At news of the start of the war -
...'Amer was nevertheless elated...He promptly commanded Sidqi Mahmud to provide air cover for the conquest of Israel's coast (Operation Leopard) and to deploy Egypt's newest Sukhoi jets, if necessary with their Russian instructors -
...Throughout the capital [Cairo] the citizenry was celebrating. "The streets were overflowing with demonstrators," rememberbered Eric Rouleau, Middle East correspondent for Le Monde...The sole source of information was the ogvernment's communiqué: "With an aerial strike against Cairo and across the UAR, Israel began its attack today at 9:00. Our planes scrambled and held off the attack."
The accounts of that counterstrike were promising. A total of eighty-six enemy planes reportedly shot down, including an American bomber. Egypt's losses were put at two -
....Not present at Supreme Headquarters when the news of the Israeli air strikes arrived, Nasser also welcomed the opening of hostilities and believed the tide would soon turn. Nevertheless, by 10:00 - the height of the second wave - when the air force claimed to have downed 161 Israeli bombers, Nasser becames suspicious. He tried contacting 'Amer, but received no reply; Sidqi Mahmud was also unreachable -
...Nasser remained in the dark, not the least because no one in the army or the government dared enlighten him. All went along....
But the Egyptians had, in reality, just lost 286 of the 420 combat aircraft in their arsenal: Tu-16s, IL-28s, Sukhoi-7s, MiG-21s, MiG-19s, MiG-17s, transport planes and helicopters - and almost a third of their pilots killed. Thirteen bases were rendered inoperable. Only 17 Israeli aircraft had been lost:
At 10:35 Hod turned to Rabin and reported, "The Egyptian Air Force has ceased to exist."
...pilot Hashem Husayn, stationed at Bir al-Thamada, described the feeling:
Some 30 seconds from the end of the [first] attack, a second wave of planes arrived...We ran about the desert, looking for cover, but the planes didn't shoot. They merely circled, their pilots surprised that the base was comletely destroyed and that no targets remained. We were the only targets...weak humans scurrying in the desert...pilots of the newest and best-equipped jets fighting with handguns. Five minutes after the beginning of the attack the planes disappeared and a silence prevailed that encompassed the desert and the noise of the fire that destroyed our planes and the airbase and the squadron. They completed their assignment in the best way possible, with a ratio of losses - 100 percent for us, 0 percent for them.
Source: Six Days of War, Michael Oren, pp. 176-178.