Posted on 05/03/2010 10:10:46 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Iran was said to have encountered difficulties in modernizing its Air Force. The U.S. intelligence community has determined that the Iranian Air Force was hampered in several areas of modernization of its 1970s-era U.S.-origin platforms. The Defense Intelligence Agency assessed that the Air Force was blocked in such areas as airborne early-warning and control as well as precision-guided munitions.
"The IRIAF [Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force] remains largely dependent on 1970's-era U.S. aircraft like the F-4 Phantom II, the F-14A Tomcat, and the F-5E Tiger II," DIA said in a report titled "Iran's Military Power."
The report, released to Congress on April 15, said Iran has sought to develop a range of capabilities. DIA cited AEW, command, control, communications, computers and intelligence [C4I], electronic warfare, airborne refueling and unmanned aerial vehicles.
So far, the Air Force was said to have achieved success only in the area of UAVs. DIA said Iran has developed and produced two families of reconnaissance, target and lethal UAVs.
"However, the IRIAF has been unable to progress in other areas," DIA said.
The U.S. intelligence agency cited Iran's failure to develop an AEW platform. In September 2009, the Air Force's sole AEW platform crashed and seven people on board were killed.
Another failure has been the development of precision-guided weapons. DIA said the Iranian Air Force has apparently been unable to deploy air-to-ground munitions.
"Iran is also building precision-guided munitions for the IRIAF, but recent large-scale exercises showed fighters delivering conventional unguided munitions," DIA said.
The Air Force's most advanced fighter-jet was identified as the Russian-origin MiG-29 Fulcrum. Iran has not purchased significant numbers of new aircraft over the last decade.
Iran has also established an air defense command. The command, which became operational in 2009, has managed such assets as the SA-15, or TOR-M1, as well as the Russian-origin Igla-S.
"Publicly, Iranian officials gave a number of reasons for creating an air defense force, including the need to better defend its nuclear sites, improve the maneuverability and capability of its air defense forces, and consolidating information-gathering and air defense forces in a single service," the report said.
Ping
Yup. Part of me says these aircraft could be something of a problem for an adversary, but the other part says most of the problems are going to be on the Iranians. First of all, you gotta’ maintain that equipment. None of these aircraft are simple (especially the F-14), but F-4 is not exactly a Piper Cub either. If you don’t maintain ‘em, you either park ‘em or crash ‘em. My guess is that they’re parked.
If the aircraft are parked, then no one is trained on them. Their transport aircraft are in the same category. Most of the pilots don’t, or shouldn’t, fly those aircraft. When it happens, it is quite common to have them “crater”. All things considered, their air force is not a credible threat to anyone but their own pilots.
Remember the story that the Iranians were trying to steal F-14 parts.
Your cite is CIA, not DIA.
DIA is military.
About a third are actually flying last I heard. They do understand the need to maintain proficiency, after all, we trained their senior officers...
Getting the parts for maintenance is not that hard, as they just send the parts to China, who reverse engineers them and manufactures new parts (including parts for the Phoenix missiles). The real problem is having the personnel trained to do the maintenance.
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