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New Iranian drone capable of carrying out military and border patrol missions announced. Soon in the Syrian airspace? March 19, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Drones, Iran.
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On Mar. 17, a FARS News Agency article announced the production of the Shaparak (Butterfly), a new drone that can perform a wide variety of missions, including surveillance and border patrol.

The new robot has an endurance of about 3.5 hours, a maximum operational range of 50 kilometers (31 miles), and a ceiling of 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). Powered with a two-cylinder engine, the remotely piloted aircraft is equipped with three digital color cameras to transmit hi-rez footage to the ground control station, and can carry an 8-Kg payload.

The Shaparak is only the last one of a long series of made-in-Iran drones making the news lately.

UAVs believed to be either based on Iranian types or sold by the Tehran regime spying on the rebels activities have characterized the Syrian uprising in the last few weeks. This highlights that, although some were actually much similar to remote controlled scale models than real unmanned aircraft, in spite of foreign sanctions, Iran is continuing building new drones, some of those are successfully exported to local allies.

Noteworthy, the same FARS article traces the recent history of the Iranian industry in the production of UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles).

In Feb. 2011, Iran inaugurated the production line of two home-made Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), named  ‘Ra’d’ (Thunder) and ‘Nazir’ (Harbinger), with bombing and reconnaissance capabilities while in Sept. 2011, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled the Karrar, country’s first home-made UCAV during a special ceremony in Tehran during the national “Day of Defense Industry”.

Karrar UCAV (Image credit: Internet)

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How IRIAF F-14 Tomcats could be (effectively) used in combat against Israeli or U.S. planes or drones March 16, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Iran.
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A previous article about the theoretical Israeli strike on Iran with the rendering of an F-15I dropping bombs on Tehran got a lot of attention and sparked debate. Someone criticized it for not being enough realistic, even if I had explained that the image had to be taken as such even if contained one (or more) wrong details. It was not supposed to be accurate that’s why I didn’t ask Al Clark, who designed it, to correct some elements of artist freedom.

In this article, a new Al’s artwork below gives me the opportunity to write something about one of the most famous aircraft in IRIAF inventory: the F-14 Tomcat.

According to “IRIAF 2010“, the book published by Harpia Publishing and written by Tom Cooper, Babak Taghvace and Liam F. Devlin, that I consider one of the most detailed sources about Iran’s Air Force, due to the lack of some spare parts, the fleet of more than 40 Tomcats is roughly divided into “airworthy” and “fully mission capable aircraft”.

The first fly without primary weapon systems and/or no AWG-9 radar; the second can perform QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) and air defense missions.

These aircraft are based at TFB.8 (Tactical Fighter Base 8) Baba’i near Eshahan, in central Iran.

Hence, although IRIAF officials have described the current fleet of F-14s as “completely overhauled” and “improved”, and referred to it a a “new generation of bombers” in the recent past, only a small amount of Tomcats can be used for air defense purposes in spite of the large amount of spare parts that Iran was able to clandestinely collect after the type was retired by the U.S. Navy and the efforts of various domestic companies to produce some specific parts and subsystems.

What is the role the Tomcat could play in a hypothetical war against Israel?

As already explained in the blog post about the possible long range strike on Iran’s nuclear program, IRIAF interceptors, should play “hide and seek” with the enemy forces: they could hide from the incoming packages and try to achieve some kills during the egress phase. They could be effective by simply disturbing the strike packages to let them “feel” the threat and waste some gas.

The Tomcats could somehow be effective against isolated targets, like drones, mainly before or after the first waves of air strikes: even a UAV kill could play a role in the psychological war against Israel.

For sure, radar activation would be reduced to a minimum: during the most intense part of the air campaign their AWG-9 radar would be either jammed (although it was domestically modified or locally upgraded to make it more jamming-resistant) or detected as soon as switched on, with the latter hypothesis implying the risk of interception by enemy fighters.

Obviously, just in case: before the whole thing starts the planes should be dispersed on one of the several Iranian airbases to prevent them from being destroyed on the ground at TFB.8.

