Iron Eagle is a 1986 action film directed by Sidney J. Furie who co-wrote the screenplay with Kevin Alyn Elders, and starring Jason Gedrick and Louis Gossett Jr. While it received negative reviews, being unfavorably compared to the similarly-themed Top Gun released the same year, the film earned $24,159,872 at the U.S. box office. Iron Eagle was followed by three sequels: Iron Eagle II, Aces: Iron Eagle III, and Iron Eagle on the Attack, with Gossett being the only actor to appear in all four films.
Mariel Hadley Hemingway is an American actress. She began acting at age 14 with a Golden Globe-nominated breakout role in Lipstick (1976), and she received Academy and BAFTA Award nominations for her performance in Woody Allen's Manhattan (1979).
Philip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter who has directed fifteen films over a career spanning more than six decades. He has received numerous accolades including a BAFTA Award along with nominations for an Academy Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. He has been described as a "maverick" and an "iconoclast," notable for his versatility and independence often directing eclectic and controversial films. He is considered an "auteur" whose films have always expressed his personal vision. Kaufman's works have included genres such as realism, horror, fantasy, erotica, western, and crime.
The Iraqi Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the Iraqi Armed Forces. It is responsible for the defense of Iraqi airspace as well as the policing of its international borders. The IQAF also acts as a support force for the Iraqi Navy and the Iraqi Army, which allows Iraq to rapidly deploy its military. It is headquartered in Baghdad; the current commander is Gen. Shihab Jahid Ali.
Captain Munir Redfa, born Munir Habib Jamil Rufa was an Iraqi fighter pilot. After Qasim's coup, Redfa was one of only five pilots the new regime trusted to continue serving with the sole Iraqi unit operating the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21, 11th Squadron.
Harry Bernard Cross was an English stage and film actor. He was best known for playing Billy Flynn in the original West End production of the musical Chicago, and his portrayal of the British Olympic athlete Harold Abrahams in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire.
Hatzor Israeli Air Force Base, also titled Kanaf 4 is an Israeli Air Force military air base, located in central Israel near kibbutz Hatzor after which it is named. It was opened as RAF Qastina in 1942 by the Royal Air Force of the United Kingdom in the then British Protectorate of Palestine.
Sunset is a 1988 American crime mystery western film written and directed by Blake Edwards and starring Bruce Willis as Western actor Tom Mix, who teams up with lawman Wyatt Earp, portrayed for the second time in a theatrical film by James Garner. Based on an unpublished novel by Rod Amateau, the plot has Earp and Mix solve a murder in Hollywood in 1929.
Iron Eagle II is a 1988 action film directed by Sidney J. Furie and written by Furie and Kevin Alyn Elders. It is the first sequel to the 1986 film Iron Eagle, with Louis Gossett Jr. reprising his role as Charles "Chappy" Sinclair, alongside newcomers Mark Humphrey, Stuart Margolin, Maury Chaykin, Alan Scarfe, Colm Feore, and Clark Johnson. An uncredited Jason Gedrick also returns as ace pilot Doug Masters in the film's opening scene.
Iron Eagle on the Attack is a 1995 direct-to-video action film directed by Sidney J. Furie. The fourth and final installment in the Iron Eagle series, it stars Louis Gossett Jr. reprising his role once again as retired Gen. Charles "Chappy" Sinclair. Doug Masters, the protagonist of the first film, returns, but is played by Jason Cadieux instead of Jason Gedrick. The film's opening scene is an alternate take on the scenario presented in Iron Eagle II, wherein Masters survived after being shot down in Soviet airspace.
Into the Sun is a 1992 action comedy film involving a pilot and actor thrown into a dangerous situation. The film stars Michael Paré and Anthony Michael Hall.
Have Doughnut was the name of a Defense Intelligence Agency project whose purpose was to evaluate and exploit a MiG-21 "Fishbed-E" that the United States Air Force acquired in 1967 from Israel. Israel acquired the aircraft as the result of its Operation Diamond when, on August 16, 1966, Iraqi Air Force pilot Capt. Munir Redfa, in a defection pre-arranged by the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency, flew it to Israel during a training flight.
Air-to-air combat is the engagement of combat aircraft in warfare in which primarily fixed-wing aircraft attempt to destroy enemy aircraft using guns, rockets and missiles. The Korean War saw the greatest amount of air-to-air combat since World War II. During the war the United States claimed to have shot down around 700 fighters. After the war the U.S. Air Force reviewed its figures in an investigation code-named Sabre Measure Charlie and downgraded the kill ratio of the North American F-86 Sabre against the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 by half from 14:1 to 7:1. One of the factors inflating US numbers was that most dogfights took place over enemy-controlled area. The only way to confirm kills was through gun camera photography. USAF pilots were credited with a kill if the gun camera showed their guns striking the enemy aircraft even if no one actually saw it go down. However, Soviet Air Force kill claims were also highly exaggerated, based upon inherent flaws in their film grading procedures. For instance, the S-13 gun camera was not aligned with either the gunsight or either cannons' ballistics. It ran only while the firing buttons were depressed. Film graders commonly included unit commanders and political commisars who would confirm a "kill"—sometimes even if one had not been claimed by a pilot—when the camera's crosshairs touched the target for two movie frames. During the first 16 months of combat Soviet V-VS units claimed 218 F-86s destroyed when only 36 had been lost. This results in a 600 per cent inflation rate in victory credits over actual Sabres destroyed. However, these figures are complicated by the fact that the Americans routinely attributed combat losses to landing accidents and other causes.
The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, popularly known as Mossad, is the national intelligence agency of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with Aman and Shin Bet.
Operation Diamond was an operation undertaken by Mossad. Its goal was the acquisition of a Soviet-built Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21, the most advanced Soviet fighter plane at that time. The operation began in mid-1963 and ended on August 16, 1966, when an Iraqi Air Force MiG-21, flown by the Iraqi Assyrian defector Munir Redfa, landed at an air base in Israel. Israel and the United States were able to study the design of the plane.
Events in the year 1966 in Israel.
Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story is a 1981 American made-for-television biographical drama film, optioned by Larry Wilcox and his company Wilcox Productions. Wilcox signed the paperwork at midnight and beat out Hugh Hefner and MGM. Later, Wilcox developed the story and pitched it to MGM, where he had a production development deal and subsequently to NBC. MGM and Wilcox then hired director Gabrielle Beaumont. It is a dramatization of the life and the murder of Playboy Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. The movie aired on November 1, 1981. Two years later, the same story was developed by director Bob Fosse in his movie Star 80, starring Mariel Hemingway and Eric Roberts.
The Crowded Sky is a 1960 Technicolor drama film distributed by Warner Bros., produced by Michael Garrison, directed by Joseph Pevney and starring Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. The film is based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Hank Searls.
Little Men is a 1998 Canadian family drama film starring Mariel Hemingway and Chris Sarandon. It is based on the 1871 novel of the same name written by Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women. It is a loose sequel to Little Women (1994).
Ran Ronen was an Israeli Air Force (IAF) brigadier general and fighter ace credited with seven kills. He commanded various fighter squadrons, the IAF flight academy, and Tel Nof Airbase, retiring from the IAF with the rank of brigadier general. One of his pilots later described him as "the greatest squadron commander ever".
