What It's Like To Face Tilim

"I'm familiar with the SA-2s. I fought them a year ago. Only now the quantity and quality have changed." The speaker, a 30-year-old Israeli Air Force major, last week told TIME how the air war around the Suez Canal has changed, and what it feels like to cope with volleys of the lethal Soviet missiles.

THE moment you pass the canal, your blood pressure rises. The tension is there. No doubt about it. It's just like an actor or someone who has to make an important speech. When he gets up in front of his audience, he has butterflies in his stomach, no matter how many times he does it.

This morning when I was over the target, I was pulling the stick to start my bombing run. I saw the thing and evaded. It fell away. I got on target and locked on. Another one came toward me. I pressed my bomb-release button and then evaded the second missile. The bombs dropped, the missile slipped by, the bombs exploded on target, and I moved on home.

Flying in a sky full of tilim [Hebrew for missiles] is like flying in a sky full of enemy planes. A missile is the same as a plane only it's faster --somewhere between two and three Mach (1,520 m.p.h. to 2,280 m.p.h.). Our problem is to fly and to look in all directions at the same time. They fire a lot of those missiles. You have to choose which you think are most dangerous. First you see clouds of smoke and dust on the ground. In the air, the missile is a relatively long body. You get to see it only for a split second. It's a silhouette with an orange-yellow flame on its tail. Your eye is attracted by the flame.

They come at you in a burst, a volley. The moment you dodge the first, you've got to start thinking about the second. And the third. And the fourth. It's like an obstacle course. You're evading all the time. The whole thing is over in about two minutes. But into those two minutes you seem to compress your whole life.

The missiles cover you at all heights. They can also navigate toward you just like enemy pilots. One thing you can't forget is that there is a quarter of a ton of TNT coming at you. Even if it doesn't hit you, it can get you if it explodes near enough. Even at a distance, you can feel a harsh bump, and the entire plane rocks when it explodes.

I don't know, but if things continue the way they are now, it won't be impossible that I may meet a Russian pilot. Actually, it's not necessary for me to know who is up there with me. The MIG is the same and the colors are the same, and I have no special relationship with him. He won't tell me who he is, and I don't have to know.

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