Iran's prospects to operate/copy the F-16 to replace older US models

they can help with avionics/software, while Pakistani/Ven. pilots teach them flying skills/tricks.

What makes you think Iranian pilots need to learn combat skills from Pakistani pilots or Venezuelan pilots?

You are using a computer or device to access the internet... can you instruct the Iranians on Unix machines?

It doesn't matter if you have never used a Unix machine before... you are using a computer and a Unix machine is a kind of computer...

it's a lot easier to learn running & jumping after learning crawling & walking, so they won't be complete diletants after cutting their teeth on them.

They make F-5 based planes that look and operate and perform a lot like F-5s... they didn't invent flying.

if they wanted up to 300 of them before 1979, they may want them again before 2025.

The only way they will get them is if they roll over and start letting the CIA pick their governments and leaders for them again... and I can say neither is likely to happen by Iranian choice.

that may not be much & not in the time frame they'll need them..

Time frame has nothing to do with it... if they buy some they could have pilots in Russia in 3 weeks learning to fly their new planes and be in Iran by the end of the year with the first batch of 20 planes if they sign the papers and pay for them. For thousands of times more money and 50 years they still wont have an operational effective force of F-16s operating in Iranian colours.

by the same token, if they can still fly them w/o US support & under sanctions, so will Iran be able to.

Bullshit, they have probably grounded most of their aircraft and are keeping a couple of planes airworthy with the pool of spare parts that was supposed to keep the whole fleet flying. That means they wont be flying very much... and has nothing to do with Iran who has never even flown the aircraft let alone operated it.

they may order both. Malaysia, Thailand, India, Indonesia, Egypt, KSA, Finland & Iraq been operating Western & Soviet/russian planes together for years.

And how many of those countries operated American planes without support?

Iran/China can get access to anything Iraq/Pakistan has, incl. their F-16s, at the 1st request/demand. The Iraqis will have more combat ready MiGs/J-7s Iran/China may give them than their F-16 no longer directly supported by the LM contractors.

They don't want F-16s.

The order for 300 F-16s was made by by America... the Shah was a CIA stooge that had to buy American weapons because he was an American agent.

Iraq &/ Pakistan. Btw copying that would be a lot easier than F-16 or its parts. Pilots can also be sent there instead on rotational basis.

So they can be assassinated by American murder drones?

smuggled out or officially sent, it could be loaded on a cargo ship/plane/large helo or a flatbed truck, depending on the circumstances. Those contractors, if they r still there, r not going to be in Iraq for much longer to notice anything.

Those contractors maintain the aircraft... you don't think they would let the Iraqis maintain their own aircraft do you?

they r not in Venezuela, got pulled out of Iraq as per that article & may pull out of Pakistan in the future.

And when they go the sortie ready rate drops from about 65% to about 5%...

IMO the US has run out of any more sanctions to impose on Iran anyway.

They can easily sanction countries doing business with Iran...

or perhaps their rebuttals.

I am pretty confident what you are suggesting is not going to happen.

at some point they'll need to be augmented/replaced.

Not really. The F-4 and F-14 were better made than newer planes and would last longer if needed.

Don't tell me the Israelis, Pakistanis, Chileans, & UAE (besides many others), r also stupid to not consider them crap. If it was so, they could have stuck with French fighters instead.

Most of them didn't buy them anyway... they were of some value to the US so they get money donated to them and that money has to be spent on American weapons... effectively the US taxpayer buys those countries weapons.... it is a money laundering scheme.

a nose surgery could be done, if need be. Enlarged nose cover won't affect the drag that much.

How would they know... they didn't design it... they didn't build it... they have never tested it... they know fuck all about the design and therefore are in no position to go dicking around with the design... They have a history of operating some American planes, and modifying one to suit their own needs... they are not working on the next best super fighter... unless that is based on the F-5.

not if they use their IRPs instead.

They wont be able to fund anything else if they are re engineering the F-16 from scratch... no inflight refuelling planes for Iran...

is it impossible to upgrade an engine or make a new 1, in Iran or elsewhere, to fit on it?

Yes it is.

