That's the problem when you look at initial purchasing price with a complete disregard to everything else! Even if your Airframe comes out to $30 Million USD as appose to $7 Million Iran's own history with it's own fleet has shown that it's well worth it!
You are too much in history. In 1980, the value and position of the airforce was much different than today with the advent of missiles and drones.
If designed on a proper platform your Titanium bulkheads & structure just as in the F-14 will not only increase your max G, survivability & potentially speed but it will last you for decades allowing for an expensive airframe to be overhauled & upgraded and improved upon for years on end that's why Airframe are the MOST expensive part of any capable fighter!
I claim terrain masking and low level flight + VLO is better than a high-G manouver, for missile evasion. Now what?
Why do you think aircrafts designed to make use of GE are mainly used on water? The Russian played around with GE for how long until they finally abandoned it? For a low budget country to not take note of other countries experiences in the development of it's own fighter is a colossal mistake!
Again you live in the past and take lessons of a technological past. Just like Russian subs were a better alternative than ground effect CM carriers (which is the reason why to didn't go forward with it) conventional airpower has better alternatives today for Iran.
Leaps in computers, memory, sensors totally change today form the 70's.
You basically saying the Aircraft is going to fly blind in terms of sensor capability & fully rely on ground systems for everything from areal targets to ground targets to even the location of every AAA & clearly that means don't comprehend the value of a Fighter! One of the main reasons countries have Aircrafts is because they know hitting an aircraft in the Air as appose to an asset on the ground at long ranges (+300km) is extremely hard & next to impossible!
And one of the main targets in an incoming attack is Radar, Sensors & communication and even if they did survive how deep into enemy territory do you think you can transmit secure information without detection without any space based assets?
The F-313 lacks the capability to be a useful offensive aircraft, hence it will mainly operate in friendly airspace with an advanced IADS. In cruise phase with GE it will be almost blind, but when it does the pop-up for target acquisition, its eyes will open. Irans IADS is more important than its airforce and hence will not be taken out anytime soon.
I'm sorry my friend but that's completely absurd! They made it square to deflect radar to make it look stealthy like the F-117
It has NOTHING to do with cost! It's a miss understanding as to what reduces your RCS & that's the angle of your surfaces not the cracks and until you develop a low RCS Canopy, cockpit & pilot gear what is the POINT? & in fact those cracks will work against you unless you fly straight towards the radar!
... I tell you that faceted stealth is certainly cheaper during airframe manufacturing. This is a fact, anyone with any knowledge in engineering knows this. Advanced curved stealth is harder to manufacture and hence more expensive...
Its stealth features look sound up until now and will improve for the flight prototype.
And they keep saying it's capable of short takeoff now comparatively with the same engines you can claim that it would require less runway compared to an F-5 for example but it is NOT a short take off aircraft because the engines are just not powerful enough to achieve the speed required in a short time unless assisted with another device or rocket
You can't credibly make that judgment. You know nothing about the involved parameters. Again you simplify things and get a distorted picture...
Yes it's more stabile than an F-117 due to it's wings! As I said they tried to solve the stability problem with that absurd wing design! So yes it will be very stable in subsonic flight but it will have problems in Yaw and if it ever reaches production model they'll either have to put controlled surfaces on the tip of the wings OR reduce it in size by at least 50% of more Or completely redesign the wings altogether
Again: You can't credibly make that judgment. You know nothing about the involved parameters. Again you simplify things and get a distorted picture...
At this stage we see 6 large yaw moment producing control surfaces on two wings,
The F-313 won't even be able to go transonic let alone supersonic & what limits it from going supersonic is it's design not it's engines! And even with 2 RD-33 it still wouldn't go supersonic! J-85 are capable of supersonic flight everyone knows that! It's engines reduce it's payload, sensor capability, endurance, survivability,..... And the F-313 design is purposely made for subsonic flights ONLY and any 1st year aeronautical engineer would know that!
A single modified J-85 allowed the BD-10 to fly at Mach 1.4 & cruise at almost 1000kph but that doesn't mean it was a good aircraft to be used for combat!
It is certainty subsonic. But you can't judge its speed, payload, endurance etc.
Just tell me why a T-38 can supercruise on dry J85? In your simplistic world, this should be impossible. A 4-5 ton jet go subsonic on 18KN =~1,8t thrust?
No, you cant make such judgment, aerospace is more complex than that.
Actually I do know that FOR A FACT!
Aha so how do you know the RCS of the F-117? We can approximate both in a paper of the size of a masters or better PhD degree via simulations. I myself think the F-117 has better stealth than the F-313, but I don't claim to know it for fact. You have a very flawed methodic.
Cruise Missiles are easy targets if you don't have the capability to map a correct rout! In fact the major hurdle for Iran's capability to use Land Attack Cruise Missile in large scales effectively is not targeting but rather the lack of space based assets that give you fast and up to date info to map a safe route for your cruise missiles to take to the target! If you fly cruise missiles in a straight line with no regard to land assets they will be easy pickings & nothing but target practice
Iran can have very good topological maps of the country for the F-313 to operate in and that's sufficient.
CMs are never easy to shot down and hard to detected both because of their low altitude and high subsonic speed. Now in Iran terrain masking gets added to this.
Btw. there is even a possibility that topological maps were captured with the RQ-170.
It will only be a huge undertaking if you try to re invent the wheel as Iran is trying to do with an absurd unconventional design like the F-313
Take a lesson from the Chinese & build a design based on known proven designs
They better re-invent the wheel, because they lack the key, a state of the art engine like at the moment just Russians (about to) and Americans have. To compete with a kinematic monster at high altitude, you need that key.
It looks like they just did the best thing possible for a country with inferior engine technology. A completely different approach which keeps it out of the kinematic-altitude game but can kill those.
Chinese at least were never as creative as Iranians in defense. We should be proud about such unconventional solutions.
Choosing a light fighter with small engines because you don't wanna pay the fuel costs in an oil rich country that's constantly under threat is reckless
Come on, it was never about fuel... It is about engines, engines and engines. If the RQ-170 was advanced to boost Iran to the edge of the competition, while to difficult to upscale, they better go for RQ-170 engine copies in the F-313. Its better than playing the 30-40 year old technology catch up game (RD-33/WS-10). A 10 year catch up game could be worth the effort.
I don't know whether the J90 is based on that engine but you mainly build a light fighter if you lack engine tech.
You also build light fighters to just buy the entry ticket into airpower. 100 license built Su-30 have no chance against US airpower, but 800 expandable F-313 might have.
Or more simple: 100 Su-30= joke, 800 F-313= a credible capability (still below IADS capability), 2000 F-313= a serious capability, 2000 Su-30= good way to bankruptcy= TKO.
For the country to compete globally the military needs to take charge and constantly push the boundaries of the countries capabilities or else science and technology growth will remain on theories and scientific papers & the top minds of the country will be recruited from the country to advance other countries capabilities
That unconventional, unproven, never existed in similar form, F-313 might be just that.
As for the cost! Your using mines that are owned by the government for the materials & as long as nothing is imported the cost is irrelevant because whatever you pay as long as it's completely domestic then it's going right back into the countries economy and the key is to not let a single toman leave the country for any component & it will take as long as it takes as long as your pushing the boundaries of technologies to increase the countries capabilities
and any naysayers in your project should be fired and replaced with people that believe
Agreed and fortunately we see just that. Soon a fighter subsystems will be built at home and then we can talk about the serial production of the F-313 (if it is a real project).