Image by Al Clark for The Aviationist

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Image: Israeli F-15 strike on Tehran on Day 1 of the war on Iran’s nuclear program March 8, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Iran.
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Update Mar. 8 19.00 GMT

The following drawing, exclusively prepared by Al Clark for The Aviationist, shows how an attack by a formation of F-15Is on a nuclear facility located in downtown Tehran might look like.

Obviously, it is only a fictional scene, however it is quite realistic for an eventual strike on the Tehran Nuclear Research Center, that is located not far from the Milad Tower, clearly visible on the background.

Someone might argue that the first and most of strikes would be launched at night. That is true, but it is quite likely that subsequent missions would be flown during daylight conditions too. Even the surroundings of the Nuclear Research Center are probably a bit different from those depicted, the payload could be different, tanks would be dropped, altitude should be higher and so on, but please take it just as an interesting artwork.

Please note that I’ve used the word “image” on the title because it is not a drawing, nor a rendering or a photo. It is a Computer Generated Imagery (CGI).

Image by Al Clark for The Aviationist

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A draconian long range strike: Israel’s attempt to smash the Iranian nuclear program. March 3, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Iran, Military Aviation.
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There is much debate these days about the ability of Israel to hit Iran’s nuclear program. Some analysts believe that it would be a draconian challenge to launch such a long range attack on the facilities used for the atomic program while others are much more optimistic. To such an extent there’s someone who firmly believes that 25 F-15Is, each carrying a single GBU-28, and about a dozen F-16Is with lighter weapons could be enough to achieve the goal.

I’m among those who think that it is not going to be an walk in the park. The problem is not only to penetrate Tehran’s airspace but execute concurrent air strikes on several ground targets.

There are about 30 nuclear facilities in Iran, six of those are believed to be primary targets for anyone willing to halt the Iranian nuke ambitions.

Unless something really unbelievable happens (as, for instance, a southern circumnavigation or a northern trip with a stopover in Azerbaijan to enter Iran from the Caspian Sea or any other unexpected direction) there are only 3 possible routes to Iran: Northern (via Turkey), Central (via Jordan and Iraq) and Southern (via Saudi Arabia). Both require (more or less) a violation of sovereign airspaces as well as several supporting aircraft. AEW, EW, SEAD and many refueling planes.

The Israeli can almost do everything. But this is not a pre-emptive surprise strike. Unless the IAF is going to perform only a symbolic strike (that would be almost a suicide mission, considered the reaction it would spark) the one in Iran will be an extremely long range mission in which many fortified underground targets will have to be smashed along with other surrounding targets. Not static unprotected targets, but SAM sites, radars, and everything belonging to the Integrated Air Defense System that will try to repel the attacking force.

Unlike previous attacks on Iraq and Syria, that came almost unexpected, Iran is probably on heightnet alert status: with several geographically dispersed targets, the surprise factor would be quickly mitigated and IAF planes would have to deal with anti-aircraft threats and IRIAF fighter planes flying sort-of isolated air defense missions.

Furthermore, few analysts have taken Iran’s military capability into account. Even if the current Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force is mainly flying on vintage American and Russian “hardware” hardly maintained because of the international sanctions, it can still count on about 200 combat planes flown by proud pilots.

The Iranian fighters would not need to destroy many bombers. Disturb them in point-defense missions, let them spend some more fuel and make their long strike missions longer and more risky, would be enough.

Hence, a proper escort must be taken into account.

Drones will mainly provide pre and post-strike ISR (Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance).

Obviously, the scenario changes when/if air superiority is established and subsequent missions can be launched to look after individual targets in a battlefield freed of anti-aircraft threats. But this is something not going to be achieved very fast.

Summing up, if we consider that in 2007 air strike in Syria (isolated target caught by surprise) the Israelis employed ten planes to attack surface targets, I think that in Iran each target will require some 12-15 planes (spares comprised). This means that 60 planes would be called into action to strike 6 priority targets. If some secondary sites should be attacked as well, the armada would be made of several packages for more than 100 planes.

Hence, it would not be an air strike, but a small scale much dangerous air campaign.

That’s the reason why a conventional attack is unlikely.

