Iranian operated Il-76 aircraft are of a type known to provide military logistical assistance to the Syrian Arab Republic and the Republic of Iraq.
Pouya Air has been identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as "an alias for designated Iranian airline Yas Air, which was designated in March 2012 pursuant to E.O. 13224 for acting for or on behalf of the IRGC-QF" for transporting cargo, including weapons, to Iran’s allies Syria and Lebanon.
The air transport corridor from Iran to Syria may be in process of being severed through U.S. leverage attained in the formation of the new Iraqi government; an opportunity generated by the 2014 Northern Iraq Offensive. Regarding Iraqi logistics, the U.S.-led war against ISIL may be planning to supplant Iranian arms transfers to Iraqi Security Forces and Pehmerga, with deliveries by U.S.-led coalition members.
" The air transport corridor from Iran to Syria may be in process of being severed "
ReplyDeletegood news indeed for the people of Lebanon.
AnonymousSeptember 17, 2014 at 3:11 AM
ReplyDeleteAnd how is that good news for lebanon?
"The air transport corridor from Iran to Syria may be in process of being severed"
ReplyDeleteAlmost no chance of that ever happening
and what would prevent it from happening if the US decided to close air traffic over Iraq and Syria?
DeleteWishful thinking at best. Iraq will never close the airspace to Iran and Iraq and Syria are now coordinating defence policies against the Wahhabi terror threat and Iran is the key to regional anti-terrorism strategy.
Delete" Iraq will never close the airspace to Iran "
Deleteit won't be Iraq closing the airspace, Anon 7:00. it'll be the folks with actual control of that airspace.
That is correct Anon 5:05 PM,with actual fighter planes which equals "actual control of that airspace".
DeleteIraq hasn't got an airforce and as for Iranian museum pieces that's another story.
The new Iraqi govt cant just remove iran like that. how? do they have the leverage? no. as we have known..."america controls the skies, iran controls the ground". so true.
ReplyDeleteIran doesn't control the ground in Iraq and Iran's proxies in Iraq also control little of it.
DeleteAnonymous September 18, 2014 at 8:44 PM
DeleteOh really.and how much of iraq do the americans control
Iran's only active AWACS, a very precious asset, flew over from Iraq in 91. It was based on the exact same type of aircraft shown in this pic. It was irresponsibly lost during a military exercise back in 2009, colliding with an F-5 while in the air. However they should have another one, since two Il-76 AWACS landed in Iran. The other one is probably in storage.
ReplyDeleteBrig. Gen. Basrawi (IQAF.ret)September 19, 2014 at 2:56 PM
ReplyDeleteIran never used these planes as awacs as the performance of their radars were rather poor,especially when compared to the performance of the f14s awg9,tho it wouldnt surprise me if iran was working on a modern awac using pesa or aesa radars
Anon 2:53 AM
DeleteI highly doubt your claim of Iran never having used such an important/precious aircraft. It was in active duty and conducted missions frequently. For your information, at the time of arrival to Iran the radar that was installed on that Il-76 far exceeded that of the AN/AWG-9 on the F-14. Furthermore, Iran went to great lengths to uprade that aircraft with even more powerful equipment, paying a great deal of money to have the Russians do the job. The result was a very potent piece of hardware, and the irresponsible loss of it did undoubtedly reduce Iranian air force capabilities by a great margin.
The radars used on the il76 were supposedly french ground based radars so I doubt that the russians would have been doing any upgrades unless of course they replaced the entire radar which I doubt,in addition the awg9 was one of the most powerful of its type and would have been far more suitable to being converted to awac use,in short theres little evidence that iran ever used these as anything other than transports
Delete,heres a post from http://www.spyflight.co.uk/mainstay.htm
Sadam Hussein and his generals knew that the USA were unlikely to ever sell him a workable AWACS, so instead he directed various Iraqi engineers to create their own using the Il-76 Candid airframe. The first version, known as the Baghdad 1, featured a French Thompson –CSF Tiger-G radar, built under licence in Iraq as the Salahuddin G, which was the mounted right at the rear of the fuselage below the tail. This was supported by a Rockwell-Collins IFF pod slung underneath, together with various electronic equipment from Selenia in Italy and Marconi in England. Thompson acted as the systems intergrator as well as building the fibreglass and composite radome that replaced the aircraft’s belly doors. However, although the Tiger-G was a sophisticated 2-D radar, it was designed to operate from the ground and nobody ever imagined anyone would seriously consider hanging the radar upside down inside the back of an IL-76 and try to use it as an AWACS system. A French engineer who saw the system commented, “ I don’t believe in it for an instant. The Tiger-G gives out so much heat when it turns, the people manning it in the back of the plane are going to fry after half and hour”. Unsurprisingly, the Baghdad 1 proved to be a complete failure. During Gulf War 1 the Baghdad 1 was flown out to Iran and was seen in 2003 on the ramp at Tehran-Mehrabad air base. Three other Iraq IL-76 aircraft were given the Adnan conversion, consisting of a more conventional rotodome above the fuselage, but this system was also a failure. Although one of the Adnan aircraft was destroyed on the ground at Al Taqaddum airfield on 23 Jan 91 during Gulf War 1, the two other aircraft managed to take refuge in Iran where they are believed to remain in storage at Shiraz air base.
Exactly, the Iranians payed the Russians a huge sum of money to put in an entirely new system in the Il-76 supposedly giving it the ability to detect certain targets up to 1000km away. AN/AWG-9 is a small yet powerful system for its time and the F-14 was equipped with the best radar a fighter aircarft could have in the 70's, with a respectable detection range of 130km. However it sits in a cone in the nose of the aircraft. How can it possibly serve effectively in a rotordome? Besides its detection range is far too little to count as a true AWACS and could in no way be compared to the American E-3 or the Russian A-50. It would have been an experimental failure.
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