Iranian Airforce F4 Phantoms (Pics)

[Afshin]

Classic fighter jets still used in the Iranian Airforce, they played a key role in Iran's defence against Iraq in the 80s war:

[Afshin]

This is a video of Iranian F4s in the 70s before the revolution, you will find it says IIAF on the fighters not IRIAF:
http://www.iraniantube.net/videos/3214/imperial-iranian-air-force

[ali_europe]

IRAN might need soon or later a modernization of the air force..the major problem is as long IRAN isn't a democracy it is very hard to have an overview about who makes the decisions on IRAN strategical and defence planing... before the revolution IRAN just spent million of dollars of buying weapons, without much know how, so any embargo made it impossible to use lot of weapon systems... after revolution IRAN chose to work more on defence military industry, which was a smart move, but IRI's stupidiy and dictatorship made lot of IRANIAN brains leave the country, that has definitly slowing down the succes of building a stable IRANIAN defence industry..

in long therm no matter what government IRAN would have, it will be very important to keep IRAN's defence as independent as possible...any strong dependeny on USA, RUSSIA or CHINA will be risky....

maybe it would be smart to buy a small number of modern russian fighters like PAK-FA and use their technology for reverse enginnering and later try create more advanced IRANIAN made planes...Chinese did it same way, they first ordered 200 SU-27 and use them for a stable air defence and at same time Chinese technicians and engineers learn to copy and even create some own made component..so now china is working on an advance chinese Fighter  J-20...even the new chinese fighter might still be less advanced as russian or american systems, but it was a huge moe forward and the technological distance between chinese fighters to modern russian and american planes is getting smallr by each new project


images of the new chinese fighter J-20
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/mDV0b5ODlHM&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/mDV0b5ODlHM&rel=1</a>

[Afshin]

very valid points Ali jaan. Iran has built a fighter jet based on F5 Tigers, the front nose is identical to the F5, but in the back it looks like F14.  This plane's capabilities are not known, I think it is more a publicity stunt than anything else.  The engine will be from F5.

Iran needs a much stronger airforce than what it has today.  It is estimated that Iran has 35 F14s left from the 79 bought under the shah, the rest were lost during the war with Iraq.  Then we have the F4s, F5s and some Mig 29s, none of which are a match for Saudi or Israeli F15s or F16s.  Iran's F14s are the only planes worth talking about but if there is an airforce confrontation Iran's F14s would be outnumbered by either Saudi or Israeli F15s and F16s, furthermore Saudis and Israeli's have AWACS not to mention US Navy support in the Persian Gulf, so Iranian Airforce would be grounded in any confrontation with Israel, they don't stand a chance with their outdated fighters.

This explains why Iran has invested heavily in missile technology, the only way Iran could respond to an attack from Israel, Saudi Arabia or the US would be to hit back with missiles and use Hezbollah in Lebanon to attach Israel.

Iran is in a very volatile part of the world, no matter who is in charge, Iran will always need a strong defence capability as there are hungry wolves all around them, Arabs in particular.

Like you said, the absence of democracy in Iran has meant all the brains leaving the country and many others not used because they don't fit the system.

[ali_europe]

so I would see for IRAN's defence following scenarios would be the best!

short therm (next 10 years)A) joining Russia and India by Tu-50 programm and have an acces to know how, IRAN's condition must be that Iran would only invest in the programm if 50-60 planes would be build in IRAN. sukhoi needs the cash and I'm sure they would accept this condition


B) at same time IRAN bought in the early 90's few second hand mig 29's from russian units in Azerbaijan,those migs mostly were build in early 80's and havent been updated at all... IRAN could start a modernization program and update those 35 mig-29's to the level of newer mig-35 standard, which can fight vs modern versions of F-15 or F-16.... this would be a low cost but effective programm

C)at same time IRAN should also improve its missile attack technologies, since for a country like IRAN sometimes having a huge number of missiles which can hit targets from Tehran to TEL-AVIV a better defence than ordering hundred of expensive fighters, cuz if your potential enemy would know that you can fire 500-1000 missiles simultanously to their country, they would be thinking a lot before risking to attack you...

long therm (next 10 years)
a national programm for producing a fighter.. a cooperation with a friendly nation from region like turkey could also be positive



-   

[ali_europe]

here some pics to visualize my suggestion

A) joining trhe pakfa programm



B) modernization of older mig20 and update them to  mig-35 level


iranian mig 29 were ordered by russian units in azerbaidjan, these were second hand older planes which were already in service for few years before handing over to IRAN


mig 35

C)and of course huge number of missiles   

[Afshin]

So far as fighter jets go Iran should focus on interceptors rather than attacking jets.  Both F5 and F14 are interceptors while F4 and F16 are attacking aircrafts.  Iran would need to use missiles to attack and use it's airforce for defence since.  Iran would find it impossible to attack Israel with fighter jets, American forces would stop them over Iraq.  Iran would also find it hard to hit Saudi Arabia with fighter jets, Saudis have AWACS and US support in the Persian Gulf, so again, Iran's sole choice would be missiles.

Iran has no choice but to co-operate with Russia and China to upgrade its fighters or build new ones.

