Iranian military engine development news and updates

[TheImmortal]

Rd-33 is much but Al-31 series tops even that.
It starts to become questionable.

China was dreaming for 25 years to create something in that class. They skipped a RD-33/EJ-200 class engine to concentrate their resources on a 15 ton thrust class engine and still only managed to do it in this decade.
So alone a RD-33 copy is not significantly easier than a Al-31, otherwise Chinese would have done it for the JF-17 and J-31.
The difference is that the Chinese saw no solution in "just" coping the Al-31, maybe deemed an impossible task at that time, so they went for a own design, hoping to "understand" it.

What an Iranian Al-41 would mean is hence this: Soviets started the Chinese jet engine program in the 60's and by at least 2010, China, after 50+ years of experience and vast resources, had not managed to serial produce a 13-15ton class turbofan.
Iran with jet engine parts manufacture starting at earliest in the 80's and prototyping of simple designs in the 2000's, would create a prototype of a direct copy of a 15ton class turbofan in ~2020. That would create a effective gap of only 5-10 years to Chinese veterans.

I have problems to believe such a technological miracle is possible.
Iran had miracles in the past on radars and has a company like MAPNA active in related fields, but alone a RD-33 copy would be a unbelievable feat 2020:
I said it in the past: reverse engineering an as complex mechanical machine like the RD-33 and beyond, maybe deemed as impossible by many and certainly Chinese just wanted to avoid getting into the mess of a non-functional copy when developing their WS-10.
I hope that Iranians managed to copy it via most modern computer aided methods and got input from the materials side from MAPNA in order to skip the nightmare Chinese went trough... whether RD-33 or Al-31.

Iran is still importing rotary engine for S-129 and we have people on this board talking about Iran cloning AL-31 basically Iran jumping ahead of China and India in technology.

I mean come on people. Be realistic.

 

[PeeD]

The difference is: CAD and own resources in Nano-technic (both things China did not have in the late 80s and before) give Iran an advantage. So me think the years from 1980-2019 for Iran were the same as the years from 1960-2010 were for China.

Its beyond that... known CAD and CAE is not enough to understand the interaction conditions of such a engine. There has been no case of a successful reverse engineering of a mechanical system as complex as a modern Turbofan.

As for nano technology: Yes that may have helped, but the better term is advanced coating materials. Such a engine needs very special materials, critical superalloays. So it's possible that where Iran would have problems to create a alloy on pair with those of the decades old original, it would have used weaker alloys but with better coating and other treatments.
Iran is strong there: A senior Siemens engineer once told me that they have to develop a new generation of turbine blade and vanes each year because there is a country on the black market that just needs one year to copy or build a equivalent of the last generation. I'm quite sure that this country with which they are in a race is Iran, the only country that builds copies of Siemens gastrubines.

Possible that Iran has re-engineered the engine to avoid the first hurdle of copying, like Chinese did with the WS-10. After that hurdle, the even harder one; materials could have had a critical assist due to MAPNA materials knowledge.
In engineering, designing something is sober calculations, but materials is a kind of magic, alchemy, a trial and error story.

Iran is still importing rotary engine for S-129 and we have people on this board talking about Iran cloning AL-31 basically Iran jumping ahead of China and India in technology.

I mean come on people. Be realistic.

Legit doubts. However, if the leader of the country pays a visit to a company (MAPNA), then this is something strategic: Iran is apparently working towards that goal a long time, step by step. Its a exclusive club with only 5-6 members currently, 5 of then nuclear powers.

This is one of the photos why we talk about the Iranian RD-33:

 

[Myself]

Iran is still importing rotary engine for S-129 and we have “people on this board” talking about Iran cloning AL-31 basically Iran jumping ahead of China and India in technology.

I mean come on people. Be realistic.

I thought you already know that there is a secret island somewhere in Iran, where all these miracles take place. Also, all these modern Russian stuff such as Costa, Nebu, Rezonans, Gamma, S-300, Tor-M, Cornet, etc. you see have come from other planets, as according to Iranian forums and media Russia doesn’t sell anything to Iran, let alone China and NK.

 

[Ich]

As for nano technology: Yes that may have helped, but the better term is advanced coating materials. Such a engine needs very special materials, critical superalloays. So it's possible that where Iran would have problems to create a alloy on pair with those of the decades old original, it would have used weaker alloys but with better coating and other treatments.
Iran is strong there: A senior Siemens engineer once told me that they have to develop a new generation of turbine blade and vanes each year because there is a country on the black market that just needs one year to copy or build a equivalent of the last generation. I'm quite sure that this country with which they are in a race is Iran, the only country that builds copies of Siemens gastrubines.

Possible that Iran has re-engineered the engine to avoid the first hurdle of copying, like Chinese did with the WS-10. After that hurdle, the even harder one; materials could have had a critical assist due to MAPNA materials knowledge.
In engineering, designing something is sober calculations, but materials is a kind of magic, alchemy, a trial and error story.

Nano coatings for turbine blades is not new to Iran. They did it long time ago. The only problem for high pressure/high temp turbines are the coolings inside the blades. Here one need special materials/alloys for heat-transportation through material and coolings/coolant bores inside the blade while giving enough stability to the blades itself. And me think Iran is on a very good way to archive that.

