TheImmortal
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That current prototype, its not going to fly at all, no matter what others say. Unless they make a new clean slate or major modifications, its not going to fly.
Current prototype was not the final product, might have been a 1/4 scale project, might have been test bed. Who knows. Wouldn’t put too much salt in it till we see the project become more serious.
The best bet is the first gen of whatever final product comes out would fly with AL-31’s till Iran gets a working engine. Designing an airframe, incorporating RAM and honeycomb structure, aren’t the hard parts as Iran has had access to the technologies on the scientific level for years.
The radar, subsystems, and engines are the hard part. With the arms embargo in a grey area, Iran might be able to acquire 35-50 Russian engines so that solves a big problem that these projects have had: lack of access to a heavy engine.