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Iran Unveils Its Own Stealth Fighter Jet, the Qaher F-313
An anonymous reader writes "Iran has unveiled a new home-made combat aircraft, which officials say can evade radar. The single-seat Qaher F313 (Dominant F313) is the latest design produced by Iran's military since it launched the Azarakhsh (Lightning), in 2007. President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad said it had 'almost all the positive features' of the world's most sophisticated jets.Footage from state TV showed the jet in flight, but not its take-off or landing."
and the pixels are a dead giveaway here
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Well, they did say *almost*.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
So stealthy, that I bet no other country will ever be able to detect one in flight ;-)
Iran does have its own home made drones. Drones are actually pretty simple because a lot of the work goes on making them cheap rather than making them technologically advanced.
President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad said it had 'almost all the positive features' of the world's most sophisticated jets.
Riiight...
Footage from state TV showed the jet in flight, but not its take-off or landing."
Well, those were not among the features that this aircraft has in common with its Western counterparts.
"It's Cardboard."
Footage copied form top gun or some other movie
Why is it that every time Iran has a press breifing / conference / whatever it looks like its done in a high school gymnasium?
Note the intense weasel wording...
built with "advanced materials" and to have a very low radar signature
So all we really know for certain is its not the "Spruce Goose". Well that's not saying much.
can evade radar
Yeah so can the Cessna 172 I trained in. Now doing it well, and doing it easily, and being optimized for that task, that's a whole nother topic.
Perhaps a little overly ambitious. For people who know nothing about aerospace the best I can do is a standardized slashdot car analogy: This is like Henry Ford hand building his first model T engineering demonstrator but declaring he's going to skip a couple steps and start shipping Tesla model S RSN.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The aircraft is very small. There is no footage that includes sound. There is no footage of a pilot in the aircraft. Look at how far aft the CG markings are - it's never going to take a pilot or weapons and still be stable using the canards. My opinion - the Iranians have created a very nice looking ducted fan remote control airplane.
Oh... and why are the markings in Latin characters?
Looks like this thing should don the leopard dots of the 303 or take its place next to the flying bomb, err, flying boat that they announced a while back.
Not sure whether this is a hoax or not, but the pictures seems to show a model, not a real plane. Have a look at the cockpit : http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/s/s/19/media19/2013/Feb/2/LiveLeak-dot-com-4347f2b9fa55-f313_17_preview.jpg?d5e8cc8eccfb6039332f41f6249e92b06c91b4db65f5e99818bad29f444cd3d1ca14&ec_rate=200
I don't know anything about jet fighters, but I can recognize a Thrustmaster Mark II joystick stuck to a pole. And the material on the border of the cabin definitely looks like duct tape. And the canopy does not seem to lock into anything. And so on.
Nobox: Only simple products.
Whoever posted this didn't look into it much. The 'flying' plane is a scale model... yes, a remote control plane. It's all smoke and mirrors.
Footage from state TV showed the jet in flight, but not its take-off or landing
Just because they can get it into the air once, doesn't mean they can do so a second time ... assuming it's not part of some Photoshop Air Force.
And how many?
I love these guys: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/qaher-313.htm
David Cenciotti noted that the plane featured “implausible aerodynamics and Hollywood sheen” and was laughably small for a fighter jet. He also commented thatthe cockpit was far too basic for a sophisticated aircraft, and appeared “similar to those equipping small private planes. ... The nose section is so small almost no radar could fit in it ... The air intakes are extremely small, whereas the engine section lacks any kind of nozzle: engine afterburners could melt the entire jet. ... It looks like this pilot is in a miniature plane” and it appeared “nothing more than a large mock-up model.” Iran also broadcast video footage of the Qaher F-313 in flight, which Cenciotti said appeared to fly like a “radio-controlled scale model more than a modern fighter jet.” He also noted it was suspect that Tehran did not release takeoff and landing footage of its new aircraft.
--- rapper/producer/bachelorette party stripper
I repeat...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Engine sounds like a ducted fan.
Look at how thick the rear wing is (look at where the wing and body meet). Definitely not supersonic. Also, major directional stability issues.