 

[Hack-Hook]

i don't know anything about that news. father more the reason i posted AL-31 i was trying to Put stop to this RD-33 nonsense
which is gaining momentum in forum

You can't put rd-33 inside f-5 . it will cause some metric problem

 

[sahureka2]

You can't put rd-33 inside f-5 . it will cause some metric problem

On the F-5 no ,
But starting from the KOWSAR, one could study a version adapted to receive an RD-33 engine or copy, or a J-79 or copy, thus creating a sort of F-20.

 

[hussainb72]

On the F-5 no ,
But starting from the KOWSAR, one could study a version adapted to receive an RD-33 engine or copy, or a J-79 or copy, thus creating a sort of F-20.

Can i ask from where did u get this pic??????
The plane's nose is larger, it has a single gun barrel suggesting that more computers and a bigger radar is inside the nose, there is lots of space behind the seat suggesting that that area has been used for some electronic components, the fuselage's diameter has been increased as well and the plane has a hump on its back, again more components, and the vertical stabilizer looks a little bit different from an F5, and the engine nozzle and intakes are much bigger and it seems that there is just a single engine installed on this plane, also probably the gun barrel seen on the nose is a pitot tube as you can see a gun mounted on the lower left side of the fuselage on the front.

Is this the iranian tigershark or just photoshop, but i highly doubt the latter.

 

[Hack-Hook]

On the F-5 no ,
But starting from the KOWSAR, one could study a version adapted to receive an RD-33 engine or copy, or a J-79 or copy, thus creating a sort of F-20.

Well even in kowsar the lenght of the engine is a little different . let say 4.2m vs 1.3m

 

[sahureka2]

Can i ask from where did u get this pic??????
The plane's nose is larger, it has a single gun barrel suggesting that more computers and a bigger radar is inside the nose, there is lots of space behind the seat suggesting that that area has been used for some electronic components, the fuselage's diameter has been increased as well and the plane has a hump on its back, again more components, and the vertical stabilizer looks a little bit different from an F5, and the engine nozzle and intakes are much bigger and it seems that there is just a single engine installed on this plane, also probably the gun barrel seen on the nose is a pitot tube as you can see a gun mounted on the lower left side of the fuselage on the front.

Is this the iranian tigershark or just photoshop, but i highly doubt the latter.

It's just my photoshop a few months ago that I published in the Kowsar discussion, a simple interpretation of how the two-seater Kowsar might look, modified in single-seater (to increase the capacity of internal tanks) and with a single engine.
But the possibility of using many parts already in production of the KOWSAR would speed up the production of a similar F-20 version

 

[hussainb72]

It's just my photoshop a few months ago that I published in the Kowsar discussion, a simple interpretation of how the two-seater Kowsar might look, modified in single-seater (to increase the capacity of internal tanks) and with a single engine.
But the possibility of using many parts already in production of the KOWSAR would speed up the production of a similar F-20 version

For a second i thought that such a thing exists cause i had heard of such things being done in iran before, but i hadnt seen any proof till now. I should say that you really did a good job photoshopping this pic, I thought it was real.

But it just shows that its actually possible for iran to do such a thing, and if they are really interested in the F5 platform, why dont they try this thing, they can even increase the scale of the aircraft to allow for a bigger payload.

 

[Ray_Atek]

For a second i thought that such a thing exists cause i had heard of such things being done in iran before, but i hadnt seen any proof till now. I should say that you really did a good job photoshopping this pic, I thought it was real.

But it just shows that its actually possible for iran to do such a thing, and if they are really interested in the F5 platform, why dont they try this thing, they can even increase the scale of the aircraft to allow for a bigger payload.

Some problem should solved such as:
1-Landing gear location
2-Radar low space
3-Mid wings instead of low wings
4-Operating range

F-20 is not a solution but jf-17 may be better.

 

[arashkamangir]

Iran is still importing rotary engine for S-129 and we have people on this board talking about Iran cloning AL-31 basically Iran jumping ahead of China and Inm

Some problem should solved such as:
1-Landing gear location
2-Radar low space
3-Mid wings instead of low wings
4-Operating range

F-20 is not a solution but jf-17 may be better.

F-20 is not the only configuration for Iran. This goes back to the F-17 program which was precursor to F-18. It was believed by some that Iran developed twin V shaped variation of F-5 as part of decades old program to develop F-17. If Iran manages to develop a slightly larger F-17 shaped aircraft, RD-33 would be a fantastic engine choice.

Take a look at the background section in this Wiki article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YF-17

 

[Ray_Atek]

1-More hardpoints
2-Bigger radar
3-More range
4-More space for future upgrade
5-Economical
Better than f-20 in CAS but in A2A role f-20 is better.

 

[sahureka2]

Yes it would be a more performing aircraft, but at this point it would be a completely new airplane, with almost all the parts to be designed and built, very little of the Kowsar / F-5 could be used.
As a result, the time needed to make this aircraft operational would be much longer.
The situation is different if you can use many parts already in production of the KOWSAR that could enter into service more quickly

 

[Ray_Atek]

F-20 manufacturing is not cheap also but for A2A role is good choice.
Look at what Iriaf thinking in this maket.