Iran television documentary on the F-14 "Persian Cat" in service with the IIAF and IRIAF, in four parts. Here are links to the first two parts:
Part 1: "History"
Part 2: "First Kills"
24 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Thanks Mark. The maintenance and improvement of the 60 plus F-14A Persian Cats is indeed a testament to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of Iranian engineers and technicians. Iran is the sole operator of this once state of the art aircraft. The US being a sore loser went to the extent of destroying even the spares for USN F-14 when they were decommissioned in 2008. Iran not only flies them but has given them mid-life upgrades and new weapons and avionics. They will fly well beyond 2020. WELL DONE IRIAF.
Another important note on the Persian Cats is the fact that IRIAF pilots hold the world record as Aces for their kill ratio of 1:6 as quoted in the video about the definitive book on IRIAF tomcats by Cooper & Bishop. Their other book Fire in the Hills also gives a good objective analysis of the Persian Cats and the bravery of Iranian pilots.
Major and later Lt. General Jalal Zandi (1951-2001 RIP) holds the world record for F-14A kills. Unfortunately, the General died in a car crash on Iran's notorious roads in 2001.
His fame came as a F-14 Tomcat pilot. He has been reliably credited with shooting down 9 Iraqi aircraft. He is additionally credited with 3 probable kills, bringing his total to 12 air victories. These include 2 MiG-23s, 2 Su-22s, 1 MiG 21 and 3 Mirage F1s. This makes him the most successful F-14 Tomcat pilot ever. Finally, he was shot down once, in February, 1988, when his Tomcat was hit by several R550 Magic and a single Super 530d missiles fired from Iraqi Mirage F-1EQ. He tried to return to base but his remaining engine failed. He was captured, tortured and kept in Saddam's gulags for over 13 years.
His last official post, before his death, was 'Deputy for Planning and Organization' of the Iranian Air Force.
He died with his wife Zahra Mohebshahedin in 2001 in a car accident near Tehran. He is buried in Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery in the south of Tehran. He had three sons: Vahid, Amir, Nader. (see more on Wikipedia).
General ATA'IE who is interviewed in the video is also one of IRIAF Persian Cats aces with at least 1 confirmed kills and 2 probables according to western sources.
When Israel attacks Iran's Air Force will fly off to Russia...run cowards run!!! 74's/TxLharms & J7's will wipe your air defenses off the face of the earth within the first day....do not turn those radars on!!!
Let's imagine and what can be done if IRAN's newest indigenous 3rd generation of Qaher F-313 stealth fighter jet comes into real action in the near future?
Imagine is all you can do matey boy because the Qaher F313 "stealth fighter"is nothing but a single fiberglass toy that will never see the light of day. Meanwhile thanks to the Shah the remaining F14 Tomcats which were purchased over 38 years ago are seen as the ultimate weaponry of the decrepit and lying Islamic Rapist regime.
General Mat. Get your facts right. It is "supposed" to be the fifth generation Fighter air crafts. The third generation are the 40 year old old F4- F5's
Agree. The Mullahs and the Iranian people should get on their knees several time/day and praise the Shah 9and I am not even a Royalist) for buying them. The traitors should mention in their so called "documentary" how many well trained Iranian fighter pilots they executed before the war started.
Actually there is everything Persian about the Persian Cats since they have been modified so heavily with Iranian made parts, avionics and weapons systems. Blind Iran hate by some of the resident clods is one thing, but at least try to see facts once in a while. The 60 or so active IRIAF Persian Cats have been rebuilt at a rate of 4 per year and have undergone major weapons and radar upgrades. Secondly, the F-14A Persian Cat is not the only Iranian interceptor, the 80 or MIG 29 that are frontline fighters for even Russia and India have been upgraded to SMT standards recently and have had a midlife overhaul including the RD-93 Klimov replacement from previous less powerful RD-33 and airframe has been rebuilt. All Iranian Mirage F1EQ (captured from Saddam), Persian Cats and MIG-29 have aerial refueling capability, along with the deep strike SU-24 Flankers that can fly off to the coast of South Africa and return as evidenced by the recent exercises.