Ask China... they have had Soviet jet engines like the RD-33 and Al-31 in aircraft in their service for several decades and are known for their clones but they can't even make good copies of these engines let alone improve their performance... they still import RD-93s from Russia for their exports to Pakistan and an RD-93 is an RD-33 with the gearbox moved to a different position.

Nothing against China... making good engines is hard... even countries that make planes like Sweden import their engines.

Iran may build an F-16 variant with 2 smaller engines like they did with their F-5 copy.

The F-5 comes with two engines... it is the American upgrade of the F-5 called the F-20 that has one engine.

Putting two engines in the F-16 would need a complete redesign... something not really possible when you don't even have the original design working.

true, but the F-16 may become their next F-5 to copy, in whole or in part.

Nobody would touch it.

After the Sentinel UAV was captured & copied, they chose not to do it.

The whole point of a UAV is that it is expendable....

adding to the costs & delaying the road completion. They already have railroads between their coasts & there's no hurry to build new  high speed lines cost to coast.

If you listened to what I said it was a rail line that would be a direct link from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf for crew and material transfer for a Russian warm water port... it does not matter if no one else uses it.... but of course they will.

changing/adding tooling in existing plants will be enough.

Really... because the F-16s weren't built in factories that built Phantoms and Tomcats...

Maybe they should just skip the F-16 and make F-35s instead.

I'm talking hypothetically. U r switching from that to the present reality- that's inconsistent.

Hahahahaha.... which translates to your talking dreams and I am talking about reality... of course the two views are inconsistent....

no, it happened gradually & during the 5 decades they had them operating.

So for them to be able to do the same with the F-16 they just need them in large numbers and to operate and maintain them for the next 5 decades and then they will be able to manage their new F-16s... except there is no way they can get them in large numbers and even if they could they can't operate them long enough to learn how to maintain them or support them or make support parts themselves...

the Chinese already done it with their F-35 inspired J-31 they can sell to Iran.

But Iran is not allowed to buy new planes... they have to steal the designs of others like rats.

Iran has more strings to control it than any1 else.

Keep pulling those strings.... the last time got that General murdered in cold blood.

I mentioned it to show that even the US allies can do what's in their interests, as they did in the past.

So something magical might happen and America might gift Iran some F-16s...

even if they get Su-30s/J-16s (F-15 counterpart), they would still go forward with the F-16 before they can dream of jumping to F-22/35 or Su-57 5th gen. level planes.

Su-30 is a step above an F-16 and an F-35 would be two steps further back... America could bankrupt Iran by gifting them F-35s instead...

There's a need for both heavy & light fighters.

Why?

And if they had Su-30s they still have MiG-29s and F-4s and F-14s and F-5s.... they don't need another fighter.

Iraq is no position to deny Iran access to anything- it now owes its very existence to it.

Could say the same about the UK and US but it is not true there either.

Even their F-14s can't face the F-22s- they'll need something better than the F-14 to shoot 1 down!

Iran would face an uphill struggle against the US, but their best bet at defeating an F-22 is to destroy the airfield it operates from with ballistic missiles and to lure their aircraft into SAM traps...

The Japanese F-2, based on F-16, has an enlarged wing & Iran could redesign it to. They may even make it with a delta wing.

The Japanese version of the F-16 is about three times more expensive than the American F-16 and the Americans helped them to design it.

It is not three times better than an American F-16.

Regarding the F-16XL even the Americans rejected it... and they had F-16s in service so there would be commonality with other aircraft they operate.

it won't a 1st plane or esp. its parts they'll copy, & it won't take them decades.

You posted yourself it took five decades for previous generation models... why do you think it wont take even longer for a much more complex design?

Besides, any future copying will go faster regardless how long it took to copy a previos plane.

Not if the new plane is much more complex and totally different. There are no F-5 parts in an F-16... even the gun is different.

But as I said several times already, they may need to copy certain parts & modify the airframe,etc. which will be easier.

The important parts in the engine that need maintenance and replacing they have zero experience with... it uses a different engine from any plane they have ever operated before.

I realize that the F-16 induction may never happen but it still could happen, esp. should Iran be left with no other option & decide that this fighter will suit their needs.

Even if they didn't have any option at all it would make more sense to try to reverse engineer planes they have.... the MiG-29 and F-1....