Reddit says this is fake, so obviously it must be fake.
Great picture. I use duct tape on almost everything and there is a lot of duct tape involved in the construction of the cabin seal. But we should celebrate the incorporation of the 8 track from a 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis in the fabrication of this cutting edge 4th generation fighter. We laugh at the persistent use of 8 track players in Iranian fighter aircraft but they have been shown to withstand EMP whereas the fancy shmancy infotainment consoles found in such American warbirds as the F22 Raptor fail. Rock on Iran.
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
They Persian specs say:
1) it can transform into a giant shooty robot & a fiery phoenix
2) stocks an anti-gravity drive & cloaking device
3) is armed with a wave-motion gun
4) can make the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs
Production is held up by lack of sonic screw-drivers, and the Mossad have identified a serious design flaw - a small thermal exhaust port. :)
"Flight Capability"
...to make something undetectable? I detect a failure.
This combination doesn`t exist: ETIs that know about humanity and want to see us dead. Otherwise we wouldn't exist.
This is obviously targeted at Iranian audience.
Analysing it outside of political influence on Iran's own people is mostly a waste of time.
A plane made out of cardboard:
a) will be detected by the radar
b) will not be detected by the radar
c) only the tow line pulling the plane will be detected and the this will render the radar inoperative for the next 12 hours due to the operator rolling on the floor laughing out of bewilderment
This is completely true " Iranian experts now have the power to design and produce models which best match the country’s needs." :-)
That "model" is truly great and if they ever make it 1:32 I will buy one
Didn't they have wreckage from US drones which had been brought down to base them on?
From TFS: "Footage from state TV showed the jet in flight, but not its take-off or landing." It was pushed off a cliff and fell into the sea!
It's like a little baby F-35!
Reminds me of a "personal sport jet" Burt Rutan designed, can't remember the name of it. It was available in kit form and cost about $150k in mid-'90s dollars to build IIRC. It wasn't a canard design but was about the same size and had the same bubbly cute look.
Looks like a lot of fun, but good luck carrying any meaningful number of missiles on that thing, or fuel for that matter - another big limitation Rutan's personal sport jet shared IIRC.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Seen that on a licence plate somewhere...
http://img.izismile.com/img/img2/20091110/donald_duck_car_02.jpg
If you would like to test your new jet please feel free to fly it out to one of carriers. We will be more than happy to have the best radars made test its' stealthiness. We will also test its' combat effectiveness. Signed Commander, US 5th Fleet Manama, Bahrain
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Count yourself lucky that it isn't an X-303 instead.
We'd all be screwed then.
That is a Top gun Thrustmaster on the cockpit!!!
http://www.hak900.com/top-gun-thrustmaster-joystick/
Thanks for the link to the "cockpit". Looks like a homebuilt aircraft you'd find in some EAA enthusiast's garage. The stick looks like a reuse from an F-4 Phantom or something of that era. Oh, and I'm sure they are up for a bit of a surprise when the first pilot accidentally hits the landing gear knob with his left knee. And check out the thin fiberglass structure by the right hand controls. You can see some more fiberglass behind the seat. Speaking of the seat, they're in for another surprise when the first pilot has to eject (won't be long) and lands without his lower legs because he left them under the front console.
Consider that this is the kind of stunt Saddam Hussein was up to in his defiant years before the invasion, before we called his bluff. Now put this silly PR move in the context of a hypothetical scenario where Hussein was still around. It's not hard to imagine the tension between Iraq and Iran if there were two megalomaniacs trying to outdo each other in the Middle East, instead of just one megalomaniac. The arms race would be "pedal to the metal" right about now.
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
"It's only a model".
Really.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
is it fake, just model or unflyable mock-up without engine? yeah look like RC, or maybe development of their UAV design. At least they succeed confusing their enemies. So for their enemies, if they have fake fighter, fake rocket, fake nuclear bomb, what to worry about???