Please display your ignorance at the chaikhaneh and leave the serious comments to adults. Thank you.
There is no evidence of any avionics upgrade to date on the Iranian F14 TOMCATS. Iran is known to have about 24 plus MIG 29As and no where near the 80 you mentioned.The SU-24s have never been proven to go to the coast of south Africa from Iran.Why not just say to the South Pole? I hope you know this is not a comedy blog?
Good article on Iranian superiority in the region and the high cost of being an uneducated and ignorant Arab buying billions of worthless weapons from US, UK and EU and then being totally subservient to their western masters.
HIGH COST OF BEING AN ARAB March 3, 2013: Britain has been quite successful selling their new Typhoon fighter to Middle East nations. Two years ago Saudi Arabia bought 72 Typhoons from Britain. That was followed by an order for 12 from Oman and now the UAE (United Arab Emirates) is negotiating the purchase of 60 of these expensive aircraft. This is big money, as the aircraft have a basic price of $65 million each and there are many ways to greatly increase that. For warplanes sold to Arab Gulf states there is an additional bonanza. The biggest additional cost is providing support services and personnel to keep the aircraft operational. The Typhoon manufacturer, BAE Systems, is energetically recruiting qualified maintenance personnel to keep these aircraft flying. This a much larger profit center for Arab customers than for anyone else. Few local Arabs will be recruited for this work and most of these technicians will come from the West. That is very expensive. Why cant locals be found for these high paying jobs? The reason is simple; there are few Arabs qualified or even interested in such exacting work. This is a common problem in the Middle East.
For example, the unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia is 12 percent and many of those men are unemployed by choice. Not even counted at most women, who are barred from most jobs because they are women. Arab men tend to have a very high opinion of themselves, and most jobs available, even to poorly educated young men, do not satisfy. Thus most Saudis prefer a government job, where the work is easy, the pay is good, the title is flattering, and life is boring. Thus 90 percent of employed Saudis work for the government. In the non-government sector of the economy, 90 percent of the jobs are performed by foreigners. These foreigners comprise 27 percent of the Saudi population, mostly to staff all the non-government jobs and actually make the economy work. This means most young Saudi men have few challenges. One might say that many of them are desperate for some test of their worth, but a job in the competitive civilian economy does not do it, nor does the military.
The Saudi employment situation is not unique. The UAE (United Arab Emirates) has foreigners occupying 99 percent of the non-government jobs. The unemployment rate is 23 percent, but only a tenth of those are actually looking for a job. A survey indicated that most of the unemployed are idle by choice. Kuwait is more entrepreneurial, with only 80 percent of the non-government jobs taken by foreigners. The other Gulf Arab states (which have less oil) have a similar situation.
The Persian Gulf Arabs do spend a lot of money on training and letting the pilots fly. For this reason, they are considered marginally better than other Arab air forces. But against the Iranians, who more enthusiastically accepted Western training methods, they would have problems. Iranian aircraft are older and less well equipped, but pilot quality would make up for a lot of that.
Anon 5:52, There might be some merit to your statement regarding the F-14As. I once saw a photo (could have been leaked, cause it certainly was not official in any way), that had been shot parallel with the RIO seat but outside of the plane, showing the cockpit of an F-14A, and past the instrument panel of the RIO one could hint what looked like a digital display on the instrument panel in the forward seat. I got puzzled, so right away i made a search for stock photo of an F14A and one could clearly see that everything was analogue (no MFDs), and the instrument panel on the Iranian F-14A was not identical to that original F-14A, infact it looked liked it had been modified and some of the gauges and buttons had been re-arranged on the Iranian. In conclusion the Iranians seem to have tampered with their F-14A...but to what extent, and what changes has been made...remains to be seen. It would be interesting to know how many IRIAF F-14A have had digital displays installed into them, because that could be significant and an indication of improved capabilites. Overall it's easier to believe that the Iranians have made certain changes to the F-14A, than believing that they would be happy with 40 year old technology and just leave it be.