Actually, as pointed out at the end of 2011, the war on Iran nuke ambition has already begun. A covert war made of less visible weapons: computer viruses, assassinations and mysterious bomb blasts…

Photo: Iranian maritime patrol aircraft buzzes the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz February 29, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Aircraft Carriers, Iran.
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“Tower this is Ghost Rider requesting a flyby”

“Negative Ghost Rider, pattern is full”

Many of you remember this memorable quotes from Top Gun movie. Imagine the same request radioed by an Iranian maritime patrol aircraft to the Air Boss of USS Abraham Lincoln, as the American supercarrier sailed through the Strait of Hormuz.

Obviously, the Iranian Fokker 27 that you can see in the following screenshots (from a BBC Persian footage) did not request any permission to buzz the “Island” of the flattop and was closely monitored from many miles away. Nevertheless they are interesting as they show a close encounter that is quite common in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.

Iranian Navy Fokker F27s have already performed low passes on other aircraft carriers in the past. Since they are turboprop reconnaissance planes they don’t pose a real threat to the Strike Group that doesn’t need to take any defensive action other than tracking the surveillance plane all time.

Aircraft carriers don’t even need to change their course if a spyplane pops up on the radar, provided that it is not armed and it doesn’t show an aggressive behaviour.

Something different happens if a more threatening formation approaches the supercarrier. For instance, when two Russian Tu-95s buzzed the USS Nimitz in the Pacific, the carrier launched some F-18s to intercept and escort the “intruders”.

Not only planes pay visit to the Carrier Strike Group in the Gulf: Iranian speedboats can be seen in the following screenshot, in close proximity of the Lincoln and accompanying ships.

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Rare behind the scenes video of Iranian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer operations February 19, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Iran.
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The following interesting video shows daily operations at the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer, belonging to the 72nd Bomber Squadron at TAB-7 in Shiraz.

Mission briefing, dress rooms, flying clothing as well as a taxi ride by a journalist in the Fencer (this explains why he doesn’t wear a flight suit). Also cockpit images during buddy refueling and air-to-air footage of a KH-29L (AS-14 “Kedge” in NATO designation) air-to-surface laser-guided missile test fire.

A rare and quite long (unfortunately in original language) “behind the scenes” of one of the most interesting Iranian combat planes.

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F-14s, in-flight emergencies and arrested landings. Top Gun? No, an Iranian TV series February 17, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Iran.
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It is very well known that, more or less one year ago China tried to pass off Top Gun as air force footage but did you know there was also a mini-Top Gun made in Iran?

If not, have a look at the following video.

An IRIAF (Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force) F-14, part of a flight of four, suffers a hydraulic failure and is forced to perform a successful emergency landing using the runway arresting system.

Screenplay aside, the video is extremely interesting as it shows the rare Tehran’s Tomcats, one of those can be seen engaging the cable with the tailhook. Noteworthy, some of the radio comms are in English language (with Persian subtitles).

According to the information provided by the user who uploaded it on Youtube, the footage is from the Iranian TV series Shoghe Parvaz.

Thanks to Al Clark for the heads up.

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Iranian indigenous aircraft and micro-drones: Mach 2.5 stealth plane and scale models (with no military significance) February 11, 2012

Posted by Richard Clements in Drones, Iran.
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It is no secret that the sanctions held against Iran are crippling the influx of military equipment forcing Iran to make its own aircraft to replace ageing U.S. types as the F-4 and the F-14 recently seen escorting the Russian Knights display team.

In 2002, the idea of a light weight stealth fighter came to light when a model surfaced during an air industry exhibition. It showed a single seat, single engine fighter with outward canted twin vertical stabilisers. It took Iranian news footage in 2004 for the first full size and seemingly working example to reach the public domain.

Although there are rumours Russian experts from both Sukoi and Mikoyan and possibly Yakolev were also involved in its development, which would explain its striking resemblance to the forward fuselage of the Yak-130, it had been developed by the Students and scientists of the Aviation department of the Malek Ashtar University and reported to have made its maiden flight some time in 2004 using an Iranian version of the Klimov RD-33 engine.

The news footage showed a twin seat example with a semi-matt black fuselage suggesting that it could have been made from Radar Absorbing Materials, and from certain angles, the aircraft looks like a two seat F-35. Even if it has never been ratified, the use of radar absorbing materials are said to significantly reduce the Radar Cross Section.

