No solid proof of this. Most of its fighters are sold to banana countries who don’t have the industrial or knowledge base to modify the planes in any significant way.
India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, China, Iran, Poland, Algeria, Vietnam etc are all Banana republics to you? You are welcome to provide evidence that any single country except for China (too big, too powerful) has ever upgraded or modified any fourth-generation fighter jet of Soviet/Russian origin without the help of Russia directly or indirectly? Some of these countries I mentioned above have the proven aviation-based industrial baseline but they still pay Moscow for upgradations. India can build their own Tejas which is a 4.0 generation aircraft but still have to pay 62 Million/CDK kit for SU-30 MKI to Russia or get their MIG-29 upgraded for a large amount. Iran can build a F-5E/F from and scratch with local turbojet, FBW, Grifo-346 Radar, modern e-Warfare, datalink all inside Iran, but can't carry out an extensive upgrade on a 40 years old MIG-29 9.12 airframe to save its dying Fulcrum fleet?
Chinese example is worst here. Its a superpower that Russia can not dictate in any domain. Although it somewhat has annoyed or even threatened China before by heavily arming India with lethal strategic weapons. But still China is too big or powerful for Russia to politically dominate. We can not say the same about Iran, India, Egypt, Algeria, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia who purchased Russian fighters but cant touch them locally.
Iran has a history of modifying or outright copying Russian weapons without license with no ramifications. It modified the export variant range restriction on TOR-M1 shortly after purchase. And now it copied the TOR-M1. It copied their torpedo. It copied their OTH design. Copied their radars. Copied their EW/ECW jammers. Just going off top of my head based on my aging memory.
But suddenly it’s fighter jets with older tech is off limits? Lol
I think you have no idea of how Chinese or Russian companies operate. Most of these systems you are mentioning here are semi-official or under the table TOT's, Iran did not just go around and "fooled" Russians and Chinese with reverse engineering. Tom Cooper recently did an excellent piece
https://www.keymilitary.com/article/threat-analysis-iranian-air-defence-systems on how, with not-so-official cooperation of Chinese Poly Group Corporation (CPGC) with IEI (Iran), transformed Iranian Air defence from an obsolete branch in 2000s to a multi layered menace of search and track radars, jammers, ambush SHORADS and LORAD/HIMAD TVC SAMs today. I am not even talking about official imports like S-200, S-300PMU2 here but Russian companies providing secret help in Iranian SAMs is not a new thing, you should read about old deals like SA-6, BUK, Rozonans, Avtobaza, Kornet, Shkval that were not even announced officially. It's a simple rule with Russia and China, you need their hardware to be developed inside your territory? you pay them in one way or other. They are not gonna let you copy their stuff for free easily. For a country like Iran with no other option other than Moscow or Beijing for sophisticated tech procurement, they can dictate us as they like unless we develop indigenous capability.
If Bell and the power (and money) of American arms industry couldn’t do anything to Iran then Russia cannot do anything either. Even when they sold SU-35 to China they had to beg for assurances China wouldn’t reverse engineer. No recourse for Russia.
It would be one thing if Iran bought SU-35 then tried to sell that same SU-35 to Hezbollah or something. Or had license production to produce AL-31 (example) then tried to export that product to Venezuela.
Contracts can have a clause prohibiting selling to another country. Hence why Iran ultimately couldn’t get the Sukhoi Superjet because it had parts from Boeing/Airbus. (Thank god for that decision because look at Russia now cut off from spare parts).
You are talking like an American here giving too much value to "contracts" and "courts". Eastern defense markets/mafias of Russia and China do not operate this way. Russian and Chinese under-the-table cooperation with Iran is larger then their official deals. How can Iran "sue" somebody over a secret deal when the whole transfer is through an unofficial agreement involving black markets that Iran can not use in claim like with S-300 before? Read the Tom Cooper's work above.
You remind me a lot of
@VEVAK, when you get an idea stuck in your head you only see that idea. Except Vevak hated Kowsar. He knew the limitations of such a platform. I don’t hate it. I think it’s a good modernization program for F-5. Like Karrar is a good modernization program for Iran’s aging T-72. I wouldn’t build 5000 Karrar though. It’s a good stop gap till Iran has a truly modern Tank design.
And you remind me of you yourself from IMF days with the same nontechnical assumption-based negative posts regardless of what technical details are. I have told you before and others here agree with me that modern combat aviation is all about electronics. A modern aircraft needs sharp Radars that can track small RCS enemies from BVR ranges. In addition to that, it needs strong self-defense with RWR/MAWS, and ECM/ECCM suite. Strong navigation+communication, and Datalinking with other systems on the battlefield like fighters, UCAVS, GWACS/AWACS networks are a must. Kowsar-I fits this more than any aircrafts in the entire IRIAF right now. Nobody is saying this is the end or epitome of Iranian aviation industries. Its a start, right now this program's job is to add a reliable layer to IRIAF's interception capability, in near future, it will transform the way Sayyad-2 transformed to Sayyad-4 or Ghadir class enlargement became Fateh Class. This is how industrial engineering R&D works, I can tell you that from 16 years of experience in the west.
Anyway back to topic.... where is Iran going to build 300 owj engines from? (150 Kowsar you mentioned) To me it looks owj production capability is at workshop production level not mass factory production level. We don’t even know how many hours an owj engine lasts till it needs major work. It could be far from optimal range for all we know.
I do not think they owe you or anybody a tour inside Turbine Engineering Manufacturing (TEM) to convince you of their mass production capabilities. You have claimed same baseless stuff before like "6 prop airframes" of Kowsar. I had to give you serials with details to prove that atleast 18-24 airframes are being worked upon. Now, according to you if they have no mass production of OWJ turbojets at their hands, are they this stupid to waste money and manpower on those 18-24 airframes when they do not have 36-48 OWJ turbojets in their hands?
