Wrong choice of words here by you. It does not "lack BVR" it lacks a "BVR missile". Its radar and Fire control system is equivalent to that of FCK-1, T-50, TEJAS. FC-1 Blk I/II. We literally have no idea what will they procure for it from China if the plane gets fully operationalized.
Lets have a comparision between Kowsar and MIG-29
- If they procure ARH PL-12/15 for Kowsar I/II then IRIAF can have some ~150 fighters with PL-12/15 + e-warfare/ECM suite. Based upon how much money they will put into its production. 150 will cost some 1.5-2 Billions USD (I am assuming Kowsar next gen to be atleast 15-20 Millions USD per unit if they use AESA and HOTAS).
- If they procure ARH R-77 for MIG-29 then IRIAF will have 23 fighters whose airframes are 30 years old (require MLU) and they lack entire ECM and e-warfare suites.
So tell me which option is better?
Well, you were very precise with the number. You said there are "6 prop airframes" only. You did not say 12 or anything. You said 6. Then I proved to you that even if we assume that Raisi's 6 were the 6 out of Ashtiani's 12 and we do know that 4 out of the initial 7 have been at TAB-2 for evaluation (1+ 3 that showed acrojet maneuvers). Then there are at least 18-19 airframes that have been worked upon in HESA. Now we can argue whether 18 units/4 years is enough or not but the 6 prop jab was just silly.
Saeqeh numbers are not my words Its their serials that add up to 6 airframes.
I gave the Saeqeh numbers because you were saying that Saeqeh also saw some 24 airframes (2 squadrons) so will Kowsar but I proved that Saeqeh barely got 6 airframes/11 years. They tested what they could like squared air intakes, twin tails, elongated radom, domestic made pylons, and probably some FBW components. I had a long discussion on IMF once with Eagle 2009 whether Saeqeh with V tails can even fly without FBW control. They also tested twin seat config with exact same cockpit 3 x LCDs + HUD on Saeqeh-II that we today see in Kowsar.
And then the project concluded. Kowsar's case is different.
Like I said, IRIAF has no budget + management, they are a very stupid bunch except for the piloting skills which we know they massively excel at (only AF in the world to have 4th generation ace of aces).
Waste of Budget:
- 23 x Mirage-F1 that we know, do not have a single missile to fire in inventory. Let alone missile, it does not even have pylons to hang ammunitions from. I think they even lack a functioning Cyrano-IV. Why create a Mirage infrastructure? train pilots? maintain a stupid platform that lost 34:1 to F-14A during the war?
- ~44-50 F-7N. Why waste money on this stupid 3rd generation BVR-less Chinese MIG-21? It offers nothing in combat for the last 20 years. Why did they even purchase it is beyond me. They could have got J-8IIM from the same source but they instead went for this stupid fighter. Pilots, Infrastructure, overhaul centers, and training all went to waste.
- 60 x F-5E/F fleet offers nothing, they have served us well, and helped us win the air war strongly against Baathists but it's time to go. They are sitting ducks in the sky against what we might face in the air from enemies. The ones who did well in combat like shooting down MIG-25 or carrying out attacks on Iraqi oil fields can go to museums.
So IRIAF had the money for above three but they refused to make a budget plan for F-14A => F-14AM standard upgradation or even a local HESA+IEI based MIG-29 9.12 upgrade that we know is in dire need of upgradation. A HESA+IEI upgrade of F-14AM+MIG29 9.12 means you have 75 x 4+ generation top-notch interceptors that can bully and shoot any intruder in the sky from 150 km away (Fakour-90's range). But they instead went with wasting money on maintenance + overhaul of mentioned 160 x good for nothing fleet. So can we rely upon these people to make sensible financial decisions?
Bad management:
Why are they not producing Kowsar at a rate of lets say 12-14/year. I will tell you why ? because they are bad at the management of projects. They could have generated money by grounding the Mirage fleet first which offers less that what F-7N offers (F-7N at least fires PL-7C). But they did not. If 18-24 Kowsar airframes are already worked upon, Why are we not seeing squadrons of F-5 being grounded to be dismantled for useful parts in production? When I saw first 6 Kowsars I thought next year we will see one F-5E/F squadron grounded but that did not happen. Now we have seen 18-24 airframes of Kowsars and still not a single F-5E/F squadron is gone. Why would they waste money on creating Kowsar airframes from scratch when they actually can just get some useful parts from dismantled F-5E/F? F-5's only use right now is to ground them and dismantled into parts, throw away the APQ-153 radars, J-85, cockpits, canopies, skins, wings, tails, radoms, actuators, fuel lines and pumps, wirings, rugged airframe parts, landing gear assembly etc because none of it is of any use to IRIAF. Whatever will be left can create a large repository of parts that can be used for keeping the Kowsar I/II fleet of 120 fighters in a top-notch combat-ready condition. Pilots get 200+ flying hours on them yearly while you have a long tracking radar with ECM, and e-warfare suite flying in the air on a highly manuverable platform that has 1m2 RCS.
Not exactly, we have nations around us that are purchasing 4.0 generation fighters (attributes comparable to Kowsar or even below).