It has to be said Ali Jaan, US technology is ahead of Russia and China, their fighter planes are superior to the Russians or Chinese, look at America's F35:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/1I6RLkfkGJM&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/1I6RLkfkGJM&rel=1</a>

[ali_europe]

this is a western propaganda that US military technology would be ahead.... USA and Russia both have been long time investing alot in their military sectors, even NATO simulations proved that modern russian material flown by experienced pilot can be quite efective.. in different manouvers of NATO German in their mig 29 pilots beat US pilots in their F-16... lot of military systems like helmet display were first used by russians... different NATO simulations proved that SU-27 has a 3:2 victrory rate vs F-15... one big reason for the bad performance of Russian weapons against US weapons was, cuz they mostly were used by very unexperienced and bad trained personal in some arab countriesvs top trained US or Israeli pilots., and russian often sold their older generation weapons on export market.... in wars where the enemy of USA was better trained the result was different..during Korea War USA hat huge loses vs North Korea, even Korean were less trained, but few russian pilots which were hiddenly working for Koreans had quite good shot down rate..in vietnam war lot of US planes were shot down by russian made SAM's ...Serbs for example even managed to shot down an american stealth fighter with a 30 years old russian SAM... Iranian pilots are different than arab pilots, our pilots are trained and courageus, while kuwaiti pilots escaped away in their US made fighter jets as few iraqi helicopter apeared in sky..
Of course after fall of soviet union, Russian companies had big financial problems which caused troubles with maintenance and logisitcs of their products, but today russian ecconomy is improving and stabilizing while western ecconomies are going downhill...
so if IRAN is smart, IRAN can put pressure on russian companies and get the "know how" and technologies with good conditions and as soon as IRAN would be able to produce powerfull systems, than we wouldn't any more need them
in case of china, I agree that their military technology is behind, but chinese are very fast improving, their ecconomy grows extremly fast, so soon or later they will pass USA and become a new superpower, so IRAN can also benefit from cooperation with china as long as possible...once our defence industry is fully independent, we wouldn't need them any more. chinese used the same trick on russians, as they ordered SU-27's

[ali_europe]

USA even bought some older SU-27 from Ukraine to test, why F-15 wasn't good enough in air fights against flanker and since then americans have updating lot of systems and weapons by their F-15.... but Russians also have improved F-27 by updating programs which lead to Su-33 and Su-35

[Afshin]

Thanks for your informative reply Ali Jaan.  One big handicap for Iran is that the Government and the whole system is not democratic and is corrupt.  This will hold Iran back in every way including militarily.  Various UN sanctions make it difficult for Iran to buy stuff from Russia, for instance a few months ago Russia cancelled Iran's order for an advanced Anti Aircraft system, this system would have put Iran in a very strong position against air attack from Israel or USA.  The Americans put a lot of pressure on Russia to cancel the deal, they might have even bribed Russia with economic incentives.

In the mean time life is very hard for the ordinary Iranians in Iran, this won't help matters either.  I believe Iran gave one of it's F14 fighters to Russia a few years ago in a deal that including buying Mig 29s.  So Russia have one F14 that they will have learnt a lot from in upgrading their fighters.

[ali_europe]

Afshin jan,you're absolutly right, as you said, dictatorship has slowed down the development of our country and huge parts of IRAN's potential were wasted in last 100 years....
but no matter if we have a good or bad government, there are some issues which are about IRAN's long therm ecconomical, technological or strategical Interessts. Therefore any decisions which would lead to positive changes should be supported. for example Raza shah was a cruel dictator, but his plans to build railway and bridges in IRAN was a positive and correct decision...the same about IRI, we all wish IRI to be replaced by a democratic government, but till that happen, we still can support any decisison which would make our defence industry more independent
in coming years we will face huge competiton between different foreign powers to have acces to middle eastern oil, that's why for our country an independent defence industry is a key issue.... at same time in short therm we might need to have some small cooperations with some powers to get acces to some know how, but the conditions should be for IRAN's benefit.... that's only work if the potential defence technology would be build in IRAN.I'm fine with modern russian fighters like PAKFA, if russians would accept that they would be manufactored in IRAN..Chinese did the same by ordering russian SU-27's, and later they could learn a lot for their own made fighter.... just wasting huge amount of money and buying 100's of fighter as Shah or some oil sheicks would do, is the wrong strategy, cuzt at the end, any embargo will make the whole weapons useless and we would be dependent on others.....
I also think we should be realistic!A country like IRAN, can't have a huge airforce with 1000 of fighters for an air war vs a superpower like USA or Russia...we should design our defence in a way that would be effective and match to our geographical and ecconomical potentials...
that means probally some 300 fighters for air policing and intercepting, but a good mixture of short range and long range SAM systems, which could very well use IRAN's mountain landscapes and make it hard for any enemy to do air attacks on IRAN without big lossesl today we have few TOR-units,which is an effective mid range SAM...but we need some long range SAMS like S-300 or even S-400 to combine with them

[ali_europe]

actually I made a typing mistake..of course I meant our SAM net should be in a way that the potential enemy have big losses