Jets gulp air like whale sharks gulp water. Almost every fighter jet you can think of has intakes that you could crawl into. Yet that one has intakes for a cat. I am going to throw out a slightly different guess than most: the jet does fly but by remote control only. That basically the whole thing is a model airplane; no bomb load, no living passenger, no radar, not much fuel, and sub 300mph speeds. If you started cutting into it you would find balsa wood and glue. I am surprised that they didn't put in a better glass cockpit just to make it look better.
But those videos do look a whole lot like a small model airplane flitting about.
And it just hit me the plane looks cool but I thought I had seen it before. It is an updated version of the FireFox airplane from the 1982 Clint Eastwood movie.
claiming oneself to be a believer in Islam while being an obsessive liar is a bit of a problem.
Explain to me how anyone who seriously claims to follow any organized religion is anything but an obsessive liar. They believe in a bunch of (mostly) made up stories that they by definition cannot prove to have any basis in fact. Hence they are liars at a minimum to themselves and quite probably to others. Making up stories shows no incompatibility with politics whatsoever.
Oh crap...
This is 300 iterations more advanced than our F13s!
If we don't catch up and start pumping out F500s or heaven forbid, at least F400s... liberty and democracy will end as we know it!
I love how the tall guy over his right shoulder rolled his eyes.
I did not RTFA, nor do I want to.
But I have an awesome mental picture of this "damn fine" fighter jet...something akin to the Wagon Queen Family Truckster...with wings.
And I don't want to sully that with another 'fake' reality. Really hope it is painted in metallic paint, though.
I know, I know..."wait until ya FLY it!"
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
With vertical stabilizers added.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_X-36
faith in something unprovable does not make you a liar.
The proper term for it in those cases is confabulation which is sometimes referred to as an "honest lie". There may be no intent to deceive but the person is making up a story that they cannot support with objectively verifiable facts. When you don't know an answer to a question and you make up an "answer", you are confabulating. Confabulation is considered a form of lying.
I'm suprised at all the irrational hatred and derision on this site towards Iran. It's almost cosmically funny that most of the posts are about Iran's stupid attempts at propaganda when all the hatred and derision comes from US propaganda.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Wow, so you're that rare individual who has recreated every scientific experiment that's been done right?
Nice little strawman argument you have there. Pity I have to demolish it. There is a HUGE difference between accepting someone saying that something is true when I have ways of objectively evaluating the evidence and accepting an claim that by definition cannot be proven. The important part is that I have the option to examine the evidence for a scientific hypothesis whether I chose to or not. There is no evidence to examine for a religion. If you don't understand the difference then you really don't belong in this discussion.
No? Oh, so you're just a follower of the science religion?
Science is a process of reasoning. Calling it a religion is a rather clumsy attempt to confuse an irrational faith with a process of reasoning based on empirical evidence.
Next up for Iran, thier copy of the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator
Are you just trying to tell yourself you aren't a liar because you believe in the unprovable, i.e., there is no god.
Doubting something unproven is not lying, merely prudence. While based on the lack of evidence I am dubious that there is a god my answer is simply that there is not sufficient evidence to reasonably believe in a god as described in the judeo/christian or islamic traditions. In fact what evidence I do have actually seems to indicated against rather than for the existence of such an entity. While I cannot rule out the possibility that one exists I am unwilling to confabulate a story to try to describe such an entity, nor am I willing to accept other people's made up stories regarding the issue unless they can back them up with empirical evidence. I can tell you exactly what would be required for me to reverse my current position and should such evidence ever appear I would without hesitation alter my current opinion.
taken from The Aviationist:
http://bit.ly/WU6uiI
Hence, here below you can find all the reasons why we can affirm that Iran’s new stealth plane, at least in the form that was showcased on Feb. 2 during the Ten-Day Dawn ceremonies held in Tehran, is nothing more than a mock-up.
The size of the plane is weird. The cockpit seems to be too small, to such an extent a normal pilot doesn’t properly fit in the ejection seat. Have you ever seen a pilot with his knees above the side borders of the cockpit and his helmet well beyond the ejection seat’s head pad?
