Although I fully know Iran needs a much larger budget in order to procure more jets: the actual increase in terms of money spent per year is what alludes me. Realistically how much would Iran have to increase its own defense spending by to compensate for its poor air force and or get new Kowsars, Saeghe, etc?
An F-5 in today’s numbers cost 20-25 million. But let’s say Iran can build a Kowsar for 10 million (hypothetically) it would likely need a military budget of $150-200 million dollars just to be able to purchase 10 Kowsar a year (100 million).
Iran’s Air Force budget might not even be $50 Million or $30 Million. The Air Force likely gets by through its aerospace refurbishment/maintenance arm. Which according to thread I posted about IRGC overshadowing Air Force it generates 200+ Million a year. That Likely goes to keeping the fleet alive, bringing back old planes, salaries, and other expenses.
Turkey has a military budget around ~20 Billion dollars. Yet it announced 160 billion modernization program, of which 45 Billion would get allocated to Air Force (source wiki).
So in Iran’s case, unless the government announces a similar separate modernization program of 10+ billion for airforce (over X amount of years) , its hard to see how Iran’s Air Force will ever become anything.
To buy 50 SU-30 will cost Iran around 2 Billion dollars plus support costs/training/parts/etc.
So a 10 Billion Air Force modernization program funded by the government will allow for a 100 fighter purchase from Russia (SU-30), plus a significant boost to R&D for Iranian domestic fighter projects plus a possible order for a next gen F-5 variant (Kowsar II or III) as an domestic advanced trainer/light attack fighter.
This should still leave money left over for additional Air Force purchase such as military cargo planes, AWACS, etc or possible another fighter jet to compliment the SU-30.
While 10 Billion is a lot of money, if you see how much Iran has lost in corruption, fraud, theft, government excess, etc its a drop in the bucket.
Nonetheless don’t expect to see such a program when Iran is suffocating under sanctions and throwing a economic lifeline to Syria.