IRIAF | News and Discussions

[VEVAK]

Since Iran lags behind in Titanium tech to build complete heavy fighter air frames from scratch, how viable would it be for the IRIAF to rebuild "new" F-14s air frames around the existing Titanium components of old F-14s? Since Titanium is the strongest material used in the air frame of aircraft I would imagine that they will have a long life span and it would be possible to build new air frames with lower RCS and modern avionics around existing Titania Parts like the wing box...This may not be a perfect solution but it may be better than building something like the F-313 with its limited air frame, if the idea behind it is feasible.

How many F-14 Airframes do you spose we have left? I can tell you it's not that many for Iran to make a major investment in the development of an Airframe around the F-14 frames and the part your talking about are already 40 years old!

Also if there is a fighter in Iran's fleet where it's Airframe should be redesigned it's the F-4's. The F-4's have a poorly designed airframe with a large RCS, limited maneuverability on an airframe that shakes at high speeds due to it's poorly designed slanted wings and tilorones and there are just way too many faults on that airframe

Also the J79 engines are fairly OK engines that leave a lot of room for upgrades. Iran could potentially upgrade it's combustion chamber, Iran could potentially reduce the length of it's axils and prefect the design of it's compressors and allow for limited low bypass right after the front compressors and that will potentially allow Iran to build shorter and more capable afterburners around the engine
All and all if Iran works on these changes they would be able to reduce consumption of the engines and potentially increase life span & reduce maintenance hours in time maybe even increase thrust.
Although hands down the BEST engine to upgrade and improve upon that Iran has access too is the twin spool AL-21's belonging to Iranian Su-17's/24 because they are twin spool and have far more thrust &
Improving efficiency on either of those engines by as much as 10% would completely remove the need for Turbofan engines.

Hell building a modern low drag, high maneuvering twin engine Airframe design around 2 Al-21's will give you a platform that will be more than sufficient

But the TI will still be a necessity! Just compare the F-15 to the Su-24 the twin engine Su-24's with AL-21's have greater thrust than an F-15 BUT the empty weight of an F-15 comes in at 28,000 LB VS the Empty weight of a Su-24 that come in at just over 49,000 lb which means the F-15's empty weight is a good 75% lighter which would not be possible without the high use of Ti composites that allow weaker engines to achieve greater speed, agility & maneuverability

Which means if Iran addresses it's Ti composite problem and develops a capable relatively light, low drag, high maneuvering airframe around outdated AL-21 engines even without upgrades to the engines or the need for turbofan engines we will have a very capable platform
Also on the F-4's the Americans used an absurd design to both address the aircraft weight problems and at the same time give it the capability to takeoff and land on carriers now if Iran addresses weight ratio with the use of Ti and other composites even at the same thrust to weight ratio we could build an airframe with reduced drag, reduced RCS, increased maneuverability, higher agility & increased cruise speeds which will lead to improved range with the current J79's


And that make Ti and other strategic alloys and composites and the advanced tool needed to work with those alloys the main concern. And Ti is not restricted to a fighter program. From the Paint industry, to Oil industry, to automotive industry, medical industry, naval industry,.....
If Iran wants to produce better products then we need to produce the martials needed to improve our products

 

[Ray_Atek]

Exact analysis of j79,f4,Al21f,... seem you are an expert in mechanical or aerospace.
Best job is to scale up j85 external diameter to 120 centimeter and adding low bypass to make heavy turbofan.
J85 has good setup as you see the f22 and f35 engine have nearer setup to j85.
Twin spool scaled up j85 based turbojet or turbofan is better than iranian upgraded j79 or Al21f.

 

[skyshadow]

 

[TheImmortal]

That Sofreh Mahi footage is 4 years old and also an RC toy.

 

[skyshadow]

That Sofreh Mahi footage is 4 years old and also an RC toy.

Yes, but I thought the project was canceled

 

[TheImmortal]

Yes, but I thought the project was canceled

Sofreh Mahi project existed prior to capture of RQ-170 before Iran had access to flying wing design.

However, after capture of RQ-170. Iran focused efforts on mastering flying wing design and creating its own flying wing UAVs.

Thus Sofreh Mahi project may have been shelved or received less attention. There are two Sofreh Mahi models: fighter jet and a bomber variant.

What’s intresting is the fighter jet variant is similar in design to mock up designs of US 6th gen fighters. Thus the project may be a much longer term project.

That being said, the status of either project is unclear right now.

 

[skyshadow]

Sofreh Mahi project existed prior to capture of RQ-170 before Iran had access to flying wing design.

However, after capture of RQ-170. Iran focused efforts on mastering flying wing design and creating its own flying wing UAVs.

Thus Sofreh Mahi project may have been shelved or received less attention. There are two Sofreh Mahi models: fighter jet and a bomber variant.

What’s intresting is the fighter jet variant is similar in design to mock up designs of US 6th gen fighters. Thus the project may be a much longer term project.

That being said, the status of either project is unclear right now.

If this project is so big as you say and if its not dead, then I think Iran will uses the F 313 manufacturing experience to build Sofreh Mahi project very serious and more solid than F 313. Sofreh Mahi project is it from army or IRGC?

 

[TheImmortal]

If this project is so big as you say and if its not dead, then I think Iran will uses the F 313 manufacturing experience to build Sofreh Mahi project very serious and more solid than F 313. Sofreh Mahi project is it from army or IRGC?

Iranian airforce project.

This project is ment to be a UAV fighter jet/bomber. Up until now, China is the only country to successfully produce the first UAV fighter jet using next gen technology.

Iran’s Sofreh Mahi project is to include radar absorbing materials. Iran military officials have stated it will take a long time to finish.

