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From: swilliam@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Steve Williams)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: sorties per day
Message-ID: <1991Mar4.213025.10068@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 4 Mar 91 21:30:25 GMT
References: <1991Feb28.053505.11394@cbnews.att.com>
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From: swilliam@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Steve Williams)

>According to published figures, US and other Coalition aircraft generally 
>get in between 1.5 and 2 sorties per day.  In the Six Days War, and 
>in the Yom Kippur War, Israeli planes routinely got in five sorties 
>per day.
>
>How do the IDF mechanics do it?  Why can't or don't the US and other
>Coalition air forces achieve the same turnaround?

This reminds me of something in World War II.  Typically, German fighter 
pilots would fly nearly everyday, at least one sortie per day.  By comparison,
American pilots flew one sortie every few days.

Reason: United States had far more fighter planes than Germany had,
and it was not practical for all American fighter planes to go on sorties
everyday.  Furthermore, it enabled the American planes to have time
for service/maintenance which kept them in top flying condition.

This also explains why German pilots had high number of kills (several
had over 200) whereas the leading American ace had 40 (Richard Bong in
the Pacific Theater).

As for Israel, I would guess that Israel didn't have as many planes
as the United States has.