But they will give SU-57 or SU-75? Swear you guys are bi polar sometimes with your logic.
I said it’s a wishlist and still very low chance of happening. I’m skeptical getting those jets... which is why it’s laughable to talk about going after SU-57/75.
Stop putting your own words in my mouth. You need to read the thread again, I never claimed or wished for any J-31 or SU-75 purchase. Actually it came out of you yourself with SU-75 and J-31 purchases, read below your own direct quote.
The only better alternative would be J-31, which we don’t know Capabilities at all outside of what China says. And China hasn’t even given its satellite Pakistan J-31....so unlikely Iran could get in without a massive change in military relations.
So who started this talk? not me for sure.
Nobody here including me thinks Iran is getting SU-35S or anything. I am not even in favor of these 5 billions USD worth of purchases which would add nothing or little to Iranian aerial defence capabilities. Heavy cost and maintenance, large RCS, weak radars, what are we getting here? with the same amount of money, IRIAF can arm the tomcat fleet to teeth with F-14AM upgradations, MLU+upgradation of fulcrum fleet to MIG-29M standard and building a large force of Kowsar-I/II with a large fleet of jet-powered UCAVs for SIGINT/ELINT, datalinked AWACS role, PGM strikes. A force that can defend skies and bite back hard. 85 Million USD/aircraft SU-35S won't give us that.
You guys have zero plans to replace F-14. You think they will fly forever. We just lost one. As time goes on more will have to be sent to storage for fatigued airframes. Lack of titanium aerospace production facilities means you aren’t building brand new F-14 airframes like you are with a titanium-less F-5 airframe, so less flight hours on flight worthy ones.
I mean there is only so much stress an airframe can take...no?
Unless I am missing something extending F-14’s beyond 2040 seems to be economically unviable. (Assuming they are still even remotely competitive before that time)
And you somehow think a SU-30SM or a SU-35S can do the job of F-14A/AM in IRIAF? They will come with R-77-1 with a range of ~100 KM. No way IRIAF is going to replace F-14 that can fire 6 x AIM-54 or Fakour-90 to 150+ KM with a 105 KM ranging BVR carrying Sukhoi. There is no need to retire F-14 for now for this reason. F-14's worth as a front-line fighter in IRIAF ends the day we get a modern low-weight LR-BVR missile like PL-15 (PLAAF version not the export) or R-77M procured or produced inside Iran. In recent years, we have seen IEI making some very good strides in radar manufacturing inside Iran with Bayyenat-I on F-4E (similar to JL-10 of JH-7) or Bayyenat-II (ditto of Grifo-346) on Kowsar-I. With those systems in hand, seems like IEI might be capable of producing modern AESA radars in near future in class of Grifo-E or KLJA-7A. Until that happens along with production/procurement of R-77M like weapon, F-14A/AM will keep flying with Fakour-90 and future Maghsoud LR-BVRs. They just can not be replaced by anything unless Iran gets some 60 x MIG-31BM with R-37 (impossible).
I’d rather get my hands on a medium-heavy engine now so that by 2040, Iran has experience building medium to heavy jet engines. So it can then realistically build an interceptor alternative. I’m not planning on war in next 10 years that’s why I don’t care for J-10C or any short term alternative, I’m planning on having a solid domestic Air Force capability by 2050. The only way you get there is having a capable heavy engine. Ask the Chinese how long it took and how much effort.
Because as it stands now by 2040 we will have Kowsar-X and nothing else (assuming there isn’t some super secret interceptor black project Iran is working on).
For the "nth" time, modern combat aviation is not about powerful engines and speeds. For some silly reason you just can't get over the fact that no modern manufacturer cares about some massive physical parameters of fighter jets anymore otherwise US would still be flying F-14D, SR-71 and Russia would be taking out MIG-25 from its storages. Modern combat aviation revolves around having lowest possible RCS on compact airframes, longest possible ranged AESA radars, e-warfare suites, encrypted data exchanges. This why EF-2000, Rafale, JAS-39, F-35 are finding markets. Even if this "Kowsar-X" you are mentioning here is a single fold upgrade over the avionics of Kowsar-I then we get a 4+ generation fighter with 1-2 m2 frontal RCS with AESA radar, HOTAS, HMD slaved missiles because just one stage below this standard is what already exists as Kowsar-I. Iranian aviation industry has just begun to breath again with some unveilings like modern radars, turbojets, LR-BVR and WVR missiles, avionics, from-scratch airframes etc. Do not expect it to start giving you F-22 the next year. It will give out 60-70 x F-5G/F-20 equivalent first (Kowsar-I) then 100 or so YF-17/F-18 equivalents (Kowsar-II) then something beyond. This is much better than a foreign spare parts-dependent fleet of some 24 x SU-35S for 3 Billion USD.
Yes...yes...the magic is in what electronics you are carrying...aircraft itself is just a taxi delivering your potent passenger...
well yes. It is like this in modern days. But the "Taxi" should be fairly maneuverable, supersonic with good climb, pitch, roll, yaw, and capabilities. Majority of not all controlled by FBW. Kowsar or F-5E/F modernized airframe fits the bill for now.
In next generation, dry thrust in excess of 14000-16000 lbf is a must in addition to some changes to made to the frontal aspect to bring the RCS below <1.0 m2.
Still ongoing? Can you message me? I think my profile settings should allow it.
I cant post anything, I contacted
@WebMaster and mods but most are not online. May be they will sort it out on weekends.
