Deep Intell on Covert Programs to Keep Iran's F-14s Flying
- Thread starter Jackson_Slugger
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Hardly "Deep Intel" when Aviation Week has been reporting it for years...but that's what gets Mooch YouTube clicks, which is the whole point of his channel, so...
He does a god job covering it, though. And their F-14 fleet remains a credible platform for air superiority.
What about the age / deterioration of radar and electronics ?
Unlike the F-4 with black market parts from a few countries….. the F-14 had no other operator than the USA.
I doubt we will sell them parts to keep their Phoenix ‘ready to go’ when another country (that we support 100%) trys to take out Iran’s nuclear program in the near future.
I'm not going to talk too much about it, because some of the topic is classified, still.
But they have worked with other countries to reverse - engineer parts. A variety of parts.
But they have worked with other countries to reverse - engineer parts. A variety of parts.
Iran Receives Smuggled Surplus F-14 Parts | Arms Control Association
I know for a fact that Iran flies their Tomcats to the day. I took these images myself and many more like these back in 2018 and 2019 just before the Covid-mess when the political climate still allowed for foreigners to halfway safely travel the country (impossible today I guess).
If you look at dedicated aviation image data banks which review submitted images by their exif data you can see that Iran regularly to the day and fairly frequently rolls out F-14 airframes from overhaul by about two airframes per year, the most recent being serial 160337 / 3-6039 just early this year. Last june they lost serial 3-6054 / 160352 during a crash upon final approach at Isfahan just after it was returned to the IRIAF / Iranian Airforce after its overhaul. Ever since the USN retired their Tomcats I've been trying to keep tabs upon the Persian flock via all those obscure Midde Eastern and Persian media outlets, forum-platforms and the well known dreaded social media (seems many Iranians used that quite frequently up until the regime locked the internet end of last year) and what little became publicly available for us in the West through dedicated Western media and so far I can document 57 airframes in working order via images and movie stills - "in working order" meaning taxying, launching, landing flying etc. As to their real operationability or relevance for potential air combat .... no idea really (and couldn't care less - I just enjoy to see them fly, don't need to be able to shoot anything for all I care) but there are fairly recent reports on Iran having reverse engineered all three types of AIMs, the F-14A could carry, i.e. the -54, -7 and -9. Just last year serials 3-6001 / 160299 and 3-6079 / 160377, i.e the very first and the last F-14A delivered to Iran were seen during an annual exercise together. 160299 left the Grumman plants end of '74 and was delivered in early '75 thus making it now the oldest active airframe of the entire F-14 fleet. There are all in all 16 losses reported / documented in the West: They lost two units before the revolution in '76 and '78, they apparently lost nine units during the war (three losses in air combat after an Iraqi ambush with their Mirage F1s known as "Operation Giraffe" - a stunt the Iraqies later would pay dearly for, five losses to Iraqi SAM fire and one loss after an unsuccessfull defection attempt); there are claims of two losses due to accidents during the 90s and three total losses out of four accidents are documented for the 2000s up until now (one serial slid over the runway in 2008 and was damaged similar to what happend to a VF-101-bird in 2002; it was repaired and seen again by 2012, Serial 3-6062/160360 was shot down over the Persian gulf in January 2012 by friendly fire, i.e. a missfired Tor M1 SAM by the IRGC / revolutionary guard corps with both of the crew being lost (the IRIAF still hates the IRGC for this), serial 3-6003 / 160301 departed the runway and burned out in May 2019 at Isfahan, the crew survived and as mentioned serial 3-6054/160352 was lost in June 2022 upon finals at Isfahan due to engine malfunction, the crew survived.) Hence they still should have 63 airframes available but so far I can only document 57 units, no idea what's with the other six units. Aparently they rotate them through a repeating cycle of deep storage - overhaul - front line service - rear service - withdrawal back to storage, which seems to repeat itself about every 5-7 years?! The US DIA estimates in one of their publications on Iran that they manage to keep about 40-45 airframes operational at a time that way.
These little movies - apparently dating between 2018 and 2022 - depict one of the two the splintered F-14AM-Tomcats apparently launching a missile that very much looks like an AIM-54, i.e either it is an indigenous derivative or they managed to replace the fixed propellants and thermal batteries on their remaining AIM-54As, which in itself would be rather astounding but also not out of this world considering, that Iran has one of the more prolific missile programs in the world. After all their diverse missile programs were the reason the JCPOA was done away with. Did the missile track and hit something, does it have similar range to an AIM-54A? Only Iran knows, I guess.
Do I know how truly mission capable these old gals are? No idea really but flyable they are indeed and it seems they can fire something at the very least. I at least rather consider them still mission capable and a thread to their peer countries in the region and will be positively surpised if it proves not to be the case than the other way around and linger in unfounded complacency. After all Israel received F-15Cs and Ds from the US that were produced in the mid to late 70s just like these Tomcats just a few years ago and was happy about them and did quite some substantial upgrade, i.e. they condsider these old airframes still relevant for their needs, so why not better assume the same for Iran just to not be surpised in a bad way?!
What the acquisition of the SU-35 this year will mean for their F-14 fleet remains to be seen. Some speculate that these aircraft will rather replace their even older Phantoms and cobbled together Russian type fleet and rather augment their F-14s, others speculate that the SU-35 will indeed replace the F-14. What speaks against that is that the IRIAF just a few weeks back published images of a newly built F-14 simulator (how new it is ... no idea really) and the circumstance that the IRIAF already refused the acqusition of Flanker aircraft once back in the early 2000s before the sanctions were put in place, stating that the spool up times on the Flanker were nowhere near the Tomcat's spool up time and thus not as suitable for QRA. This might have changed by now however, who knows?! I guess at some point we will see.
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"DeEp InTeL" on Bob Is The Oil Guy!!!
What a joke!!!
What a joke!!!
Fixed it for you.
Well gues that is just the title of the video in the OPs link. Hardly anything Mr. Bob could do about it.
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