Danny Shapira (photo: official website, photo: Air Force Town)
He was the last one left among the four graduates of the Air Force's first pilot course, to which he was sent even though he had previously served as a pilot in the Hagana.
He accumulated more than 12,000 pilot hours as a captain and commander of an aircraft, flying more than 100 aircraft, from piston to jet, from light aircraft to Mach 2 fighters. Even when things went wrong, he never abandoned an aircraft, and always returned to land safely.
A month before his 98th birthday, retired Colonel Dani Shapira, the legendary test pilot of the Air Force and the Aerospace Industry, who managed to take part in some of the dramatic moments in the country's history, and was chosen on Independence Day in 2013 to raise a beacon, passed away today. His two sons, Ronan and Oded, They went their separate ways, the first serves as a test pilot in the aerospace industry, and the second as a pilot in El Al, after serving as fighter pilots in the Air Force.
In 1982, in the Lebanon War, all three of them served at the same time, when Shafira the father flew Arab planes at the age of 57, landing them on the Beirut-Damascus road to evacuate the wounded for treatment in Israel, Ronen as an F-15 pilot and Oded as a Kafir pilot.
This was Danny Shapira's sixth war, who managed to participate in the War of Independence, Operation Kadesh, the Six Days, the Attrition and Yom Kippur.
Shapira (photo: official website, photo: Air Force Town)
He was born in Jerusalem in 1925 and grew up in Haifa.
After attending a vocational school and being trained as a metal engraver, he received a private aviation license at the age of 19, was recruited into the Defense Air Service and performed reconnaissance flights, transporting and dropping food and weapons into besieged communities.
As a young pilot he participated in the operation to bring the Spitfire planes that Czechoslovakia agreed to sell to Israel, flying them from Europe to Israel without a radio to make room for fuel.
Only then did he officially complete the Air Force's first pilot course, and was one of the first four pilots to receive his wings.
In May 1949, he already went on his first photo flight in Syria.
Later, he was one of the first jet pilots of the corps, in the Meteor plane, went through a test pilot course in France, and was sent to test the French Mirage plane, which the Air Force was considering purchasing.
During one of the flights, a malfunction occurred in the Mirage's acceleration rockets, which were intended to bring it quickly to a high altitude.
The rocket did not go off as planned and Shapira found himself reaching an altitude of 70,000 feet, over the plane's limitations.
He landed on the last drops of fuel.
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Marking the 45th anniversary of the first pilot course, the four graduates with President Ezer Weizman.
Shapira second from the right (Photo: Government Press Office)
In 1966, Shapira was assigned to learn and fly the 21st MiG flown by Munir Redfa who defected to Israel as part of a Mossad operation.
Without undergoing formal training on the Russian plane, and relying only on professional literature and conversations with Redfa, Shapira sat in the plane, which was a great mystery at the time, and became the first pilot in the West to fly it.
He made a series of flights against Air Force pilots, learned his weaknesses, and instructed the pilots how to exploit them.
The pilots applied the results in the successful air battles in the Six Day War.
In 1970, it was loaned to the Aerospace Industry to test a Mirage that had an American engine implanted in it, in preparation for the development of the Kafir aircraft.
A year later, he officially joined the company, established the Air Operations Division, and later became the pilot of the Arava plane it developed, the Kfir, and the Westwind executive plane.
He made demonstration and delivery flights to customers, in one of them he made a complex emergency landing in South America in severe weather after an electrical fault in the plane.
In 1988 he retired from the company and continued to fly as a reserve pilot in the Air Force until 1992.
Danny Shapira, graduate of the first pilot course in the Air Force (photo: official website, photo: in Air Force Town)
"I had a father and a friend, and a professional I would consult with," said his son Ronen today.
"Every time I would call him, he would question me about the flight I made that day. In 1985, I received special permission from the commander of the Air Force to fly him with me in an F-15, and in 2015, when he was 90 years old, he joined us and participated as a pilot in a test flight in the aircraft industry The managers G280. For two hours he flew the plane and was very excited, we were all excited along with him."
Shapira is survived by his children Irit, Ronan and Oded.
He will be laid to rest in the licensed cemetery, on Sunday at 11:00.
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