Posted on Dec 21, 2024
Iranian F-14 Tomcat Encounter At An Airshow Unlike Any Other
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Posted 1 d ago
Responses: 3
Yes, they hate the Great Satan so much they continue to fly our planes until they can't soar anymore.
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The Iranian people as a whole aren't bad, they just elect bad leaders. Back when I was in B-52s we had an EWO in our squadron who returned to flying after being assigned as an Air Attaché in Iran. His stories about the ingenuity of the Iranian people were amazing, so their ability to keep F-14s flying is hardly surprising.
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LTC (Join to see)
We had a CSM whose Dad was the last G4 of the IAF. During the 1979 overthrow, the Junior IAF Officers came in the HQ and shot the top IAF General to death in his office. The Assassins respected the G4 and told him at gunpoint to leave. When our CSM was promoted, his Retired General Father was there. I shook his hand back in 2018.
Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen LTC Trent Klug
Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen LTC Trent Klug
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Despite their hierarchy being religious extremists, the country has a very robust tech sector. This is primarily due to the sanctions and the fact that they pretty much had to get tech savvy for their survival. They have some fairly robust engineering programs at their two main universities. From what I understand is that they only have about a dozen of those planes that are partial mission capable. Most of the F-14 serves for internal security in defense of the regime. It essentially is like watching the Hunger Games where Tehran is the capital of Panem and the F-14 is essentially a tool to flaunt to its own citizens. It is a menacing looking airplane. They do use it also for capital and critical infrastructure defense as more of an AWACS platform that has some limited combat capabilities using missiles derived off of Russian and Chinese systems. For their use its a good platform in the sense that these carry a ton of fuel for a fighter plane as they were designed by US for our Navel uses to fly long distances away from the ship and engage a threat before it gets in a WEZ. Iran will use them to fly from one side of their country to the other if they have to. One reason their planes lasted longer is they are based away from the gulf at a base near Tehran. They are not being slammed on a carrier deck constantly and they are not being bombarded by buckets of salty sea water over the years we had them.
They are most likely seeing their end of life as keeping their major systems, like the engines functional is becoming difficult. They will be replaced by the export variant of the Russian SU-35 which will give them modern capabilities like AESA radar. If I had to guess their mission will mostly be missile defense against our standoff weapons and probably give them a little bit of muscle flex against our regional partners that are not flying low observables like the F-35. Realistically, Iran's primary combat weapon in the region are theater ballistic missiles like the Shahab 3's which are a critical concern in the region for their ability to be used against civil populations like Doha or Dubai. Of course that would be a last ditch measure if they truly felt the regime survival was eminent.
They are most likely seeing their end of life as keeping their major systems, like the engines functional is becoming difficult. They will be replaced by the export variant of the Russian SU-35 which will give them modern capabilities like AESA radar. If I had to guess their mission will mostly be missile defense against our standoff weapons and probably give them a little bit of muscle flex against our regional partners that are not flying low observables like the F-35. Realistically, Iran's primary combat weapon in the region are theater ballistic missiles like the Shahab 3's which are a critical concern in the region for their ability to be used against civil populations like Doha or Dubai. Of course that would be a last ditch measure if they truly felt the regime survival was eminent.
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