Warbird Information Exchange

Did the Iranians lend some tomcats to the Russians? Is this real or photo shopped?

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" excuse me stewardess I speak jive"

Maybe Aggressor Squadren from Nellis?

I say Photo Shopped. I have looked into this several times and have never come up with a definitive answer. It is probable but unlikely. I don't think the Iranians would have trusted the Russians with one. I have heard that during Vietnam the Soviets charged a technical college with building an F-4 Phantom from parts recovered from Vietnam. They completed the exercise though the aircraft was not flyable. Would love to know what happened to that.

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

I'm thinking at least partially photoshop. The top picture at least you would not see these aircraft in such close proximity with the F-14 final to land with a Mig-29 or -25 in a hard bank just off the wing.
The markings on the F-14 may or not have existed at some point, several A model Tomcats wore aggressor schemes at NFWS (Navy fighter weapons school- TopGun) over the years. Hard to tell in B&W. And NFWS is based at Fallon, Nevada, not Nellis.
If we had the orgin of these pics that would probably tell us something...

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All I did was press this red button here...

Using the Tineye ( http://www.tineye.com/ ) reverse image search engine, the 1st image comes from a Persian (read Iranian) blog and the second can be found here...................

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Flanker.html

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Wow, has it really been that long since I last visited?

If they were Iranian F14's, wouldn't the 'canard' surfaces be extended at low speed unswept?

IIRC, the US locked theirs closed, but Iran's beauties are still in 70's spec?

The second picture is definitely photo-chopped, here is the original................

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/5960 ... 001tm6.jpg

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Wow, has it really been that long since I last visited?

look at the intake splitter on the mig-23. same as the f-4 for barrier engagement. they prob figured, "hell, if it's on both the navy and af versions, we might as well copy it.

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-recovering Viper crew chief
-AWACS driver/soon-to-be A-26 driver
-displaced Philadelphian

There have been rumors for a couple/few decades now that the Iranians traded an F-14 or two, along with some AIM-54As, to the Soviet Union. Given that the F-14s were mostly operational after the revolution, it would make sense that any traded aircraft would have been provided in flyable condition, and flown by the Sovs for eval purposes

The USN certainly believed that the F-14's tech had been compromised, especially the AIM-54, which was quickly reengineered and revised into the AIM-54C.

As to the pictures, they both look photoshopped to me. But they are painted correctly for the F-14As as bought by the Shah. Note that the original picture that the second was photoshopped from is of one of the Iranian F-14s as flown with US insignia prior to transfer, as opposed to being one of the later NSAWC Tomcats that was painted to emulate the Iranian F-14s. (Although it COULD be the 80th, and undelivered, Iranian Tomcat on its initial test flights prior to being sent to storage at AMARC/Davis-Monthan. That Tomcat was eventually commandeered by the Navy and regenerated for use by VX-4 or VX-9, I think)

....the Iranians didn't "lend" the two aircraft.....They were given for "future considerations", shall we say....

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Bob

Just curious why was this topic was moved to military matters? As far as I can tell F-14's have had more recent war bird experience than the run of the mill T6 or P51? Not going to lose sleep over this just curious. Thanks.

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" excuse me stewardess I speak jive"

What does the splitter have to do with barriers? It's for splitting off turbulent boundary layer airflow so that it doesn't go down the intakes and cause compressor stalls.

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Check out Scott's definition of "warbird" and you'll find your answer.

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Do you know something and wanna share? I'd love to hear it. With the -14 out of service, I can't see how it would do any harm.

Do you know something you can't share?

Or are you guessing?

Just curious.

The story I heard from a reliable source was that the American contractors that were servicing and upgrading the F-14s during the over throw of the shah sabotaged the avionics systems prior to fleeing the country. The resulting glitches left the now IRIAF with at best the ability to do nothing more than high speed taxiing. This openned the door for the USSR, with the agreement that in exchange for getting the Tomcats airborne they would get to thoroughly study the aircraft. Now if they kept an airframe or two I don't know, but it's conceivable and would make sense to bring one back to do the reverse engineering and debugging in the Soviet Union.

An interesting note I just saw is that the Iranian government as of summer 2010 is requesting the 80th and final agreed upon Tomcat to be delivered. This F-14A, BuNo. 160378 last I heard was still in storage at DM.



And yet my F-14A post from the other day was not moved.

Shay
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Semper Fortis