The light fighter bomber has been named “Shafagh-2″ or “Aurora” and is said to have a special twisting ability that gives it better manoeuvrability and roll rate. This may be one of those times where things get lost in translation and the twisting might refer to thrust vectoring (!) rather than roll rate.

The Shafagh is designed as a single seat or twin seat multi role fighter; it has seven hard points, three under each wing and one centreline station and can carry a mixed Air-to-Air load or Air-to-Ground weapons.  The use of pylons under the wings would surely hinder any stealth capability the aircraft has, although the level of stealthiness in comparison to that of the F-22 Raptor or B-2 Spirit should be somewhat less.

The aircraft is certainly real and has flown; it’s unknown in what capacity it has flown but certainly has never entered service. Its last known activity was in 2008 and it should have remained an unfinished project.

Even if some performance data seem to be quite strange or at least hopeful, its reported figures are of a climb rate of 21650 fpm, a service ceiling of 55,000ft and a top speed of Mach 2.5.

Image credit: iranmilitaryforum.com

Micro-drones

Since the U.S. stealthy RQ-170 drone was captured, Tehran has been using the media to display its capability to reverse engineer or build its own drones.

However, some of them seems to be modified radiocontrolled models rather than real UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems). Anyway, those made by the students at the Nasr Toosi Technical University, are believed to give a hint at where Iranians are in their Micro-UAV development.

For instance, one of the University’s micro-drones is a model helicopter modified to carry a small video camera. As the images show, the tail boom and the landing skids have the word “ALIGN” written on them in English. A quick visit to Google brings up the manufacturer as ALIGN-TREX, a British Radio controlled helicopter specialist with an online shop, while the camera set up suspiciously looks like a ‘SONY’ handycam again commercially available.

The intended use of this device is quite hard to understand. The camera must have an internal memory as the model does not look to have  a transmitter to send the real time images back to a receiver/base station (that would also need a power supply which is not visible). This discounts a urban battlespace ‘eye in the sky’ for a normal drone used to record images to view at a later date.

The second model has a twin tail boom, a size that would suggest a greater payload capacity and perhaps a real time video transmission capability.

The third model (UAV) looks more like a classical drone. Grey in colour, a rounded nose and what looks like a moveable nose area with a small camera able to move up and down in the slot giving a 180 degree field of view, the drone seems to be powered by an electric motor powering a push propeller.

Image credit: www.yjcphotos.ir

As said, just technology demonstrators that don’t really show anything of military significance.

Written with The Aviationist’s Editor David Cenciotti.

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That’s a low level strike: Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom February 9, 2012

Posted by Richard Clements in Iran, Military Aviation.
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This series of photos found on the internet, shows what appears to be an ultra low level attack on a unknown location probably dating back to at least 20 years ago.

The silhouette is clearly that of an Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force F-4 Phantom striking Iraqi forces during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988). Although some believe that the images were taken from an RF-4, the interesting thing that stands out from these amazing photos is the extreme low level of the attack.

Even though the images were not taken downtown, generally speaking, flying low level was paramount to prevent being detected and hit by the air defenses protecting Baghdad: after the war, Iranian pilots recalled flying as low as 20 meters above the ground level during their strike missions. To such an extent that power cables on the outskirts or Iraq’s capital town became a significant risk for Tehran’s pilots.

Richard Clements for TheAviationist.com

Image credit: Iranian internet

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Some (rusty) Iranian Mig-29s on display at Tabriz airbase in new images released by IRNA news agency February 5, 2012

Posted by David Cenciotti in Iran.
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IRNA (Islamic Republic News Agency) has just released some quite interesting pictures of an exhibition of IRIAF planes and equipment that took place at Tabriz, in northwest of Iran.

Among the images made public by the news agency, some depict some (quite “rusty”, or at least dirty) Mig-29s, along with F-5Es and “Saeqeh” (Thunder) an indigenously modified version of the American F-5 Tiger, whose twin tails and blue colour are loosely reminiscent of the Blue Angels.

Generally speaking, the flying F-14s and F-4s recently exposed in the Russian Knights pictures taken during the return trip of the team from Bahrain International Air Show seemed to be in better conditions than these Mig-29s: at least one of the Fulcrum on display is unserviceable (it lacks both engines).

Image credit: IRNA news agency

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