I'm not going to read Wikipedia nonsense so stop wasting your time!
Your basing your nonsense on Wikipedia which is nonsense and not based on factual information.
Of really. There is TONS of information out there (as you can see by e.g. a reference to an actual book) I have yet to see an Iranian poster here link you information by the Iranian government, something I've often challenged people that make wild claims to do. Obviously, they can't, for equally obvious reaons. A well referenced wiki page - that allows you to trace back underlying source material - is infinitely more usefull than some forum or blog poster's individual claims.
1st off Iran keeps the vast majority of it's weapons inside bunkers especially it's Air Force! And Iran doesn't make public how many of what weapon it has.
Wiki info on how many Tanks, APC, Helo's, etc etc Iran has is all based on nonsense speculations NOT FACTS because Iran doesn't make that info public.
It doesn't have to. Surely you've heard of institutions such as e.g. SIPRI. Or market research by companies specialized in that. Or data from non-Iranian governments e.g. on weapons deliveries. etc.
Essentially you say no other source than Iranian government statements constitute fact. Which is BS. How do you think intelligence agencies compile information on countries? All from official sources and/or their own spies?
Anyway, I've never claimed wiki data to be super accurate or definitive, which is eveidenced by my retracing wiki data and correlating with other sources to establish the validity and reliability of numbers given on various wiki pages.
Which is more than you do here.
So, in effect, you are barking up the wrong tree.
2ndly Iran doesn't need 200 F-5's because they don't have much use in a country the size of Iran and that fact was proven during the Iran-Iraq war when Iranian F-5's had more sorties than any other fighter with the least amount of kills and the highest amount of losses. Also, due to their low range and lack of Air-Air refueling capability they are not a suitable fighter in a country the size of Iran. In the Iran-Iraq war they could barely hit targets 100km into Iraqi Air Space before they had to run back home.
I think you lack knowledge on e.g. to what extent the Sjah was working to build Iranian military forces. F-5 purchases and deliveries to Iran are well documented. WIth F-4, the F-5 was a workhorse of the Iranian air force in the war with Iraq. This too is well documented. If the F-5 is so unsuitable for Iran, how come the only visible Iranian developed warplane(s) - Azarakhsh, Seaqeh are clearly F-5 based (rather than e.g. F-4 Phantom, or F-14 Tomcat)? And how come Iranians here chestthump about it, claiming it is F-18 equivalent?
Right now Iran can build Fatteh-110 missiles in the 1000's with ranges over 300km with an accuracy far greater than what F-5's could provide.
Well, congratulations. Why then is Iran bothering with Azarakhsh and Seaqeh, or contemplating the purchase of SU-30s? Why bother with aircraft alltogether?
Chengdu F-7 (Mig 21)
:
Combat range 850 km (459 nmi, 528 mi) (air superiority = with two AAMs
and three drop tanks)
Ferry range: 2,200 km (1,187 nmi, 1,367 mi)
Northrop F-5A/B
Combat radius with maximum payload: 195 miles
Combat radius with maximum fuel and two 530-pound bombs: 558 miles.
Range with maximum internal fuel -- 1387 miles.
Northrop F-5E/F
Combat radius with maximum fuel and 2 Sidewinder missiles -- 656 miles.
Range on internal fual: 760 nmi (870 mi, 1,405 km)
Range with maximum fuel -- 1543 miles (1777 km)
Ferry range: 2,010 nmi (2,310 mi, 3,700 km)
Mirage F1
Combat radius: 425 km (230 nm, 265 mi) hi-lo-hi at Mach 0.75/0.88 with 14 × 250 kg bombs
Ferry range: 3,300 km (1,780 nmi, 2,050 mi)
In effect, the F-5E isn't any worse than contemporary jets like F-7/Mig-21 and Mirage F1
So if F-5's lacked much success against Saddam's weak and ill trained Air Force over 30 years ago, then, they and aircrafts like them are not a platform Iran should be investing in mass producing or let alone purchasing
I never said the F-5 lacked during the Iran-Iraq war. I merely stated the documented number of losses. In war, losses are inevitable. It is your interpretation of the F-5 data.
In fact, producing 200 Saeqeh or purchasing 200 Yak-130's which is in inferior platform would be more of a liability than a strength.
So why is Iran bothering with Saeqeh?
How is Yak-130 inferior to e.g. F-5 or Seaqeh? (IMHO, it isn't, except for the top speed).
Like it or not, Iran will need advanced trainers if it is to operate top of the line fighters effectively.
Like it or not, there comes an end to F-5 and there is a limit on improvements that can be made to that design. See Northrop F-20 (and I seriously doubt Saeqeh is better)
The reason Iran chose the F-5 to reverse engineer is because the F-5 uses the lowest amount of titanium compared to most supersonic fighters in the world and the titanium parts it does have are smaller and easier to manufacture when compared to other fighters which made it an ideal platform for a country that wanted to kickoff a fighter program in it's aeronautic industry.
Also, due to the low cost airframe & engine it makes it an ideal supersonic platform to conduct experiments on and build experimental aircrafts like the Saegheh and Iran will likely continue such experiments on the F-5 platform and trust me there have been and in the future will continue to be variants based on the F-5 that will never go public.
