This is why Iran wants the bomb:
Iran yesterday showed off for the first time a new fighter jet said to be modelled on the American F-5 but built using domestic technology, state media reported.
The Azarakhsh (Lightning) jet-one of the first to be home-produced by Iran-made a successful flight in the central city of Isfahan in a ceremony attended by Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar and other officials.
[…] The development of the plane was first announced in September last year, when military officials said that it was “comparable” to the US F-5 fighter jet.
From the Daily Alert editors:
The F-5 is a 1960s-vintage jet. Prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iran’s air force possessed some 160 F-5 fighters.
Welcome to the 1960s, Iran.
All sarcasm aside, this is why Iran wants nukes. Because they’re not able to build their own cutting-edge jets, and we won’t sell them any (though Russia has no such compunction; however, Russian jets always seem to lose when confronted with American jets piloted by Americans or Israelis).
When the IAF shoots them down, will they have to paint a tiny little F-5 look-alike on the area under the canopy? Will the army be confronted by bow-and-arrow wielding zealots? (I hear they still have a one year’s supply of rocks, too.)
They actually had F-14s under the Shah, which is a far MORE advance aircraft than the F-5. But they probably beheaded all the pilots and mechanics who worked on them, so now they just sit there.
Most of the F-14s wore out. A shipment of about 50 F-14s were en route to Iran in 1979 when the Shah was overthrown. The USA recalled the navy ships delivering the jets.
While the F-5 is 1960s tech, an A-bomb is 1940s tech and reliable ballistic missiles are 1950s tech. I will continue to worry.
chsw
There are all sorts of interesting implications here …
The F-5 was explicitly designed as a cheap fighter-interceptor which could scramble rapidly for an intercept. In other words, it was primarily an air-superiority fighter designed to overwhelm more advanced enemy aircraft by weight of numbers. An interesting choice of aircraft for Iran to be building.
The F-5 was never actually flown operationally by any American military unit. The T-38 Talon, which was derived from the F-5, is the USAF’s standard fighter-jet trainer and Aggressor aircraft. But the fighter version was only built for the export market.
The article describes the new plane as “comparable to an F-5.” Comparable in what way? Shape? Size? Performance? Weapons load? If it’s that close to an F-5, then is it really a domestic airplane, designed and built entirely by Iranian industry? Or is it a license-built version of the F-5 using plans and parts bought or filched from one of that airplane’s legitimate buyers?
There was a post on this a few days ago- I can’t remember where. The picture used to illustrate this announcement was of a jet announced by Iran a few years ago, just flipped the other way.
The F-5 was a beautiful little plane for small nations with limited military missions.
I imagine the Iranians are using it to practice developing aircraft. This would also translate to developing maintenance capability. With a Russian-supplied air force, they will need that.
Maybe they envision supplying them to Syria to overwhelm Israeli surveillance drones. :-)
Here we go…
I told my own Iranian technology a while back… In a small way it’s comforting and amusing, but it is actually terrifying when thinking about what incompetents might do with weapons they are not equipped to handle. We have to depend on blind luck.
There is one sort of good news element to this: Top Gun and Red Flag ‘Aggressor’ squadrons (these are the opposition in fighter training exercises for USN and USAF training) used F-5 aircraft to simulate Soviet-bloc aircraft for many years. So most US and US-trained fighter pilots already know very well how to deal with this aircraft….
An Army composed of Free Men, such as in America, UK, or Israel, will fight to the last man. They care much more about what is behind them – their lands and families – than fear what is in front of them.
Armies of conscripts who fight for tyrants will stop fighting when the incentive to fight (the whips at their backs) ceases to exist.
The simple way to end this problem once and for all is to cut off the head of the snake – take out the Ayatollah’s and the nutcases running Iran. Of course, we have Jimmy Carter to thank for not only allowing Iran to fall to the Islamic maniacs and making political assassinations in foreign countries illegal.
After Clintons’ dismal performance against Islamic terrorists and lack of support for Israel, do you really want to trust the Democrats with National Security again?