Iran wants a stealth fighter. But that is not it.

Certainly, Iran has reason to want a stealthy fighter – it fears an attack by Israel or the United States, one of the most competent air weapons on the planet. In addition, Iran is competing for regional dominance with many Arab states with a very large number of fourth- and 4.5-generation jet fighters, F-15, F-16, Typhoon and Rafale.

There may be too much posture.

(This first appeared several months ago.)

The Iranian aviation industry must boast of its achievements despite its heavy penalties imposed for nearly forty years. He has managed to keep the F-4 Phantom and F-14 Tomcat fighters built by the United States at the forefront of technology for decades, including nine years of high-intensity air warfare against Iraq, despite the fact that it was isolated parts of the United States. He remodeled the rustproof carcbades of the old F-5 Freedom Fighters into dual vertical stabilizer Saeqeh fighters, reverse engineered their J85 turbojet and created a variety of capable and viable drones.

All these crazy and neglected achievements are well below the development of a stealth fighter at work. Russia, which has a well-developed military aviation industry, has essentially thrown the sponge into its Su-57 stealth fighter program (at least in the short term) as spending and technical challenges have come to the fore. proved so prohibitive. Most of the richest countries, such as France, Germany, India, Japan and the United Kingdom, are only in their early days of development.

But Tehran wants to make the world believe that it quietly developed its own stealth jet on February 2, 2013, when it was unveiled during the ten-day Dawn ceremonies attended by President Ahmadinejad.

The IAIO Qaher ("Conqueror") 313 stood out as a tiny little Frankie-plane that would look cool in a movie action. It retained important design features of the F-5 Freedom Fighter, but included inclined vertical stabilizers such as an F-22 Raptor, flying wings reminiscent of the MiG-17's years as ducks – a second pair of D-21s. wings next to the badpit.

It did not look like, however, anything that could actually fly – as David Cenicotti of The Aviationist pointed out – in an epic takedown. Some key points:

The badpit was too small to accommodate a medium-sized human being

Unless that person is a dwarf. The pilot should kneel in front of him to adjust. Likewise, the nose was too small for a radar.

Simplistic badpit instruments

One of the images represents a relatively unsophisticated dashboard, probably taken from a civilian light aircraft. One of the said? A maximum speed indicator of 260 knots, which is just over half the speed of a subsonic civilian jetliner.

No jet exhaust nozzle

The nozzles help the jets not to melt when they are in post-combustion. In addition, the air intakes seem too weak.

No visible weapon bays nor sensor openings.

Stealth jets usually carry weapons in the internal bays to maintain a low radar cross section. But such internal bays, or even provisions for weapons or external sensors, were visibly absent. Iran claimed that the small Qaher could somehow carry two two thousand-pound bombs and six air-to-air missiles, but the cell simply did not have enough space to carry them all. .

It seemed to be bright plastic – no rivets or screws.

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And the canopy seemed to be plexiglbad stained and had no lock.

The Iranian media has released a video that would represent a fleeing Qaher. But a look at the footage makes it clear that there is a remote control replication that is not complete.

After the general outcry, the Iranian media said that it was actually two different small size test drones.

Another dramatic photo depicting a Qaher flying on a mountain background seems to have been produced through the magic of Photoshop.

Basically, the Qaher was an extremely unconvincing plastic model designed for crude propaganda – and the international media had said so.

Qaher 2.0: it can move!

The hypothetical stealth aircraft disappeared for several years before resurfacing in a somewhat more convincing form in April 2017, when the prototype number "8" was paraded in front of President Rouhani and recorded on a runway. ;landing. The Iranian media admitted this time that the jet had not yet been tested in flight.

The new aircraft now has a badpit that can accommodate a normal-sized pilot, two turbojet engines with exhaust nozzles so as not to fuse and a turret with infrared sensors under the nose that could be handy but might spoil his radar cross section. Turbojets are believed to be J85s, an American type of the 1950s that Iran has managed to reverse. The Qaher has a wingspan of only 11 meters and a length of 16 meters.