The general shape of the plane is interesting, probably the result of many inputs including the X-32, the X-36, the Boeing Bird of Prey. Still, wings with outern section canted downward seem to be a bit too little to sustain the weight of the aircraft, especially the “adveniristic plane” is intended to carry a powerful engine and internal payload
Overall, the plane seems to lack the characteristic rivets, bolts all aircraft, including stealthy ones, feature. Images released so far show it as a plastic-made aircraft
The engine exhaust misses any kind of nozzle. The use of afterburner (or, simply, the engine temperature) would possibly melt the entire structure of the jet
The aircraft sports fixed canards and air intakes a bit too small to feed a modern jet plane’s engine; air intakes resemble those used by modern UCAV designs. They are located above the wing meaning that at high AOA (Angle Of Attack) the intakes would get turbulent or no air at all for the engine.
The cockpit is too simple: the front panel lacks the typical wirings while it features few instruments of a type you expect to find on small private planes. Some readers have noticed the airspeed indicator is limited to 300 MPH.
The canopy lacks transparency and looks like it is made of plexiglass
The nose and main landing gear seem to unretractable (although the hinge mechanism could be hidden by the door bay). Someone has pointed out the landing gear bays dimensions are such to be unable to accomodate the stowed gear but I found no way to verify this theory
The flying aircraft shown in the video released yesterday is a radio controlled model (but, it looks like Iranian media outlets have already confirmed this).
Some Iranian readers have said the F-313 is not intended to be an actual plane but a drone. Maybe.
Still the aircraft, manned or unmanned, as displayed on Feb. 2 will hardly take to the air unless extensive modifications are made.
They're new to the world domination business, and clearly still wet behind the ears. When you're a legitimate world power, you are supposed to issue press releases and hold press conferences denying that you have a stealth aircraft or other advanced weaponry. Say it over and over again, pound your fist on the podium, go to the United Nations, and repeat "we do not possess any of the stealth fighters that have been spotted taking off and landing at Iranian air bases." Have your state media publish front page articles about dozens of witnesses seeing high tech weaponry and then have officials denying the existence of such. Carry on this campaign for about 5-10 years, then hold a conference to acknowledge that the reports were true but had to be kept secret for reasons of national security. In reality of course, there is no such program, but the whole world is convinced you have the technology and will be scared of you. The only drawback, of course, is that you might be taken too seriously and cause a whole lot of embarrassment when a real world power invades to overthrow your regime and discover the weapons.
Sure it's fun to laugh when the invaders have egg on their face for not finding the non-existing weapons, but then you're also no longer in power, hiding in a spider whole, and eventually caught, tried, and hanged.
Kinda odd that they don't manufacture aircraft until now and then suddenly construct an aircraft that put's China's to shame. Somehow I doubt they built something so advanced and compact when obviously there is only one country in the world who could make something like that... Japan, and last I heard they were still out of the fighter aircraft construction game. ;)
Ok, so you're agnostic not atheist like the parent
Depends. If you are talking about the christian/jewish/islamic style god I might be considered some form of an atheist. All available evidence suggests it is a bunch of made up fables and I really don't see myself changing my mind about that. I think their stories are absurd, illogical, incoherent and inconsistent. I consider it just as likely as the existence of Zeus or Odin or the Flying Spaghetti Monster and I've never seen evidence that would make me think otherwise. More generally I regard unproven religious propositions with the same skepticism as any other unproven proposition. I dismiss them unless they present some credible evidence that demands consideration on its own merits. I'm very comfortable acknowledging that there are many things in the universe I do not currently understand and I do not feel the need to confabulate a story to explain them.
What gnosis do you want, perhaps I can help?
I'm comfortable where I am but thank you.
Plenty of it... Just a couple weeks ago they performed a major breakthrough in plastic surgery by removing a mole from a monkey while IN ORBIT.
all they need to do is figure out how to make wings, engines, pilots, and weaponry attach to the cardboard box they spray-painted silver and put the Ayatollah's picture on, and they got 'em a plane.
peacefully runs on uranium, too, I'm sure.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Plenty of it... Just a couple weeks ago they made a major advance in plastic surgery by removing a mole from a monkey IN ORBIT.
The one that reads "don't collect your 72 virgins in heaven and return to hell".
I have a bone to pick from 1979 and I dont care.
