travel, career. My relationship with the military is complicated. But when a war like this breaks out, I cannot bring myself not to be at the squadron. That is the classic reservist's dilemma." 'The Iranians made lessons' Iran's ballistic missile array, operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force, is considered the largest and most diverse in the Middle East. This is the strategic arm, alongside the nuclear program, in which the ayatollahs' regime has invested more than anything else. Since Operation Rising Lion in June 2025, the Revolutionary Guards have devoted major effort to rebuilding the array, continued manufacturing ballistic missiles, and dispersed missile launchers across a great many sites. Those launchers, "Imagine a high-voltage utility pole lying on a truck," A. said, sit on trucks that in routine times are hidden inside facilities dug into mountains. Only when they are about to fire do they roll out through tunnels, raise the missiles upright, launch, and disappear back inside. "It is a matter of minutes from the moment the truck comes out until it launches," A. said. "You are working on borrowed time. The most effective thing is when you manage to hit the launcher with the operators still inside it, and if the missile blows up on the launcher itself that is alpha squared. Do you know that children's game with the figures that pop out of the ground and you have to hit them on the head with a hammer? Like that." The Air Force has developed a combat doctrine against the missile array that divides the mission between the drone array and the fighter jet array. The role of the unmanned aircraft is to patrol for long hours over Iran and "hold" potential launch sites. "The initial goal is to prevent the Iranians from even coming out of their tunnels," A. said. "They too know that if they come out there is a chance they will get hit by a missile, so they make their own risk calculations. And if someone comes out, you take him down immediately. We do not let them raise their heads." The fighter jets, whose sorties are shorter but whose munitions are heavier, are responsible for disrupting the missile array's value chain by striking factories, headquarters, fuel depots and the like. Another mission carried out by fighter jets is bombing the tunnels at missile sites in order to block them and prevent the launchers from coming out. "Every time you hit a tunnel, they try to repair it or create an alternative opening," A. said, already used to tracking activity from the air at missile sites in Iran. "You block and they open. There will always be some opening you did not identify, some launcher they hid somewhere. Iran is a large country with hundreds of launchers and thousands of missiles. There will always be leakage. But if you compare it to what we saw in previous rounds, their launch capability is lower. This is not what they imagined at all." Still, the Iranians learn too. How have they improved since the previous round? "They learned lessons, and it is harder for us to catch them. You can see, for example, that their launch times have gotten shorter." 'I imagined it, but did not believe it' The hunt for Iran's surface-to-surface missile array began with the Genesis wave, which opened the current offensive and included 200 aircraft, the largest number in Israeli Air Force history. At that stage, dozens of fighter jets were sent to central and western Iran, under the heavy threat of air defense batteries that had not yet all been destroyed, in order to strike missile launchers themselves and other parts of the system that support them. "From then until now, we have basically been striking every part of the array's chain so they cannot bring additional missiles to the launchers during the war," an Air Force source said. "From the production sites, most of them in Tehran, Isfahan and central Iran, through the headquarters spread across launch sites in central and western Iran, and all the way to storage sites and the launchers themselves. At the same time, we are destroying infrastructure intended to develop and manufacture missiles in the future." Even after the Genesis wave, "trains" of fighter jets were sent to every part of Iran to strike the missile array. If in Operation Rising Lion those waves focused only on western and northern Iran, this time the attacks have been directed across the entire country. Israeli Air Force intelligence personnel are working constantly to understand where the Iranians are operating from in order to build operational plans accordingly. If, for example, there is a site in northern Iran that has not launched for several days, it is probably blocked. By contrast, if another site in central Iran has been launching for three consecutive days, it is clear that is the one that must be struck, now. The strike plans are therefore drafted daily based on real-time intelligence, approved personally by Israeli Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar, and carried out day after day. That flexibility and determination allow the Air Force to maintain pressure on Iran's surface-to-surface missile array. This is what a hunting campaign looks like. "Of the squadron's missions overall, a very high percentage deals with the missile issue," said Lt. Col. (res.) A., a navigator in the 119th fighter squadron based at Ramon Air Force Base. "It is a joint effort by everyone together. We strike infrastructure, the drones strike launchers that come out, the air defense systems deal with what does manage to be fired, and in the end all of it together reduces the number of hits on the home front. Lt. Col. (res.) A. in the cockpit "In hunting surface-to-surface missiles, there is no one big bang and it is over. It is cumulative damage that you inflict on them. Hitting tunnels, launchers, people, the equipment that comes to clear the rubble from the tunnels, the people who try to go back and tend to damaged launchers. You are constantly trying to create a bottleneck from another direction, because the Iranians are no pushovers. They worked and prepared in advance at every such site. We are not fooling ourselves into thinking we will be able to bring launches at Israel down to zero." A., who is about to turn 50, is vice president of operations at a large company and has been serving in the Air Force for 30 years, all of them in the F-16I Sufa array. In the Genesis wave he led a six-jet formation in a strike on a launch site, and only a few days later found himself once again leading a formation, this time over the Tehran area, where he struck a missile fuel