The proof in the pudding, is in the eating. I am not saying Iranian planes are invincible. But you all imply that American or Russian planes are invincible.

Not at all. American planes are nothing like invincible but they don't play fair and they use their advantages and take advantages of your weaknesses... They didn't just fly in there and fight fair against Iraq... they launched cruise missile strikes and used Apache helicopters to sneak in and take down major Iraqi radars so that wave after wave of cruise missiles could then hit airfields and SAM sites and communications centres and HQs to break their air defence network.

Once they had done that they were a complete enemy armed force fighting small groups of enemy acting on their own with no support or information or communication and the crushed them.... and secured their oil wells before they secured the cities.

The key was that they had AWACS and JSTARS over the battlefield so they could see exactly what was happening. AWACS isn't just a radar... it is a command and control centre... when it detects targets or threats it can direct friendly forces to engage. It can determine what the enemy force is and it knows its capabilties so the friendly force sent to engage can go radars off because they are receiving their air view from AWACS and JSTARS... the AWACS controllers can direct those interceptors to a launch position directly behind the targets... those interceptors will have been topped up with fuel before being sent to intercept and will have long range AAMs ready to use from behind where the enemy wont see what is coming.... most of the time it will be some third world country with a MiG-21 that wont even know it is under attack and boom... some danish pilot gets his countries first air to air kill since WWII... but he just flew where he was ordered and pushed a button... the Red Barron would be ashamed... and jealous.

I am sure Iran would do much better than Iraq did if only because they were able to see how America and her henchmen of bastards did it and can learn from mistakes made.

Iran, even if making capable planes or even if it buys foreign planes. Can not buy in large enough numbers to win against an airforce like USA or Russia. In this case, these planes of whatever origin, will only be at best a temporary force, to bring down superpower planes, hoping to sue for peace, within the first few weeks. If no peace, then no number of planes is going to save Iran. Then Iran has to show the big guns anyway.

A reasonable sized force of aircraft to protect your air space and ballistic missiles that can reach and hurt US forces in the region is about the best you can reasonably hope for... but when you buy an Su-30 and you buy a few RVV-BD 200km range anti AWACS missiles... which you then hotwire and extend in range by putting a big booster on it to perhaps 600km range... well US aircraft are going to have to operate on their own like their enemies have been doing... a real level playing field is all you need.

For the moderators... would it be possible to move the f16 speculations to another thread?  A couple of posts would have been ok, but now it seems to have become main topic for the Iranian air force

Agreed.

Ok, i legit don't get where this F-16 craze is coming from, from what we know, Iran only has one F-16 that they got from Venezuela.
Not enough to canalize and fly, because there's only one.

Having one aircraft for study means little. It would be normal and it would not be the Iranian air force looking at the plane it would be Iranian intelligence.


Will be moving large portions of this thread to a new topic

Having one aircraft for study means little. It would be normal and it would not be the Iranian air force looking at the plane it would be Iranian intelligence.

If they spend 10 billion dollars and take two decades they might be able to make spare parts for the F-16... of course by then Iraq and Venezuela will probably have gotten rid of theirs...

since they flew them for years, incl. in combat.
An F-5/J-7/MiG-29 pilot better have some training before getting into an the F-16 cockpit.

Iranian pilots have plenty of experience too... they don't need training in tactics... they need conversion training to a new type.

but the the F-16 is different & has better performance, as u said many times!

And as I also said many times the F-15 has even better performance but is just as unattainable.

or they can bribe the CIA with Afghan drugs they seize from the smugglers. If there is a will, there is a way!

Why would giving the CIA their own drugs back constitute a bribe?

they may need only a dozen or so, & then it won't take as much $.

The reverse engineering is expensive and does not depend on how many aircraft they have. In fact having more aircraft means potentially seeing parts in different wear states so they would get a better idea of which parts need replacement over time.

Just having one aircraft means you have to copy every single part and then operate it for a few months and then take it apart again to see what parts are wearing and which are not. Once you know which parts need regular replacement and which only require occasional replacement then you can work out which parts you need to make to keep a force of planes operating.