The lack of information since 2011 is a bit worrying. I am not confident that the project is still active, it may have been replaced by a next gen Flying wing type design

 

[VEVAK]

Exact analysis of j79,f4,Al21f,... seem you are an expert in mechanical or aerospace.
Best job is to scale up j85 external diameter to 120 centimeter and adding low bypass to make heavy turbofan.
J85 has good setup as you see the f22 and f35 engine have nearer setup to j85.
Twin spool scaled up j85 based turbojet or turbofan is better than iranian upgraded j79 or Al21f.

If you increase the diameter of the J-85 by that much and make it twin spool and add a fan then there are way too many things you'll have to change that you really wont be able to call it a scale up version of a J-85!

And honestly for a supersonic fighter I would worry less about a fan and more about everything else...

The difference between a J-79 & an F-15 F-100's is not simply in a fan the F-100 has a Turbine inlet temperature of over 2400 F vs the J-79's 1700 degrees Fahrenheit
And the difference in consumption is 0.75lb vs 0.87lb of fuel per pound of thrust per hour at max military thrust (without afterburners) with virtually no difference at max thrust (with afterburners)

So improving the combustion chambers and building better turbines alone will greatly impact your fuel consumption.
So will improving the design of the forward low pressure compressors and reducing the length of your axel and if you were to add low bypass right after your low pressure compressors and slightly increase your diameter (under 1inch) with the right design you'll be able to heat up air over your combustion chambers and achieve some thrust without burning oxygen and that air will not only help cool down your combustion chamber and afterburners but the unburnt oxygen will also allow you to burn any unburnt fuel inside the afterburners and if we take it one step further and make the J-79 twin spool you will greatly effect and improve service life and maybe even achieve higher RPM's with your higher pressure compressors.

Now for me all these changes take precedent over a fan on a supersonic fighter jet because for the fans of a turbofan engine to be effective they have to run at a much lower RPM than the compressors..... and for me improving else on a J-79 to improve it's efficiency by ~10% would be sufficient enough not to bother with Fans

And I believe if Iran wants to work on Turbofan engines whether they be low or high bypass the fans need to be powered separately from your compressors either by an advanced BLDC motor or an independent compressed air engine or a hybrid combination of the two...

Got to go now I'll write about I think is the best way to build upon the J-85's tomorrow...

 

[Oldman1]

Iranian airforce project.

This project is ment to be a UAV fighter jet/bomber. Up until now, China is the only country to successfully produce the first UAV fighter jet using next gen technology.

What does that even mean?

 

[TheImmortal]

What does that even mean?

Meaning it’s a unmanned fighter jet using 5th generation technology. It’s a unmanned stealth fighter jet. Google Dark Sword UAV.

 

[skyshadow]

 

[drmeson]

Sofreh Mahi seems to be the name of an umbrella project that is already yielding results in form of Simorgh, Saegeh UCAV's, may be Qaher if it flies oneday....

 

[VEVAK]

Exact analysis of j79,f4,Al21f,... seem you are an expert in mechanical or aerospace.
Best job is to scale up j85 external diameter to 120 centimeter and adding low bypass to make heavy turbofan.
J85 has good setup as you see the f22 and f35 engine have nearer setup to j85.
Twin spool scaled up j85 based turbojet or turbofan is better than iranian upgraded j79 or Al21f.

As for J85's a lot of people like the J-85's because they use less fuel but the truth is in terms of efficiency the J85's use up far more fuel than J-79's per each pound of thrust
A J85 uses 0.95lb of fuel per each pound of thrust without afterburners as appose to a J-79's 0.87lb or an F-100's 0.75lb so per pound of thrust J-85's are not efficient engines at all and the only reason they use less fuel is simply because they have far less thrust so if the goal for increasing it's diameter from ~1.5ft to almost 4ft is to achieve greater thrust then there really isn't much point in choosing a scale up version over a J-79

And I do agree with you that one of the major problems with the J-85's is it's small diameter because those engines are so small that they just don't leave much room for any effective and notable upgrades and your suggesting are all on point as to what's lacking on the J-85's

But still if I wanted to improve upon the J-85's I would 1st look towards the engines combustion chamber, Turbines, turbine inlet temperatures, ball brings and forward two compressor designs and before being able to improve those aspects I would not move toward anything else and after I achieve that I would start increasing diameter a few inches at a time (As much needed to add one fuel injector at a time) but without changing the length of the compressor blades and on the side I would try to build a separate engine to power 3 short bladed fans that are more like low pressure compressors than fans that is powered independently that uses the heat created by the engine to produce steam that is also assisted by either magnets or a BLDC motors to power my counter rotating fans
but since these changes wont necessary make them effective supersonic engines in terms of speed I prefer slowly enhancing J-79 or better yet AL-21 over drastically changing J-85's

As to what engine may be the best upgrade for the Kowsars personally I wouldn't even bother and I would move straight towards attempting to build a 5th gen design around 2 AL-21's or J79's but if forced too I would 1st test out how the Kowsars do with 2 AL-222 with afterburners by slightly altering the size of the Aircraft for R&D and if it worked out I'd attempt to reverse engineer the AL-222's but make them slightly larger enough for one additional fuel injector and more compact designed bypass with ramjet fuel being fed to my afterburners

As for a completely new Iranian jet engine I'd want them to work on a low bypass engine that's closer to 5ft in diameter that's capable of being powered by a new fuel scours that's mostly comprised of Natural Gas (Or Oxygen & Hydrogen) where the heat created by the engine is used to create steam in a closed chamber that's circulated via assistance of a BLDC motor to power counterrotating fans that are also assisted by magnets

 

[Zathura]

Is this a new thing or is it just old rumors?