First Down

687 enemy airplanes have been shot down in dogfights since Israel`s birth. Only 23 Israeli planes have been shot down by enemy planes since 1948 - a statistic which puts the dogfight victory ratio between Israel and its Arab neighbors at a whopping 30:1.
18 enemy planes were shot down in dogfights in the 1948 War of Independence. A single Israeli plane may have been shot down in a dogfight over the Galilee, but the exact circumstances of its demise were never established in certainty.
Seven enemy planes were shot down in the course of the Sinai Campaign, without a single Israeli plane being shot down.
In the Six Day War, 60 enemy planes and 12 IAF planes were shot down.
The War of Attrition saw 111 enemy planes and four Israeli planes shot down.
277 enemy planes were shot down in the Yom Kippur War - accounting for over a third of the IAF`s total kills since 1948. Of the planes lost by the IAF in the war, only five were shot down in dogfights.
88 enemy planes were shot down in the Peace for Galilee Campaign. Not one Israeli plane was shot down in a dogfight.
126 enemy planes were shot down in dogfights in the years between the wars - most of them in the 70`s.
The IAF lost only two planes in dogfights between the wars, in 1959 and in 1964. The stories of the IAF aircraft`s first kills are here by presented to you.
 

Ace of Aces

In the United States Air Force and the air forces of several European countries, an ace is a pilot who has shot down five or more enemy planes. The Israeli Air force boasts 39 pilots who shot down five or more planes, and ten of these have shot down more than eight planes. But one of these pilots, Col. (Res.) Giora Even (Epstein), stands out as the unquestioned Ace of Aces, having shot down a record 17 (seventeen!) planes in the course of his amazing career.
Epstein has held his record for 25 years, and needless to say - is a true IAF icon, and an object of veneration for generations of IAF pilots. And the record is not confined to the IAF: according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the world record holder for jet air victories is an American pilot who shot down 16 planes. Apparently, someone had better tell the Guinness guys about Giora Epstein.
Epstein kept a personal record of his aerial victories in a diary - he scribbled the details in small handwriting, on a pad of paper that became somewhat tattered over the years from being leafed through over and over again. In terse, laconic, almost technical prose, he narrated aerial chases conducted on the last few drops of fuel in the fuel tank; of dogfights in skies swarming with MiGs, from which he always emerged safely, after having shot down a MiG, or two, or three. This diary has never before been published.