Amigo, Are you the same annon. that is bitching about the Americans destroying all their F14's and their spare parts so the Iranians could not use them? I think so. Then answer this: If the F14's are still such superior aircrafts why would the Country that built them, stop upgrading them and decommission them? (Are they less able than the Iranian super engineers?) If the Iranian engineers are such geniouses and can upfrade the original F14's to such high specifications that according to you they are apparently better than what the Americans can do then why are you so pissed off about the Americans destroying their remaining F14's and its spare parts so they could not be smuggled to Iran? They can not buy decent aircrafts from any country now and they are desperate to maintain their 40 year old aircarfts. I agree that they have done a very good job, but in an actual arial combat situation with US airforce, they will be destroyed in a very short time. Now go and buy a lollipop.
Anon 11:48 PM.....You prove to me that Iran has 80 MIG 29 SMTs and 60 plus fully operational F14 upgraded TOMCATS as well as the ability for its total fleet of twenty SU-24 to go to the coast of South Africa.Because the silly little kid that claims this should be banned from his lolly pops for two weeks,LOL!
Anon 10:20 PM......Funny how the Western training methods are good when it suits people like you.Are you saying Arabs don't have Western training methods when they spend so much money on their Western supplied weapons? So what type of training methods do they apply too? Pilot quality amounts to nothing when their aircraft are outdated by forty years or so against their enemies latest weaponry systems.
Hmmm, looks like a lot of underage children posting without adult supervision as usual. Children buy a bag of lollipops and read some factual reporting:
The MiG-29 was developed to counter new American fighters such as the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, and the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon.
"For the first time in the country, Iran received the permission for overhauling two Mig-29 fighter jets in Tabriz (air base) and the five-stage overhauling procedures were carried out in two phases in Tabriz," Commander of Tabriz Air Base Mohammad Hellatabadi said in a ceremony in Iran's Northwestern city of Tabriz in February 2011.
Iran has anywhere from 85-95 MiG-29s in inventory as of January 2011, depending, of course, upon who you ask. Most western intelligence estimates are higher, as Iran's Syrian ally also operates over 70 MIG 29.
Iran took over 4 ex-Iraqi aircraft, flown over in 1991 ahead of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, the rest were bought some from Russia during the 1990s at a cost of around $11 million dollars a piece.
At least one Mig-29 fighter jet of the Iranian Army conducted its test flight successfully on Saturday, August 4, 2012 after being overhauled by local experts.
The Iranian experts spent a total of 24 months to overhaul the MiG 29 fighter jet and mounted “three types of modern electronic systems onto the aircraft in a bid to increase its technical and backup capabilities”, according to the report, published today.
The original MiG 29 are powered by 2 Klimov RD-33 afterburning turbofan engines, that can achieve a maximum speed of Mach 2.25 or 1,490 mph. IRIAF upgrades include newer RD-93.
Armament includes 1X30 mm GSh-30-1 cannon with 150 rounds and can carry 7, 720 pounds of weapons including six air to air missiles – a mix of semi active radar homing (SARH) and AA-8 “Aphid”, AA-10 “Alamo”, AA-11 “Archer”, AA-12 “Adder”, FAB 500-M62, FAB-1000, TN 100, EMC Pods, S-24, AS-12, AS-14…
Avionics include the Phazotron N019, N010 radar systems.
It should be noted that the MiG 29’s, despite their age are very capable combat aircraft that would pose a serious threat to U.S. bombers, fighter jets and UAV’s (“unmanned aerial vehicles”) invading Iranian airspace.
One cannot underestimate the Mig-29. Even a Mig-21 is capable of shooting down a newer generation jet such as the F-14 (believe it or not, that did actually happen during the Iran-Iraq War). It all comes down to a multitude of factors that i wont expand on here.
You're so dumb that you think those flying pieces of junk would make any difference when push comes to shove.Obviously you are one of those people who likes sucking on mullah flavored lollipops (;o)
24 comments:
Thanks Mark. The maintenance and improvement of the 60 plus F-14A Persian Cats is indeed a testament to the ingenuity and resourcefulness of Iranian engineers and technicians. Iran is the sole operator of this once state of the art aircraft. The US being a sore loser went to the extent of destroying even the spares for USN F-14 when they were decommissioned in 2008. Iran not only flies them but has given them mid-life upgrades and new weapons and avionics. They will fly well beyond 2020. WELL DONE IRIAF.