Turkey is designing Hurjet combat version
Iraq just recently ordered FC-1
Taiwan came up with T-5
Sweden/Australia/Serbia might induct T-7 Redhawk combat version
Pakistan flying FC-1 Blk-I/II, they also purchased a batch of used ex Egyptian Mirage-V (wtf???)
India getting its TEJAS M1 (a fighter they took 30+ years to make)
Manned 4th generation fighters will keep flying for as long as there is an unmanned substitute for them which I described in my previous post. Something that can fly at 1.5-2 Mach, pull 10+ G's, tracks enemy at 150+ km, fires at least 4 x BVR + 4 x WVR missiles, climbs at 40000-50000 feet/min, and makes its own decisions during battle. Right now even USA has no such machine in production so what are you expecting from HESA? trust me we might see Iranian air-to-air specialized UCAV before we might see something similar from Russia. We have a larger more diverse fleet of MALE UCAVs than Russia after all.
As for the Kowsar production, we know there have been 18-24 airframes at HESA. If the target is to get 60 x Kowsar-1 fighters (5 fully equipped combat squadrons) then HESA has already worked upon 1/3 of the targetted numbers. Even if they get some 6-8/year airframes done by the 2023 year (quoting BT's estimate) 2023, the project will conclude in 2027. IRIAF will have ~160 x 4.0 generation BVR interceptors (F-14AM, MIG, Kowsar) + layered L/SH/ORAD + 300 MALE UCAVs for ELINT/SIGINT, PGM, and LACM strikes. Not a bad deal I say. If they manage to get SU-35S/J-10C or even some additional numbers of MIG-29M/MIG-35 then it will be an additional force multiplier. Farewell to F-7N, MirageF1, F-5E/F.
Decide for yourself.
1) Same number of T/R elements (300 each in ditto 12 rows)- Check
2) Same no. of antenna edges (12) - Check
3) Same processing and power unit size and design, even the lifting handles are dittos - Check
4) Same tracking range - Check
5) Same configuration Tracks 8, attacks 2 targets - Check
6) Same weight
7) Even the steering platform design is a ditto
View attachment 856258View attachment 856259
NRIET of China (a CATIC subsidiary for radars) copied some Grifo radar designs as dittos or they purchased them as TOT since Leonardo (makers of grifo) did not get their bids successful for these products sale, while CATIC already was in large contracts with rogue nations so Leonardo (Italy) technically got business through CATIC of China. Italians are tricky people. Hence:-
Grifo S becomes KLJ-7 on FC-1 Block I/II
Grifo 346 becomes KLJ-Whatever that got TOT-ed to IEI as Bayynet-II of Kowsar,
Grifo E becomes KLJ-7A AESA on FC-1 Blk III or Bayyenat-III for Kowsar-II (highly likely)
... or the Chinese stole the blueprints or copied them. We will never know.
Topic for another time but there is a ditto of Bayyenaat-I on upgraded F-4E of IRIAF in the PLAAF right now too.
Except that Kowsar is here and Qaher was Hassan Parvaneh + Ahmed Vahidi + Ahmadinejad's stupidity who decided to present a mockup concept (every other country did same) as an in-production fighter. Kowsar cant be compared to Qaher. Qaher will fly one day with modifications
if the airframe design came from Shafagh's R&D between HESA and Mukhamedov OKB. If not then it won't.
Kowsar is not the future of IRIAF but it is ensuring there is a future. No light fighter is a future of any force like
Hurjet LCA is not the future of Turkish Hava Kuvvetleri, they want EF-2000
T-5 is not the future of Taiwanese AF, they are iducting more F-16
TEJAS is not the future for Indian AF, they are inducting Rafale @ ~130 Million USD per unit
FC-1 is not the future of Pak-AF , inducting J-10C + just purchased Mirage V for parts
T-7 is not the future of Swedish/Austrailian AF, they are chasing 5th gen
T-50 is not the future of Korean or Indonesian AF, they are chasing 5th gen
I will call anyone who thinks Kowsar is the answer to IRIAF's aging fleet a stupid person. Like I said before do not see this as a product, I see it as an achieved industrial capability that will initially give a 60-70 electronically advanced BVR capable interceptors as stop gap while we have nothing else. The same capability in 2-3 years can evolve (high likely it will) into a much better "product" that will be Kowsar-II. Even if it wont, the current capability can provide the much needed extensive upgrade to MIG Fleet or may arm the future A2A-UCAV.
I know who EvilWesterner is. I have talked to him before. I have talked to you/other members as well on IDF/IMF. IMF is gone but some of my predictions have exactly true e.g
I predicted Zoljanah (Sejjil derivative SLV) in 2012/13 when people called me silly because we only knew our tested Safir SLV. I also predicted Hawk based genuine production of a local AIM-54 and we have Fakour-90. I also predicted future IRIAF+IRGC-AF fleet of some 300-400 HALE/MALE UCAVs. We have that now.
My current predictions (based upon logic and published articles) in a few years are:
4+ or 4++ gen Kowsar-II
Sejjil based MaRV-ICBMs
Bavar 373 becomes equivalent to S-500
Stealth Shahed 171 into IRIAF
Air to Air UCAV with WVR missiles
KAMAN-22/FOTROS/GAZA with SIGINT/ELINT roles
Unveiling of Iranian possession of initially 8-10 mid to low yield Fission devices.
IRIN/IRGCN UCAV Carriers