There would be no point in asking the pilots... they would have no idea. The logistics clerk at the airfield might recognise parts numbers they get in to keep the planes flying but the parts wont have their numbers printed on them... the American support people at the Iraqi airfields will recognise the parts by their number codes and know where they go but an Iranian seeing an F-16 would have no idea.

Have you every done a 40 million piece puzzle where some of the parts are tiny and some as big as a desk and to work properly they all have one specific way they go together and if you get it wrong people will die?

that's what I been saying: Iran could keep most of its F-16s grounded to reduce wear & tear while keeping just a few on alert status. Corruption is everywhere & parts could be obtained from many F-16 operators.

IT HASN'T GOT ANY F-16s. Why would it want to spend an enormous amount of money, tie up and enormous amount of resources and labour, spend decades, on something they can't bloody use because they don't know how to support the fricken thing?

For a tiny fraction of the money and time and effort they could get Russian or Chinese planes that would be much much better.

The very best they could get out of operating F-16s would be to be able to say we are so fucking stupid we can't think for ourselves and we have to keep using shitty american crap planes because we are dumb fucks.

But they are not. If they could have bought Mirage 2000s in numbers then the F-4s and F-14s and F-5s would be gone.

none, but Iran did since 1979.

Not totally by choice... if they could buy French planes they would have I suspect, but France is Americas bitch.

They didn't trust the Soviet Union... but why would they?

All they could do is use what they had on hand and it has been a serious struggle.

A lot of other countries couldn't have done it and that is to their credit... but to suggest they could steal a new plane and master it and have it in production and operational use in a few years time is just absurd... and insulting.

that's ur typical exagerration. No1 in the US told him to include F-16s on the long list of arms he wanted to get.

They would have been told what they could have and what they could not have just like anyone else.

they can travel incognito & fly w/o ID themselves as Iranian student pilots.

Yeah, that would keep them safe...

local maintainers r going to be on their own, if not already so.

They are not likely to want the Americans that keep their F-16s flying to go.

right. Iran will bring it up & for the few on alert it will be enough.

A sortie rate of 5% is essentially useless... if you have less than 20 planes that means 1 might be able to fly... what use is one plane on its own?

More importantly they don't have any F-16s so it doesn't matter anyway.

it already happened t the same companies that would help with F-16s.

It has and they have stopped working with Iran...

then they don't need as many new Su-30s/34s & Mig-29/35.

I doubt they would want Su-34s, and a small batch purchase of MiG-29M2s and perhaps a dozen Su-30s to see if they are suitable could lead eventually to the replacement of the old American dogs. I am sure they will appreciate having newer designs where an upgrade is something new rather than getting something that has stopped working to work again...

They are hardly going to get rid of their current aircraft on a gamble with Russian or Chinese aircraft, but over time they will likely change to the Russian aircraft.

The amusing thing is that if they put Al-31 or Al-41 engines into the F-14 and put the MiG-31Ms radar in it and convert it to carry RVV-BD missiles it would probably become a rather potent aircraft again.

Right now it is not so fantastic for Iran because the Americans know it inside and out...

UAE, Bahrain, Iraq, Turkey & Europeans paid for them.

They weren't paying for planes... that was protection fees...

it's not a rocket science. Large bulbous nose covers were fitted on planes before.

It is not rocket science... it is aerodynamics... and a bulged nose would change the airflow over the aircraft and effect airflow to the engine... plus it would add a much bigger weight to the very nose of the aircraft... what sort of effect will that permanent shift in centre of gravity have on the digital flight control system?

the 1 they have is enough

Why would they waste the resource of an inflight refuelling aircraft on a plane they don't have in service and have never used before?

That is doing something really stupid and then making it worse by screwing things that work to try and make the stupid thing less stupid.

then, importing Russian engines will solve it, esp. since it'll be le$$ than complete fighters.

Why would Russia sell them engines? If they don't trust Russian planes why would they trust Russian engines?

they have caves & can make more to fit anything there. maintenance facilities can go in those while new production set up in the existing plants, or vice versa.

Wow... America is screwed... the Iranians seem to have more resources and money to piss away than they do.

i'm not such an exxagerator as u!

Yeah, there is not a huge difference between stupid and absurd, but absurd is often used to point out the stupidity of stupid.

It is sad that you did not get that... but why would you start listening to me now.