Another important note on the Persian Cats is the fact that IRIAF pilots hold the world record as Aces for their kill ratio of 1:6 as quoted in the video about the definitive book on IRIAF tomcats by Cooper & Bishop. Their other book Fire in the Hills also gives a good objective analysis of the Persian Cats and the bravery of Iranian pilots.
Major and later Lt. General Jalal Zandi (1951-2001 RIP) holds the world record for F-14A kills. Unfortunately, the General died in a car crash on Iran's notorious roads in 2001.
His fame came as a F-14 Tomcat pilot. He has been reliably credited with shooting down 9 Iraqi aircraft. He is additionally credited with 3 probable kills, bringing his total to 12 air victories. These include 2 MiG-23s, 2 Su-22s, 1 MiG 21 and 3 Mirage F1s. This makes him the most successful F-14 Tomcat pilot ever. Finally, he was shot down once, in February, 1988, when his Tomcat was hit by several R550 Magic and a single Super 530d missiles fired from Iraqi Mirage F-1EQ. He tried to return to base but his remaining engine failed. He was captured, tortured and kept in Saddam's gulags for over 13 years.
His last official post, before his death, was 'Deputy for Planning and Organization' of the Iranian Air Force.
He died with his wife Zahra Mohebshahedin in 2001 in a car accident near Tehran. He is buried in Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery in the south of Tehran. He had three sons: Vahid, Amir, Nader. (see more on Wikipedia).
General ATA'IE who is interviewed in the video is also one of IRIAF Persian Cats aces with at least 1 confirmed kills and 2 probables according to western sources.
http://users.accesscomm.ca/magnusfamily/iiwirn.htm
The Israelis have had too much "Jo-e moft" they now have Genocidal Phantasies regarding Iran
look at what the teach their soldiers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kxgDpH6drOs
obnoxious bastards..
Sir Dariush London
When Israel attacks Iran's Air Force will fly off to Russia...run cowards run!!!
74's/TxLharms & J7's will wipe your air defenses off the face of the earth within the first day....do not turn those radars on!!!
Let's imagine and what can be done if IRAN's newest indigenous 3rd generation of Qaher F-313 stealth fighter jet comes into real action in the near future?
Imagine is all you can do matey boy because the Qaher F313 "stealth fighter"is nothing but a single fiberglass toy that will never see the light of day.
Meanwhile thanks to the Shah the remaining F14 Tomcats which were purchased over 38 years ago are seen as the ultimate weaponry of the decrepit and lying Islamic Rapist regime.
General Mat. Get your facts right. It is "supposed" to be the fifth generation Fighter air crafts.
The third generation are the 40 year old old F4- F5's
There's nothing Persian about this cat! LMAO! It's American brain work down to the last screw, baby!
Agree.
The Mullahs and the Iranian people should get on their knees several time/day and praise the Shah 9and I am not even a Royalist) for buying them.
The traitors should mention in their so called "documentary" how many well trained Iranian fighter pilots they executed before the war started.
welcome back Dariush London
Anon 12:26
Sad but very true.
Actually there is everything Persian about the Persian Cats since they have been modified so heavily with Iranian made parts, avionics and weapons systems. Blind Iran hate by some of the resident clods is one thing, but at least try to see facts once in a while. The 60 or so active IRIAF Persian Cats have been rebuilt at a rate of 4 per year and have undergone major weapons and radar upgrades. Secondly, the F-14A Persian Cat is not the only Iranian interceptor, the 80 or MIG 29 that are frontline fighters for even Russia and India have been upgraded to SMT standards recently and have had a midlife overhaul including the RD-93 Klimov replacement from previous less powerful RD-33 and airframe has been rebuilt. All Iranian Mirage F1EQ (captured from Saddam), Persian Cats and MIG-29 have aerial refueling capability, along with the deep strike SU-24 Flankers that can fly off to the coast of South Africa and return as evidenced by the recent exercises.
