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saba 248

Similar & different at the same time!

Yes sir, different tail surfaces and window cutouts. Skids and wheels (and pontoons) are always interchangeable within a model type so that is not a difference.

The main things are the fuselage, the rotor hub, and the tail boom and empennage (apart from the tail surface) which are the same. I was wondering if the saba 248 is either inspired by the AW109 design, a licensed (unlicensed) version, or a re-manufactured fuselage version.

No need to reply, it is not important. Despite sanctions, Iran maintained a better industrial base (that was being developed and set up very well in the 70s) than Pakistan. Two of my uncles went to study engineering and physics there and ended up marrying (from Tehran I believe) and moved wit there families to the US. One of them sadly died saving his daughters from the tide and the other by embolism when they were still only middle-aged
 
Iran really makes helicopter engine ? .....any info about engine building in Iran?
 
Good job friends. But using helos against highly armed terrorists is a different ballgame as they have manpads and aaguns covering helicopter flight altitudes. There were many losses in Syria both Syrian and Russian helicopters due to aa fire and manpads.

That is why it is better to use uavs even rotor based smaller uav carrying ir targeting camera and armed with a simple static cannon and rockets mounted on wings would be more effective in my opinion. It will be a smaller target both visual and heat signature would be low and vtol as a bonus for frontline fire support without risking any pilot. We know you have fixed wing successful uavs like shahed series, rotary wings would also be useful for enhanced fire support in the field imo.
 
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ALCON,

While Iran does manufacture the turboprop variant of the TV3, IIRC, there's no definitive evidence they are ready to manufacture a re-engineered turboshaft version.

Also, we can be 100% certain that engine is NOT be used to power this Saba. The images of it under assembly strong point to a twin-engine (likely Allison/RR 250 by the looks of it).

On an unrelated note, renowned Iranian aviation writer Babak Taghvaee (or B.T. for short) claims this Saba is just a rebuilt/remodeled AW109 that crashed in Iran a few years ago. When the AW109 crashed, it's landing gear and tail boom was damaged and they were replaced but the engines were apparently still intact. This would suggest the Saba is not going to end up in production anytime soon. He made a similar detailed claim about the Homa helicopter.

I've attached an image who posted on Twitter concerning the issue.

That all said, from folks who remember my time at the old IMF, B.T.'s stories should be treated with a grain of salt. Sometimes he's dead-on, and sometimes he's dead-wrong and will back-pedal his previous claims. In addition, he had a rather nasty falling out with aviation author Tom Cooper not long ago over issues of his articles and their content.

So, I'm not saying B.T.'s claims are correct or not. I will say that they are very plausible given the history of Iranian aviation projects being dead-ends from the start with no hope for funding or done so for publicity reasons. Then again, he may be completely off-base.

Cheers
 

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ALCON,

While Iran does manufacture the turboprop variant of the TV3, IIRC, there's no definitive evidence they are ready to manufacture a re-engineered turboshaft version.

Also, we can be 100% certain that engine is NOT be used to power this Saba. The images of it under assembly strong point to a twin-engine (likely Allison/RR 250 by the looks of it).

On an unrelated note, renowned Iranian aviation writer Babak Taghvaee (or B.T. for short) claims this Saba is just a rebuilt/remodeled AW109 that crashed in Iran a few years ago. When the AW109 crashed, it's landing gear and tail boom was damaged and they were replaced but the engines were apparently still intact. This would suggest the Saba is not going to end up in production anytime soon. He made a similar detailed claim about the Homa helicopter.

I've attached an image who posted on Twitter concerning the issue.

That all said, from folks who remember my time at the old IMF, B.T.'s stories should be treated with a grain of salt. Sometimes he's dead-on, and sometimes he's dead-wrong and will back-pedal his previous claims. In addition, he had a rather nasty falling out with aviation author Tom Cooper not long ago over issues of his articles and their content.

So, I'm not saying B.T.'s claims are correct or not. I will say that they are very plausible given the history of Iranian aviation projects being dead-ends from the start with no hope for funding or done so for publicity reasons. Then again, he may be completely off-base.

Cheers
Good to see you posting again eagle.
Personally I had some doubts about this claim,so I looked up the quoted reg # ep-trb and found that it is still listed as belonging to an active Agusta A109E and that the registry was last updated on dec31 2016 and did not include inactive machines,now interestingly there was an iranian augusta a109e reg #ep-trk that was written off [with 4 fatalities!] on 13-7-15
http://www.rotorspot.nl/current/ep-c.php
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=177764
And when I went looking in aviation-safety.net/wikibase for the accident/machine in question reg #ep-trb I could find no mention of it.
So make of this what you will.
 
All of these are in vain without mass production .....

True BUT are they good enough to take into mass production? For a country like Iran without foreign buyers mass production needs to happen of a chopper that would be able to replace a large portion of Iran's fleet & is capable of operating in high altitudes since 65% of country is mountains & in various different types of weather conditions!

Iran can build slow & light helicopters up to 8 passengers easy! And for now I think Iran should hold off on mass production until we develop something far superior to what we have today so replacing a large portion of what we have would make sense!

Iran needs to get Iraq, Syria, Lebanon,... to join and fund a joint project to develop the next generation of helicopters and Iran has both the personal and expertise to do it! All they truly lack is proper funding of an ambitious project!

Eurocopter x3, Sikorsky X2, S-97 Raider, V-22.... are the future

Fact is if within the next two decade you don't have a fleet of helicopter that can easily cruise at over 400 kph you will be short!

And the concept is not that complicated specially something like the X3 Iran can easy build you just need the cash for the R&D to build them! And a Helo like that would be worth mass producing & once it's out between 3 or 4 countries others will want to order & once you make a name for yourself then selling your light helo's for civilian use will be much easier!
 

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