I mean it is clear from my posts that I hate Iran and all Iranians and have unconditional love for America that goes so deep I even want their sworn enemies to buy and use their products... or NOT.

I am suggesting MiG-29M2s and Su-30s because they don't have much other choice, but also because I think going forward they will be more useful and effective than ancient planes they have managed to keep flying all these years.

If they want a cheap light fighter I actually think they should keep using the F-5 and its modifications. It is a subsonic low cost simple cheap fighter... it would think a bit of cooperation with both MiG and Sukhoi and some access to wind tunnels and specialist equipment in Russia and they might be able to evolve its design to make it a rather good little cheap platform for dealing with incoming cruise missiles while the bigger fighters deal with bigger problems.

AFAIK the Iranians already have a licence made Igla don't they?

An Igla-S with a proximity fuse is ideal for shooting down cruise missile type targets and some sort of pod that holds a cluster of Iglas so it can efficiently carry large numbers of the weapon with perhaps a targeting pod to engage targets could create the ideal weapon for the third world to defend itself from baby milk factory attack. Obviously to be effective you would need bigger more capable aircraft to stop the US just shooting down your cruise missile stoppers, but there is no free lunch...

u & I don't know all the reality.

I am keeping a toe on the ground... you are jumping in the air flapping your arms and shouting Cuckoo cuckoo...

they don't need large #. Personnel can also be sent to Iraq & Pakistan to learn how to operate and maintain them, accelerating the curve exponentually.

If they don't have large numbers of f-16s there is no way to make them into a viable force, and they had personel that operated and maintained F-4s and F-14s and F-5s and that helped but it still took decades to get stability and a usable force.

Getting people from Iraq and Pakistan and Venezuela would at best help them learn at a fraction of the rate they did before because the parts in the F-16 are all electronic and fly by wire and much more complicated. With the older planes if something didn't work then you might ground that aircraft or you might just use it knowing that feature wont work. With the F-16 things are more integrated and related... it is like one of those integrated printer scanners where you can scan and print or just print or use it like a photocopier... but when the printer runs out of ink it doesn't work... it wont even scan stuff till the printer is fixed....

which resulted in destroyed bases & GIs sent to hospitals in Germany & US.

Do you think that will stop them using murder bots to kill people?

They don't learn from their actions, and blame any retaliation on the aggression of the retaliators, not the initiation of the situation by their own actions.

sure, via Iraq & Venezuela.

Disney syndrome....

the J-10 could be made into super J-10 to approach the Su-30 performance & be more than a mach to the F-16.

Which is another reason not to bother with the F-16...

only if they had Su-30s. they may get Su/MiG-35s instead, so hold ur breath!

They have expressed an interest in Su-30s... and recently... not 40 years ago.

Iranian proxies/R. Guards can seize all their F-16s by force if need be.

And what could they do with them? How would they get them to Iran intact? It would be far easier to burn them and take one... in pieces.

they also rejected Airacobras but the Russians loved it.

The Soviets would take any aircraft on offer at that time... if they could get extra Yak-3s and La-5FNs instead of Aircobras they would have asked for them instead.

The Americans were fighting at higher altitudes, while combat on the eastern front was at lower altitudes where the lack of turbosuperchargers didn't matter so much.

why can't they remove complicated gear & replace it with more simple, locally produced/salvaged from other planes?

They could, but then they would risk killing their pilots who are learning on flight sims simulating a different plane and all the foreign pilot instructors will be less effective if the plane has changes.

Bingo! At least they can study & learn everything about that model.

And they will... so they can kill them better.

If they get 1-2 more, it may be disassembled & a crude copy could then be produced, if not in Iran, then in China.

Why? China needs F-16 technology like it needs to learn to build V2 rockets...

During the late ’70s Iran ordered 160 F-16As. However, with the fall of the Shah in 1979, the order was cancelled and those aircraft were never delivered, although some tooling and maintenance equipment reportedly arrived in country in readiness for deliveries.

I doubt they kept that crap for 40 years in the hope that America would change its mind and become friends again...

Still, there are some (mainly Iranians who reportedly saw them) who argue two airframes did make their way to Iran. According to what has been written on some aviation forums across the world, the two F-16s that were delivered before the procurement was cancelled, were based at Mehrabad Air Base, near Tehran.

