US airforce finally admitted that they have worse planes.

[viper]

the upgraded F-14\'s may be quite potent however I\'d be more interested in Iran\'s new indigenous fighter that is in development, there have been no photos of it yet (only fake photoshopped) but drawings that have come from the country show it to be based on the F-5 with tapered V tails like those of the F-18.

[Crazy_Ivan]

What about a F-14 with flanker radar and engines...

About the iranian F-5 mods
Simorgh, a twoseater that looks like a T-38, but actually is a modified F-5 with a second cockpit.


There is the upsized F-5 (Azarakhsh-1) which is said to be using MiG-29 engines... rumours go that it\'s original design scrapped because it was falling apart for some reason (probably an over-age F-5 airframe used or so). it is this one that has a double tail, certainly in it\'s new version

No fotosoep involved, screencaps from (possibly) sattelite decoder. From the official rollout ceremony with all the top brass looking at it

Tazarve / Owj

BAe Hawk-like trainer, seems a little overpowered with a F-5 engine in it if you look at the size

And there is a totally new design with LERX and other goodies, engine either from F-4 or F-5.

horrible quality tv grabs, identifed as Shafaq

one more, desktop-size model


Apart from these there is a lot more interesting stuff flying around there
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/462161/M/ Boeing 707-300 tanker with EVERY option that was available: Cargo door, Tanker boom and two hose units on the wingtips

SAHA, which is the \'airline\' for the iranian defense industry has more weird machines... the only existing 747 tanker version of which 4 were delivered (don\'t know if boeing sold the test version with that batch or not).

testing testing with a b-52...
http://www.iiaf.net/aircraft/tankerstran...er_jpg.jpg
Official IRIAF picture , one out of four

[viper]

I\'d seen all those ones before (the one that has the 2 tails, the general concensus is that the entire video is faked but no-one knows as those are standard F-5 engine nozzles, not Mig-29 powerplant ones). Also, the \'shafaq\' video is the first images I\'d seen and again I\'m sceptical of them, as that looks alot like the \'Javelin\' high-speed business jet/homeland defence aircraft.

[Yellowbelly]

I saw something on TV about the F-22\'s thrust vectoring and all that. It has a differently designed...gah what\'s that thing called...the thing at the end of the whole jet engine...the nozzle?. Oh well but it\'s designed so that it doesn\'t give a heat signature (or as much of one) so that heat seeking missles are almost useless. From the looks of those pics of the russian fighters with 3d vectoring, it still looks like it would give out a huge heat signature.

Also, are those ASRAAM missles heat seeking?

Is the USAF aware that their newly designed F-22 will soon be obsolete? The thing is too expensive especially if it\'s going after aircraft that can take it down.

[viper]

Yup, ASRAAM is heat seeking and has a max range of 15 miles.

And yes the USAF are perfectly aware that aircraft already exist that can befeat the F-22, infact when the Commanche was cancelled it was either that or the F-22, the USAF are also expected to drastically cut their order (again) to a level where Lockheed Martin barely break even let alone make a profit from the aircraft.

[Crazy_Ivan]

Tumanskis were one of the options with the old version (the F-5 + 15%, Azarakhsh I) with the new one (Azarakhsh II) they probably went for the PW copies they had on stock instead, which they can maintain in house instead of having to send it to Moscow when they need repairs.

The Shafaq is the same as the Russian \'Project Integral\', which sometimes is mentioned as MiG-I-2000. While it wasn\'t designed by a MiG engineer, it was part of the LFI project entry by the MiG OKB. MiG stopped with the LFI project, probably because of money. Sukhoi went ahead with their S-55 (downsized flanker), and Iran started with the Mikoyan LFI leftovers that eventually evolved to the Shafaq

The thing with Iran is that they probably provided NKorea, China and Russia with knowledge of every nut and bolt of the F4, F5 and F14 in exchange for anything they could use to keep their own stuff flying... and they seem to be succesful in that, with about 20 out of 70 F-14s still flying around whitout official access to any spares, and that after a huge air war which involved the most modern stuff the French (mirage) and Russians (various migs and sukhois) wanted to show off

[The_Punisher]

I still think they should have gone with the F23.

[viper]

They are actually looking at the F-23 as a replacement for the 15E Strike Eagle however, LM have also put forward the FB-22 for the contract. (pic below) which has a higher chance of wiinning the contract as its just a modified F-22 (basically an F-22 with the wing of an F-16XL).

Also the USAF are looking at buying either a squadron of Typhoons or Rafales as they have nothing that can effectively test the F-22 in an aggressor training aircraft role.

[tomcat ha]

The area around the cockpit of the Fb22 reminds me to the F14

[1st Sgt. Burke]

I like the Avro Arrow