Totally disregarding the succes of F-5 in a very very large number of nations. I.e. I do not believe the titanium-explanation to be the sole or even the most important reason. I think we can end our discussion of Iranian aircraft development then completely, since the Iranian government will not go public and will hide any aircraft underground in bumkers. Hence, there is nothing to discuss. Not by me, not by you (information limitations apply to both of us)
Currently all the facilities, tools and equipment that were being used to produce the Saegheh have been converted to the production to the Kowsar 88 after 1 or 2 squadrons of the Kowsar 88 they will likely be converted to manufacture another fighter....
Kowsar 88 is an F-5 based double cockpit jet (trainer)
http://www.airrecognition.com/index...ing-jets-kowsar-88-and-azarakhsh-2110121.html
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931120001326
On reliability of wiki
When you Google the question "How accurate is Wikipedia?" the highest-ranking result is, as you might expect, a Wikipedia article on the topic (
"Reliability of Wikipedia").
That page contains a comprehensive list of studies undertaken to assess the accuracy of the crowd-sourced encyclopedia since its founding 10 years ago. Of course, if you find yourself on this page, you might worry that the list itself may not be trustworthy. Well, the good news is that almost all those studies tell us that it probably is.
In 2005, the peer-reviewed journal Nature asked scientists to compare Wikipedia's scientific articles to those in Encyclopaedia Britannica—"the most scholarly of encyclopedias," according to its own Wiki page. The comparison resulted in a tie; both references contained four serious errors among the 42 articles analyzed by experts.
And last year, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that Wikipedia had the same level of accuracy and depth in its articles about 10 types of cancer as the Physician Data Query, a professionally edited database maintained by the National Cancer Institute.
The self-described "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" has fared similarly well in most other studies comparing its accuracy to conventional encyclopedias, including
studies by The Guardian, PC Pro, Library Journal, the Canadian Library Association, and several peer-reviewed academic studies.
Still, because anyone can edit Wikipedia entries, they "can easily be undermined through malice or ignorance,"
noted BBC technology commentator Bill Thompson. Vandalism of Wiki entries is common in the realm of politics. In 2006, for example, slanderous comments were added to U.S. Sen. Bill Frist's biography page; the IP addresses of the computers used to make the edits traced back to some of his political rivals' staffers. To counter such activity, Wikipedia places editing restrictions on articles that are prone to vandalism.
A Small Study of Our Own
To add to the debate, Life's Little Mysteries carried out its own, albeit small, test of Wikipedia's accuracy by consulting experts from two very different walks of life: theoretical physics and pop music.
Life's Little Mysteries asked Adam Riess, professor of astronomy and physics at Johns Hopkins University and one of the scientists credited with proposing the existence of
dark energy , to rate Wikipedia's "dark energy" entry.
"It's remarkably accurate," Riess said. "Certainly better than 95 percent correct."
This is not true, however, of the page about the indie pop band "Passion Pit," according to its drummer, Nate Donmoyer. Donmoyer found 10 factual errors on his band's page ranging from subtle to significant. Some information even appeared to have been added to the page by companies or organizations in search of publicity.
"It's kind of crazy," Donmoyer told LLM. "I don't think I can trust Wikipedia again. The littlest white lies can throw its whole validity off."
It may make sense that Wikipedia would have more reliable articles about academic topics than pop culture ones, considering that the latter are more prone to rumors and hearsay. On the other hand, there's no Passion Pit entry at all in Encyclopaedia Britannica. With more than three million English-language entries, Wikipedia very often wins our preference by default.
http://www.livescience.com/32950-how-accurate-is-wikipedia.html
The HARVARD university guide to using resources states:
What's Wrong with Wikipedia?
There's nothing more convenient than Wikipedia if you're looking for some quick information, and when the stakes are low (you need a piece of information to settle a bet with your roommate, or you want to get a basic sense of what something means before starting more in-depth research), you may get what you need from Wikipedia. In fact, some instructors may advise their students to read entries for scientific concepts on Wikipedia as a way to begin understanding those concepts.
Nevertheless, when you're doing academic research, you should be extremely cautious about using Wikipedia. As its own disclaimer states, information on Wikipedia is contributed by anyone who wants to post material, and the expertise of the posters is not taken into consideration. Users may be reading information that is outdated or that has been posted by someone who is not an expert in the field or by someone who wishes to provide misinformation. (Case in point: Four years ago, an Expos student who was writing a paper about the limitations of Wikipedia posted a fictional entry for himself, stating that he was the mayor of a small town in China. Four years later, if you type in his name, or if you do a subject search on Wikipedia for mayors of towns in China, you will still find this fictional entry.) Some information on Wikipedia may well be accurate, but because experts do not review the site's entries, there is a considerable risk in relying on this source for your essays.
The fact that Wikipedia is not a reliable source for academic research doesn't mean that it's wrong to use basic reference materials when you're trying to familiarize yourself with a topic. In fact, the library is stocked with introductory materials, and the Harvard librarians can point you to specialized encyclopedias in different fields. These sources can be particularly useful when you need background information or context for a topic you're writing about.
http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page346376
Clearly, the apparent accuracy of a Wikipedia article is inversely proportional to the depth of the reader's knowledge of the topic. That is to say, his or her ability to assess that which is written in a Wikipedia article. Which also implies one does not ever take any Wikipedia article's (un)reliability as a given, and always attempts to verify it e.g. by looking at what source references are given and checking those. Which is what any good researcher would do with any material found in the literature in his/her field.