So they had two for 40 years minimum and they haven't flown any local versions of it... doesn't that tell you anything?

BTW the first model A were rubbish... it was considered a day only fighter and some experts in the US argued that it should only be armed with two wingtip mounted Sidewinders as armament and just be a day fighter...

According to such accounts, one “Fighting Falcon” is still operational whereas the other was disassembled for reverse engineering and then sent to Pakistan. The jet sent to Pakistan was itself looked at by the Pakistani military with the idea of reverse engineering it, although Pakistan had bought the F-16 itself.

Of course... and given 30 years of experience with these F-16s Pakistan is importing Chinese modifications of MiG-21s... could they not be bothered making their own F-16s?

Anyway, the Spanish newspaper ABC has recently reported that at least one F-16 of the 23 purchased by Venezuela in 1983, was transferred to Iran by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

If he wanted them to produce spare parts surely he would have sent them 4 or 5.

The airframe would have been brought back to flying condition in Iran to test it against the local air defense systems in anticipation of an Israeli or U.S. attack on the Iranian nuke program.

Venezuelan and any A model F-16s they might have received before they kicked the yanks out would be as much use in testing air defence systems in preparation for an air attack would be about as much use as using F-5s...

A quick google search for the above shows that various forums are awash with this after ABC and later Haaretz as well as several other media outlets ran reports back in June that seem to back this up. ..

A quick google search will tell you that the ABC warned us all about Iraqs WMDs that could destroy the world if America didn't go in there are deal with them now...

Therefore, either the image is a fake (like many others you can find on the Internet, some of those showing scale models) or it was taken by the FARS photographer Vahid Reza Alaei during a visit in Venezuela of an Iranian delegation.

Amazing article there buddy... makes a fantastic claim and then shows proof it is not true... are they trying to make an Infomercial?

Against high end American aircraft, and given the U.S. military’s obvious familiarity with the F-16 - the most widely deployed combat platform in service with approximately 1000 aircraft, the F-16A’s value for Venezuela would be negligible.

Venezuela or Iran...

Should the Russian or other allied fleets acquire these jets however, they would make excellent aggressor trainers and would provide a greater understanding of fourth generation American military aviation which many of these powers currently lack. ..

Bullshit.

Russia for its part could more than compensate Venezuela for the Fighting Falcons - either providing more heavy fighters such as the Su-30MK2 to expand the existing fleet or providing a lighter complementary platform such as the MiG-29 or even the advanced MiG-35.

Hugo Chavez had two terms in office and Maduro is on his second term... why the delay... unless it does not make any sense at all.

US opposing forces pilots did not fly MiGs during Topgun training.

Russia for its part could more than compensate Venezuela for the Fighting Falcons - either providing more heavy fighters such as the Su-30MK2 to expand the existing fleet or providing a lighter complementary platform such as the MiG-29 or even the advanced MiG-35. These aircraft, all modern, comparable with high end Russian munitions and not reliant on spare parts from hostile Western powers, would prove a far more valuable asset to Venezuelan defences.

And to Iranian defences....

While sales of the fighters to a third party without American consent is prohibited under the contract under which the F-16 was initially delivered, Venezuela may well see it as a just response to what it perceives to be America’s own illegal actions.

The US already broke those contracts by not supporting the planes with parts and maintenance...

Indeed, Caracas had previously sought to sell its Fighting Falcons to Iran in the mid 2000s - provoking Washington’s ire. Selling them to Russia would if anything be seen as a considerably worse development by the United States, and on Russia’s part could well be seen as compensation for the loss of technological secrets which ensued when Washington encouraged Egypt and Indonesia to breach their own contracts with Moscow and provide the MiG-23 and MiG-21 respectively to the U.S. military.

So Venezuela offered to sell to Iran their F-16s... almost sounds like they don't want them... and also sounds like Iran doesn't want them either...

It is just stupid speculation... Russia doesn't need the pain in the ass of trying to keep enough F-16s flying to make them viable for training... it would be expensive and largely pointless.... it would make more sense to train against planes that are better than the F-16 like the MiG-29 or perhaps MiG-21.... if they can't find a MiG-15 of course.