I hope everyone got their answer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is just another modified design of the Iranian built version of the F-5! Which is a clear statement that Iranian Military leaders still haven't learned lessons from the Iran-Iraq war!
The Airframe is a tad bit larger than the F-5 with a modified Iranian designed Airframe and landing gear (with a focus on the cockpit) rather than an exact copy with a far more comfortable cockpit than the F-5's sadly the fighter tops out at Mach 1.2 (like the T-38)
FYI for all those who don't know the twin seat F-5F maxed out at Mach 1.5 with the ability to cruise at Mach 0.98 at altitude & 0.95 for F-5B
And the F-5E's maxed out at Mach 1.65 and also had a max cruise speed without Afterburners of Mach 0.98 at altitude
Which made them a brilliant design especially with the absurdly weak and cheap engines and airframe that they had and although they couldn't fly that fast with weapons onboard at least they had the ability to runaway at high speeds after deploying their weapons.
As I said sadly Iranian Air Force commander and some in our leadership still haven't learned lessons from the Iran-Iraq war and like a bunch of fools after a decade they are still playing around with the F-5 design where by comparison the U.S. had moved on to the F-14 & F-15 ~ a decade after the F-4's and F-5's.
At least this aircraft proves for all those who doubted it before that the Azarakhsh and Saegheh were actually built by Iran and NOT overhauled F-5's.
The Aircraft sadly has no built in IRST and no Air Refueling pod which are BOTH two major weaknesses that should have been addressed on a light CAS fighter such as this.
And even if Iran addresses those weaknesses a fighter such as this would need to be produced at a rate of 10 to 1 against a relatively more modern Air Force! Which means a country the size of Iran we would need a fleet of 2000 of these fighters!
And even if Iran could mass produce a version equipped with IRST, Fuel pod & an engine that could handle the extended flight time for $10 Million USD per fighter and producing 10 of them ends up being cheaper than buying 1 Su-35 at the end of the day the cost of maintaining, fueling, housing them, arming them & training pilots on such a large fleet over time would bankrupt Iran!
As always Iran's absurd obsessed with the F-5 is mainly due to it's cheap Airframe and the fighters low Titanium requirements which was fine when your fighter program was at it's infancy but it is NOT fine anymore.
Unlike most modern fighters producing the F-5 or the T-38 airframe doesn't require "massive" presses or massive vacuum ovens and it's titanium requirements are a fraction of fighters like the F-14, F-15 or F-22
Some think this is about Iran's Asymmetric style warfare BUT at the end of the day the whole point of Asymmetric warfare is to combat a more expensive military force at a lower cost and on the ground you may be able to use a large number of cheaper equipment against a more expensive armored division at a much lower cost but in the Air it is completely backwards because maintaining a large fleet of cheaper manned fighter jets ends up costing a lot more over time!
If Iran wants to be innovative and save money when it's come to it's Air Force rather than producing 40 F-5's or Saegheh or Azarakhsh or Kowsar a year it would be far better to produce 4 larger fighter a year (~10% larger than the F-14's) that can carry 10 or more 1000lb BVR Missiles or 10 or more 1000lb PGM in an internal weapons bay on a platform that has combat radius of 1200km or more that tops out at ~Mach 2
And since Aircrafts for your Air Forcer are platforms that are spose to last you for decades even if the initial price tag for producing 4-6 Aircraft comes out to be the same as producing 40-60 Iranian F-5 variants over time the more expensive aircraft will not only pay for it's self but militarily it is a far more tactically sound decision
If Iran wants to be innovative when it come to it's Air Force then they need to build a smaller but more capable Air Force with larger fighters equipped with larger engines with a new type of jet fuel that's mainly comprised of Natural Gas on a low RCS airframe with internal weapons bay that can carry a wide array of Air to Ground weapons from missiles that can be fired from outside the range of most SAM's to smart cluster weapons to lighter bunker busters to a large number of sea and ground mines deployed from the Air to laser countermeasures that can disrupt incoming IR & thermal missiles to large powerful radars that can fry enemy radars
I give you a scenario in which a F-5 makes sense and is cost effective:
- You need a CAS aircraft to support your ground forces with Mk.82 class firepower
- You operate within a IADS in high intensity warfare or else just counter insurgency
- You want to make use of swarm survivability should your IADS fail. A swarm with large HOBS IIR WVR AAM for self defense
- The concentration on CAS only and that with automated bombing system (SVP-24-like) or advanced targeting pod keeps necessary pilot kills at the very minimum. No dogfighting (HOBS for emergency), no race scenarios for pole positioning. Just high altitude bombing with a system that automatically releases the unguided bombs at the Fraktion of a second if you or the autopilot keeps course. Hence minimum pilot training.
- The CAS role in low threat environment means, max. speed is not critical
What do you get for that role?
Bear in mind
the F-5 design is so cost optimized that it has 4 times (no guessing, fact) lower maintenance effort/cost and hence lifetime cost than a F-4
The F-4 on the other hand has a up to 3 times higher payload. While the F-5 is at least half and up to 3 times as expensive per airframe.
Do you want a F-5 with 5 Mk.82 within 50km of your requested strike position or a F-4 with 15 Mk.82 at 150km?
Iran needs something in the F-14 class to enter BVR high altitude competition with the enemy. Anything below it makes no sense, anything below it must work in a protected niche. Anything else can on the other hand make up much of the penalty by staying in the low altitude WVR game only if it comes to a engagement. There HOBS WVR missile and numbers are king.
So for now the situation could be following: In Iraq and Syria, the IRIAF operations against ISIS were just too expensive to sustain. Russians could do it, but not Iran. Using the F-4 and Su-24 fleet to low altitude dumb bomb ISIS or even using PGMs would let attrition and costs explode. F-5 operations would may be affordable but attrition would be too high.
The key to success of Russians was the following combination: Robustness and reliability/low-maintenance of the small (~30) fleet of aircraft plus the low attrition high altitude bombing capability provided by the SVP-24 keeping the cases where PGMs were absolute necessary (mobile targets e.g) at very minimum. SVP-24 proved itself in the ability to hit large target like apartment blocks and combined with heavy bombs gave high PK.
We have to expect that Irans military learned its lessons from this campaign. Same as Russians likely learned that a armed drone like the S-129 is most cost effective when it comes to small and mobile targets.
So we want to have such a capability and the F-5 would be a ideal platform for this.
I'm quite happy the IRIAF did not present a upscale F-5, F-18 like aircaft actually. It would look cool but be inefficient.
We need to pave the ground in terms of subsystems, then move to better engines and just after that try to come up with something with serious air to air capability (capability to operate in enemy airspace).
Whether it is a brute force heavy interceptor like the Mig-31 or a smart asymmetrical solution like my Qaher-313 concept. We still need to qualify subsystems such as FBW system, HMS/HMD, airborne x-band AESA/PESA (we have it already on the ground) plus weapon systems like a heavy WVR HOBS IIR AAM, anti-radar missile, air launched compact cruise missile.
PS: A twin seat F-5 also makes a good advanced supersonic trainer. So building 100 for the counter insurgency CAS role (Russian campaign) also provides a secondary role of having 100 supersoic trainers.