production plant. In another year he will reach the age at which fighter pilots stop taking part in operational flights, and for him this may be one last opportunity to fight as an aircrew member. "Every generation has its war," he said. "We have been training for this operation for many years, and there were activities in many places that preceded it. It was always part of the Israeli Air Force's larger plan, to strike in Iran. But I admit that deep down, I never believed it would actually happen. I imagined it, but I did not believe it." We spoke in the evening, and he had already been to Iran and back. "A lot of snowy mountains," he said when I asked what it was like there. "There is a very sharp contrast between the damage war can cause and the quiet sights you see from the cockpit." On the runway Over the past four weeks, A. has made it home only twice, for 24 hours each time. "Every sortie to Iran starts a few hours before takeoff," he said, laying out his daily schedule. "We receive the mission from the Air Force operations headquarters, try to refine the details, who the participating forces are, who is around us, what munitions we will use, whether there will be refueling on the way and so on. As formation leader, I need to decide whether we approach from one direction or another, at what altitude, which munition is best to use and so forth. There is a long preparation process to make sure you can complete the mission and inflict maximum damage. The next stage is the formation briefing, together with the squadron's planning officer. We go over everything and make sure everyone knows all the scenarios and responses." About an hour before takeoff, the crew arrives at the hardened aircraft shelter where the jets are parked. Once the engines start, the noise is deafening. "You check the aircraft and the munitions, and then you take off," he said. "It is a flight of several hours, depending on where you are going and the route. On the way out, you are extremely focused. You constantly have to check that every member of the formation is in place, on time, with the right amount of fuel. If you meet a tanker, it happens somewhere in the Middle East and you have to make sure you arrive at the right time, at the right place and at the right altitude. You also check the munitions, and many times targets change on the way so you have to make updates in the air. "Once you cross the line and are flying over Iran, you are at peak alert. You are constantly clearing the area, protecting your friends in the formation, trying to spot every threat, hear every chirp in our systems, scanning with your eyes and so on. When you reach the strike area, you execute and check that you are fully exploiting the potential of the formation and the weapons to carry out an effective attack. On the way back, until you cross back out of Iranian territory, you are still tense, because it is not a place you want to have to abandon an aircraft over. After crossing back out, there is some release of tension, but not completely." Did you encounter threats? "I did see things being fired into the air. I cannot say with 100% certainty whether it was aimed at me or not. Obviously there are threats, and on every flight there you take the danger into account. That is part of being a combat pilot." How do you deal with the fear of being hit? Of ejecting? Of falling captive? "When a pilot closes the canopy before takeoff, he has to disconnect from emotion and take the entire professional toolbox he has built over the years and use it to the fullest on every sortie. Even in Iran, you are not flying around constantly thinking about the odds of being shot down. You work hard to minimize problems and complete the mission. You are constantly checking how much fuel you have, making sure no malfunction is developing in the aircraft, trying to prepare for the possibility of being fired on. That is what we trained for all those years. So there is no fear and dread, there is alertness and professionalism, and that helps you stay sharp and get home safely." A critical factor in the Air Force's ability to detect and hunt launchers in Iran is intelligence. The body coordinating the issue is the surface-to-surface missile branch in the Air Force Intelligence Directorate. The unit leads the effort to locate launch sites and other infrastructure linked to the ballistic missile array, validate targets and provide real-time direction to Israeli Air Force aircraft. "To hit launchers, you need a very serious back office," drone operator A. said. "It is not like you wander around Iran with a gun, looking for launchers, drawing and firing. You need intelligence that adds value and enables you to be effective. This entire mission has many partners, from intelligence personnel to the technical crews in the squadron, who are doing unbelievable work." The fighter navigator A. also stressed that he is only the person pressing the button at the end of the chain. "This is an orchestra with many musicians," he said. "The technicians who hang the bombs on the aircraft wings, the navigation NCOs who do the fuel planning, the intelligence personnel. A lot of people have to play together for this thing to work. I am only a small part of that puzzle." It is important to emphasize that, from the Air Force's standpoint, the mission definition regarding Iran's ballistic missile array is "systematic and ongoing damage to the ballistic missile array." "We knew from the outset that it would not be possible to reduce the number of launches to zero," A. said. "Iran's surface-to-surface missile array is dispersed, large and includes a great many people. Every strike on the home front hurts us deeply. Each time, we try to see whether we can do things better, change something so that the next strikes will be more effective. But we will never get to zero launches. That is impossible. So you try to look at the glass half full. You say, I know they could have launched far more, and they are not succeeding. On the other hand, every missile that hit Israel hurts מאוד." These conversations took place on Monday of this week, immediately after President Trump said he was conducting talks with Iran on ending the war. Neither of them, of course, has any idea which way the winds are blowing in the White House. Even so, A. offered an officer's insight. "The pursuit of the launchers and the reduction of fire toward Israel are part of the mil itary pressure meant to lead to a diplomatic solution," he said, "because otherwise there will always be that one person who manages to fire a missile."