Qaher F313 l News & Discussion

[Dash]

By the way, according to the latest statements, the Qaher F-313 will be a light close air support aircraft.

That's my best guess. The air intakes are small and looking at the wing design you already lost two weapons stores.

 

[Hareeb]

Can an aircrft fly with such wings?

 

[JamD]

The more I look at this prototype, the more I am inclined to say what it's real mission is.

Firstly, this may be a PR stunt or whatever but not even Iran will put this much money and effort JUST for that. I think there is some logic/mission (however good or bad) behind this. I will here on give the benefit of doubt and assume that they knew exactly what they were doing and it was designed for a practical purpose. I have a pretty good guess of what that purpose is.

I think this is an Anti-Aircraft Carrier Attack Jet. Yes, I made that term up but here are my reasons:

1. Taking out American Aircraft Carriers is somewhat of a lynchpin of all Irani defence strategies, be it with swarms of anti-ship missiles, or small boats.
2. The aircraft has VERY thick wings with downward angled tips. This can mean only one thing. It counts on ground effect for most of its mission. Also the big fat FLIR means this isn't meant to fly fast. This aircraft would fly terribly at any high altitude or speed. Before you say conventional ground-attack or close-air-support, even those aircraft have to cruise and maneuver. I strongly suspect this is designed to fly low over the sea. Flying low of course means delayed detection. I am not sure how well airborne radar assets can differentiate between the sea and a low flying jet.
3. The intakes are located on the top of the aircraft. This is a bad idea for anything that has to pull any sort of high angle of attack maneuvers. I'm sure their engineers know this. I think it's not supposed to maneuver just fly low over the sea. The placement has everything to do with avoiding sea-spray ingestion into the engines.
4. They have tried to incorporate low observable shaping and materials to further delay detection by the carrier group.
5. The small protruding cockpit may be a temporary fixture which may be removed to make this unmanned. It may be even used as a suicide drone. I mean look at this:
   
   

I admit my reasoning isn't perfect but this is the best mission I could fit onto the design from what I can gather.

 

[The SC]

The more I look at this prototype, the more I am inclined to say what it's real mission is.

Firstly, this may be a PR stunt or whatever but not even Iran will put this much money and effort JUST for that. I think there is some logic/mission (however good or bad) behind this. I will here on give the benefit of doubt and assume that they knew exactly what they were doing and it was designed for a practical purpose. I have a pretty good guess of what that purpose is.

I think this is an Anti-Aircraft Carrier Attack Jet. Yes, I made that term up but here are my reasons:

1. Taking out American Aircraft Carriers is somewhat of a lynchpin of all Irani defence strategies, be it with swarms of anti-ship missiles, or small boats.
2. The aircraft has VERY thick wings with downward angled tips. This can mean only one thing. It counts on ground effect for most of its mission. Also the big fat FLIR means this isn't meant to fly fast. This aircraft would fly terribly at any high altitude or speed. Before you say conventional ground-attack or close-air-support, even those aircraft have to cruise and maneuver. I strongly suspect this is designed to fly low over the sea. Flying low of course means delayed detection. I am not sure how well airborne radar assets can differentiate between the sea and a low flying jet.
3. The intakes are located on the top of the aircraft. This is a bad idea for anything that has to pull any sort of high angle of attack maneuvers. I'm sure their engineers know this. I think it's not supposed to maneuver just fly low over the sea. The placement has everything to do with avoiding sea-spray ingestion into the engines.
4. They have tried to incorporate low observable shaping and materials to further delay detection by the carrier group.
5. The small protruding cockpit may be a temporary fixture which may be removed to make this unmanned. It may be even used as a suicide drone. I mean look at this:
   View attachment 391009

I admit my reasoning isn't perfect but this is the best mission I could fit onto the design from what I can gather.

Iran already have these..

 

[LOGICAL BOSSS]

However, if this was turned into a drone, used for close air support, and surveillance, it wouldn't be surprising. Iran has a LOT of experience with drone tech, a such a conversion would probably be fairly easy (and beneficial) for Iran.

It is other way around they are trying to convert drone into fighter

 

[Syed_Adeel]

Qaher 313 development is divided into several phases, in this phase it will have the role of air patrol and close air support, in the final phase it will turn into an interceptor.
as it always has been mentioned, this fighter is designed to fly with high speed, in very low altitude; thus this unique design.

defense minister mentioned the estimated 3 years for completing the first Iranian domestic heavy turbofan engine.

Dear i understand your support in favour of this fighter because its indigenous product of your country but the whole point is that the fighter is small enough to accommodate any future electronic equipment and weapons.
there are minimum sizes of every thing like Radar, Missiles,Pods, EO equipmet etc. This fighter apart from the design doesnot have enough space for all above mentioned things. The power of its Jet engines are also due to be assessed first.

 

[Arminkh]

I posted this almost two years ago.

It is a very good analysis and now that everyone has more respect for this project and Iran's abilities, let's read it with open heart:

Ghaher-313: a detailed analysis, how and why?