Please display your ignorance at the chaikhaneh and leave the serious comments to adults. Thank you.
Oh look the pretender is pretending he was away and is back,LOL !
There is no evidence of any avionics upgrade to date on the Iranian F14 TOMCATS.
Iran is known to have about 24 plus MIG 29As and no where near the 80 you mentioned.The SU-24s have never been proven to go to the coast of south Africa from Iran.Why not just say to the South Pole?
I hope you know this is not a comedy blog?
Good article on Iranian superiority in the region and the high cost of being an uneducated and ignorant Arab buying billions of worthless weapons from US, UK and EU and then being totally subservient to their western masters.
HIGH COST OF BEING AN ARAB
March 3, 2013: Britain has been quite successful selling their new Typhoon fighter to Middle East nations. Two years ago Saudi Arabia bought 72 Typhoons from Britain. That was followed by an order for 12 from Oman and now the UAE (United Arab Emirates) is negotiating the purchase of 60 of these expensive aircraft. This is big money, as the aircraft have a basic price of $65 million each and there are many ways to greatly increase that. For warplanes sold to Arab Gulf states there is an additional bonanza. The biggest additional cost is providing support services and personnel to keep the aircraft operational. The Typhoon manufacturer, BAE Systems, is energetically recruiting qualified maintenance personnel to keep these aircraft flying. This a much larger profit center for Arab customers than for anyone else. Few local Arabs will be recruited for this work and most of these technicians will come from the West. That is very expensive. Why cant locals be found for these high paying jobs? The reason is simple; there are few Arabs qualified or even interested in such exacting work. This is a common problem in the Middle East.
For example, the unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia is 12 percent and many of those men are unemployed by choice. Not even counted at most women, who are barred from most jobs because they are women. Arab men tend to have a very high opinion of themselves, and most jobs available, even to poorly educated young men, do not satisfy. Thus most Saudis prefer a government job, where the work is easy, the pay is good, the title is flattering, and life is boring. Thus 90 percent of employed Saudis work for the government. In the non-government sector of the economy, 90 percent of the jobs are performed by foreigners. These foreigners comprise 27 percent of the Saudi population, mostly to staff all the non-government jobs and actually make the economy work. This means most young Saudi men have few challenges. One might say that many of them are desperate for some test of their worth, but a job in the competitive civilian economy does not do it, nor does the military.
The Saudi employment situation is not unique. The UAE (United Arab Emirates) has foreigners occupying 99 percent of the non-government jobs. The unemployment rate is 23 percent, but only a tenth of those are actually looking for a job. A survey indicated that most of the unemployed are idle by choice. Kuwait is more entrepreneurial, with only 80 percent of the non-government jobs taken by foreigners. The other Gulf Arab states (which have less oil) have a similar situation.
The Persian Gulf Arabs do spend a lot of money on training and letting the pilots fly. For this reason, they are considered marginally better than other Arab air forces. But against the Iranians, who more enthusiastically accepted Western training methods, they would have problems. Iranian aircraft are older and less well equipped, but pilot quality would make up for a lot of that.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairfo/articles/20130303.aspx
Anon 5:52, There might be some merit to your statement regarding the F-14As. I once saw a photo (could have been leaked, cause it certainly was not official in any way), that had been shot parallel with the RIO seat but outside of the plane, showing the cockpit of an F-14A, and past the instrument panel of the RIO one could hint what looked like a digital display on the instrument panel in the forward seat. I got puzzled, so right away i made a search for stock photo of an F14A and one could clearly see that everything was analogue (no MFDs), and the instrument panel on the Iranian F-14A was not identical to that original F-14A, infact it looked liked it had been modified and some of the gauges and buttons had been re-arranged on the Iranian. In conclusion the Iranians seem to have tampered with their F-14A...but to what extent, and what changes has been made...remains to be seen. It would be interesting to know how many IRIAF F-14A have had digital displays installed into them, because that could be significant and an indication of improved capabilites. Overall it's easier to believe that the Iranians have made certain changes to the F-14A, than believing that they would be happy with 40 year old technology and just leave it be.
