Immediately after the end of World War II, Czechoslovakia began to form its own air force. Due to a shortage of aircraft in their possession at the time, Czechoslovakia decided to utilize the spare parts that remained after the war to initiate production on a series of Bf 109 G-10 fighters. The main production issue was caused by the power plant - the original German production run of the DB 605 engine was long over, and it was not profitable for the country to start producing new examples. After the first batch of fighters with DB 605 engines were completed, the decision was made to switch to Jumo 211 engines, as they were much more readily available. This engine was not incredibly suitable for fighters however - it was less powerful than the Daimler, and lacked a synchronizer for forward armament.

The Messerschmitt airframe had to be substantially modified to accommodate the new engine, complete with a new propeller. The resulting Czech fighter, named the S-199, was noticeably inferior in terms of performance to its German predecessor, regardless of this fact though, more than 500 units were produced in total. It soon became obvious that the S-199 was drastically outdated, and there was no country in Europe where the Czechs could sell their new fighter, due to all the leading forces of the world being equipped with much more powerful machines, with most in the process of already developing their own jet aircraft.

Even before the official proclamation of the State of Israel, the procurement commission of the future state signed a contract for 25 disassembled S-199s, and also finalized agreements for a training program for Israeli pilots. On May 28th, 1948, the first ever Israeli fighter group of four S-199s was formed under the leadership of several experienced veteran pilots. The future commander-in-chief of the Israeli Air Force and subsequently the country's president, Ezer Weizman was among these four pilots. The following day after formation, the group took off on their first combat mission to carry out an assault on Egyptian positions. This was the beginning of a short but brilliant career for these Czech-assembled German fighters operating out of Israel, where the plane received the nickname "Sakeen", Hebrew for "Knife"