• February 5, 2013 1:30 pm
  
• Article
  
• 4 comments

Ghaher-313: a detailed analysis, how and why?

Iranian armed forces again shocked the world by revealing a new domestic warfare. Ghaher-313, codenamed F-313, was set to show on a rotating stage inside a commercial hanger in Islamic republic Iran Air Force (IRAF) Tactical Air Base No.1 (TAB.1) located in Mehrabad airport in Tehran. The unusual appearance of the aircraft set a blaze on aviation and military think tanks and forums to debate and understand the agenda behind revealing such weapon. But to do so, one need to know about background of Iranian aircraft industries.

Background:

Iranian ambition to develop domestically made fighter jets was initially developed in mid 80s when during a formal visit to one of IRIAF air bases, Ayatollah seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iran’s then president and incumbent supreme leader of the country ordered the base staff to start repairing more than 50 percent damaged F-5 fighter jets. Direct command of the supreme leader of the country indicates eagerness of Iranians to make indigenous fighter aircrafts, the reason behind which may be found at critical situation of IRIAF both in start and during the 8 year-long frustrating war with Iraq. During the war and losing support of united states significantly affected capabilities of IRIAF and although it had done some of most notorious air raid (like H3 ride) and some of most brave air interception missiles (like khark incident and 1 to 13 dogfight of an Iranian f-14) but especially in last year IRIAF was weakened and wasn’t the significant factor same as starting years of the war.



Iranian experience in building aircrafts started in 1985 by repairing a more than 50 percent damaged F-5E Tiger2. Reportedly first completely homemade F-5E was set to begin test flights in 1993 and the second aircraft started its test flights in 1996. The aircrafts named Azarakhsh and entered service inside F-5 squadrons early 2000s most probably located in Dezful air base.

In a parallel process, different parts of IRIAF started copying different aircrafts such as FT-33s and PC-6 trainer aircrafts under the names Parastoo and S.68 accordingly. The most interesting effort of Iranian aircraft industries is Tazarv trainer jet, which itself is a result of evolution of two initial models, Dorna and Tondar. Tazarv demonstrated capabilities of Iranians in producing subsystems and independently designing a new airframe. The jet reportedly used a J-85 engine, belonging to F-5s purchased from US as spare parts for Shah’s F-5 fleet. There was a crash report on one of latest models of Tazarv in preparation for a major parade. There is not any indication or observation reports form any of Tazarv or even Dorna or Tondar models since the crash.



In early 2000 aircraft industries in Iran saw a major restructuring scene. HESA a company which originally established to assemble us Bell-214ST Isfahan and F-16s was instructed with gathering aircraft design and construction projects and establish construction lines in “Shahin Shahr” facility. However for unknown reason IRIAF continued to work on its projects and introduced Saeghe fighter jet several years later. Saeghe was a twin tail version of early F-5s. Meanwhile HESA participated in Russian M-ATF project introducing Shafaq light attacker jet. However none of introduced projects are believed to be reached to production line and entered service.

Gaher-313

After years of evolution, at last Iranian SAHA industries (instructed with aircraft maintenance and apart from HEAS industries) revealed the Ghher-313 project. Judging from appearances, such as fiberglass plates in cockpit and plaxy glass canopy, the demonstrated model is a scaled mockup of the original plan. The footage of 1:10 scale model flying above an undesignated runway also indicates that no actual prototype is built yet. However, investigating the odd conceptual design of the demonstrated model reveals a lot about agenda behind Iranian fighter program, if there is any program.



The revealed model uses a tandem wing configuration, a set that hasn’t been observed in any advanced in-service fighter jet. However the tandem wing configuration enables F-313 to have a large wing area in a relatively small space such as any twin wing configuration interaction of wing tip vortices would be a major problem, lowering the performance and increasing vibration of the wings even resulting an failure in wing structure and braking rear wings. To overcome such peril, designers bended the rear wing’s tip, distancing rear wing tip vortices from front wing perturbations. Blended wings also are prone for increasing aircraft stability in roll axis especially in high altitudes the same as tandem wing- horizontal tail configuration for yaw axis. And stability is a quality that fighter interceptor jets such as F-15 or Su-27 don’t favor in the contrary; bombers such as F-111 or Su-24 seek more stability to do more accurate bombing rides.



Nose of F-113 is also interesting, there is a relatively small nose (comparing with canopy size), lighter interceptor aircrafts especially modern 5th generation fighters need large sophisticated radars with lots of capabilities such as low probability of interception and jamming resistance capabilities, there for fighter jets usually have big noses to host big radars. But on the other hand bombers doesn’t need large and sophisticated radars but they relay mostly on optical targeting pods and data network for target acquisition.