8:55 You have no clue kid. If i buy you a lollipop will you go away and stop bothering the adults on this blog.
Amigo,
Are you the same annon. that is bitching about the Americans destroying all their F14's and their spare parts so the Iranians could not use them? I think so.
Then answer this:
If the F14's are still such superior aircrafts why would the Country that built them, stop upgrading them and decommission them? (Are they less able than the Iranian super engineers?)
If the Iranian engineers are such geniouses and can upfrade the original F14's to such high specifications that according to you they are apparently better than what the Americans can do then why are you so pissed off about the Americans destroying their remaining F14's and its spare parts so they could not be smuggled to Iran?
They can not buy decent aircrafts from any country now and they are desperate to maintain their 40 year old aircarfts. I agree that they have done a very good job, but in an actual arial combat situation with US airforce, they will be destroyed in a very short time. Now go and buy a lollipop.
Anon 11:48 PM.....You prove to me that Iran has 80 MIG 29 SMTs and 60 plus fully operational F14 upgraded TOMCATS as well as the ability for its total fleet of twenty SU-24 to go to the coast of South Africa.Because the silly little kid that claims this should be banned from his lolly pops for two weeks,LOL!
Anon 10:20 PM......Funny how the Western training methods are good when it suits people like you.Are you saying Arabs don't have Western training methods when they spend so much money on their Western supplied weapons?
So what type of training methods do they apply too? Pilot quality amounts to nothing when their aircraft are outdated by forty years or so against their enemies latest weaponry systems.
Hmmm, looks like a lot of underage children posting without adult supervision as usual. Children buy a bag of lollipops and read some factual reporting:
The MiG-29 was developed to counter new American fighters such as the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, and the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon.
"For the first time in the country, Iran received the permission for overhauling two Mig-29 fighter jets in Tabriz (air base) and the five-stage overhauling procedures were carried out in two phases in Tabriz," Commander of Tabriz Air Base Mohammad Hellatabadi said in a ceremony in Iran's Northwestern city of Tabriz in February 2011.
Iran has anywhere from 85-95 MiG-29s in inventory as of January 2011, depending, of course, upon who you ask. Most western intelligence estimates are higher, as Iran's Syrian ally also operates over 70 MIG 29.
Iran took over 4 ex-Iraqi aircraft, flown over in 1991 ahead of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, the rest were bought some from Russia during the 1990s at a cost of around $11 million dollars a piece.
At least one Mig-29 fighter jet of the Iranian Army conducted its test flight successfully on Saturday, August 4, 2012 after being overhauled by local experts.
The Iranian experts spent a total of 24 months to overhaul the MiG 29 fighter jet and mounted “three types of modern electronic systems onto the aircraft in a bid to increase its technical and backup capabilities”, according to the report, published today.
The original MiG 29 are powered by 2 Klimov RD-33 afterburning turbofan engines, that can achieve a maximum speed of Mach 2.25 or 1,490 mph. IRIAF upgrades include newer RD-93.
Armament includes 1X30 mm GSh-30-1 cannon with 150 rounds and can carry 7, 720 pounds of weapons including six air to air missiles – a mix of semi active radar homing (SARH) and AA-8 “Aphid”, AA-10 “Alamo”, AA-11 “Archer”, AA-12 “Adder”, FAB 500-M62, FAB-1000, TN 100, EMC Pods, S-24, AS-12, AS-14…
Avionics include the Phazotron N019, N010 radar systems.
It should be noted that the MiG 29’s, despite their age are very capable combat aircraft that would pose a serious threat to U.S. bombers, fighter jets and UAV’s (“unmanned aerial vehicles”) invading Iranian airspace.
You are correct, Anon 1:47AM
One cannot underestimate the Mig-29. Even a Mig-21 is capable of shooting down a newer generation jet such as the F-14 (believe it or not, that did actually happen during the Iran-Iraq War). It all comes down to a multitude of factors that i wont expand on here.
You're so dumb that you think those flying pieces of junk would make any difference when push comes to shove.Obviously you are one of those people who likes sucking on mullah flavored lollipops (;o)
Now run along and go buy a bag of lollipops.LOL.
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