Another important sign is small size air intakes which are located above the body. Is such configuration in severe maneuvers, separation of air flow from body would block entering air to engines and make the turbofan engine stall. However capability of performing severe maneuvers is crucial for evading missiles both in fighter jets and bombers but for aircrafts flying in high altitudes due to decrease in air density its almost impossible to perform high g maneuvers. Therefore they rely on high speed jamming, stand off attacks and stealth as their win cards. Up-intakes are also observable on F-117, B-2 and RQ-170 bombers and recon aircrafts.



All signs indicate that F-313 is designed to perform attack or strike sorties in high altitudes using ECM and low RCS as its main threat evading tactics. The bomber would probably use stand-off weapons such as domestically made GBU-130 or GBU-15 Ghadr bombs and land attack versions of C-802 missile. Since US air force and its allies have tendency to defend their airspace by interceptors and have little attention in development of counter guided munitions systems such as pantsire.S1 F-313, at least on paper, would be a serious threat for western defense strategies.

However looking good on paper, the history of Iranian air craft industries remember a lot of good looking projects which faded away by the time passing lux revealing ceremonies. The story of Ghaher-313 shows a little difference with those in the past.

 

[Syed_Adeel]

https://theaviationist.com/2017/04/...have-just-emerged-and-heres-a-first-analysis/


100 JF17 in service, yet beg U.S for four F-16s.

Dear plz don get hurt as i dont have any enemity with you or your country, the discussion here is pure technical.
The aircraft was displayed last time flying and later on it was found to be RC jet.
Moreover the size ration of cockpit and the remaining airframe is also telling the whole story that this platform does not have any space for radar and weapons and internal fuel and EO equipments as well.

Regarding the f16, PAF has its own doctrine and f16s are their medium/heavy platform while JFT is lightweight one. PAF needs more f16 because of our enemy is increasing the strength and f16 is a potent tried and tested platform while inducting any new platform will cost a lot to PAF thats why PAF is pursuing f16 until 5th gen aircrafts are available till 2022+.

 

[Vapnope]

this is iranian jet

I know that.

 

[SOHEIL]

When pigs fly, Qaher F-313869485938 will fly. This pathetic test of a vehicle that has airplane-like body was just made to fool Iranians before elections and give them something to be satisfied with and proud of, though honestly there is nothing here to be proud of.
The only progress I see here is that they didn't use photoshop this time. well done.

And after the first flight you have to go and fly with pigs !!!

 

[JamD]

Iran already have these..

Yes I know. This is yet another example of their ultimate desire to take out carrier. I was implying by point 1 in my post that they are filling a gap they perceive in their hierarchy of anti-carrier systems. These flying boats are the low tier, low cost swarming units which could be augmented by fewer higher tier Q-313 systems. Who knows, it might be crazy enough to work.

 

[Fledgingwings]

I am sorry, Iran but we all have seen, the famous 5th Gen fighter plan on icy mountain with photoshop. 5th Gen is not that easy as it looks. Please do not make fool your own people.

Actually they,re not! Some guy on PDF does.

 

[surya kiran]

Btw, why is this in the Indian Defence section? @waz @Jungibaaz

 

[mohsen]

Dear i understand your support in favour of this fighter because its indigenous product of your country but the whole point is that the fighter is small enough to accommodate any future electronic equipment and weapons.
there are minimum sizes of every thing like Radar, Missiles,Pods, EO equipmet etc. This fighter apart from the design doesnot have enough space for all above mentioned things. The power of its Jet engines are also due to be assessed first.

right, designers forgot if it's too small they can't fit the radar or missiles!
length of Q313 is estimated to be around 16 meter, bigger than F35.

though we can always change the design and some members already claim that the final interceptor version would be bigger, but I believe its size is fine, this is how this plane has been designed to fit in our asymmetric warfare doctrine.

Kiarash already gave a good comparison on the size between Gaher313 and Mirage F1:
https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/qaher-f313-l-news-discussion.489544/page-10#post-9385087
and remember that F1 was introduced in 1973, just imagine the difference in the size of electronic equipments between that era and today.
last night deputy chief commander of our army was talking about the changes in our old fighters and he gave an example for F4 that we replace a big 10 kilograms kit with a tiny one no more than few grams.

The aircraft was displayed last time flying and later on it was found to be RC jet.

from the beginning those RC models were presented as RC models. from the beginning our defense minister said it will fly in the near future.
whatever else you have heard is from biased and baseless sources.

 

[500]

Theoretically? Please share your calculations and analysis with the rest of the readers, we will learn something.

Very fat WW2 style wings, no inlet diverters, no afterburner, no edge flaps... everything shows that thats subsonic plane..

The Boeing Bird of prey which first demonstrated this canted wing configuration also didnt have leading edge flaps.
But hey,nice try,I`m sure you`ll keep on looking for something that will prove,to you at least,that this cant be an actual real practical aircraft of any sort.

Funny thing is that I've wrote about Bird of Prey 4 years ago as well:

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/ghaher-313-fighter.232805/page-30#post-3877683

BTW the idea of Bird of Prey was that its totally canard and tailless but Qaher has both canards and tails.