America showed it cowardice when it let them take so many americans hostage and did not attack.
It is so good carter lost his job for it.
I might as well have joined the dough boys instead of the Army.
Since the US invented heavier-than-air powered flight (see Wright Brothers) and (being a huge country with varied weather and terrain and many upstart airplane makers and users) then proceeded to invent many of the things that support aviation, English became the language of aviation. English is used in all control towers and by all air traffic control and all pilots everywhere. You might find a tower in Russia or Africa where another language is spoken when the tower and pilot know each other, but if you entered the airspace and got onto the radio in English you would be able to communicate the essentials needed to fly through, take-off, land, etc. in English.
There, fixed that for you ;-)
Yay!
Let's make fun of smaller countries, they don't have as much money and they do crappy stuff!
Go me!
-- Counting backwards since 1984!
America showed it cowardice when it used it's military might to fuck up other countries.
-- Counting backwards since 1984!
Because from what I could see, I didn't see a single Stealth Fighter.
I think "Qaher" actually means something like "wrath" rather than "dominant". That is true at least in Urdu, which has a lot of influence of persian language. Can someone who knows persian confirm?
You know what would be funny, if they really did have stealth plane and they showing this mockup just to make you think they dont...
As we all know, war is based on deception...
I'm going to give them some benefit of the doubt, just to be diplomatic. I'm going to assume that it is indeed a real airplane and that it was indeed flying in the video. (Global Security disagrees with this assumption at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/qaher-313.htm but I just want to state my two cents on the plane as an enthusiast.) That said, just because they say it's a stealth fighter doesn't make it a stealth fighter. In the footage provided there's no documentation of its stealthiness, nor even a general discussion on what makes it stealthy such as vaguely stating "radar absorbent materials", "carefully calculated angles", or "continuous curvature" like you get in History/Discovery/Military channel overviews of the U.S.'s stealth and stealthy aircraft. It's just "we have a stealth fighter." Even the roll-outs of the F-117A and B-2 contained more information about their stealth designs than was discussed in that video.
Lets give them another benefit of the doubt, that they were too intelligent to discuss those facts for strategic purposes.
I'm no expert on stealth, but I have fundamental problems with the aircraft's design in terms of stealth. The down pointing wingtips are sufficiently disjunctive with the rest of the flow of the aircraft that I can't help imagine that they'll generate a larger radar cross-section as a result. It has a forward wing-canard which helps with maneuverability (at least when paired with thrust vectoring), but I imagine that the tips (as seen at http://www.globalsecurity.org/jhtml/jframe.html#http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/images/qaher-313-image06.jpg||| ) would also trigger a larger cross-section from some angles. Hell, this image, http://www.globalsecurity.org/jhtml/jframe.html#http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/images/qaher-313-image18.jpg||| , to me screams that there's no way in the world this wouldn't reflect radar signals back to the source...
Global Security does point out that the air in-takes are too small for any reasonable modern fighter jet, but perhaps the Iranians couldn't make it stealthy with any significant jet engine. They also point out that the nose cone is too small to hold a radar system, but that might be explained by a very involved ground control team; it hasn't been unheard of for officers on the ground to order fighters to certain locations and engage certain enemies. This was a Russian and Chinese strategy though I don't know if they still hold to that. Not including a radar system in an aircraft would make the pilot dependent on its ground control, less capable of independent action, and less likely to be detected by an enemy's threat detection system. They wouldn't be locking on to a target with their own radar, so missiles fired from them would be fed telemetry from a remote location, which means it couldn't give away the aircraft's position (specific or broad) prior to firing. Of course, that's speculation; it's possible that it has a small radar system that is comparatively weak by the standards we use in the West. Global Security quotes David Cenciotti who noted "It looks like this pilot is in a miniature plane" and it appeared "nothing more than a large mock-up model" but then, so does an F-16 up close. The F-16 looks like a toy next to the F-15 or F-22.
Nonetheless, I don't imagine the DoD is losing any sleep over this announcement... Even if the plane is real and really does have some stealthy features, I'd wager that it would still be a large enough radar target for AWACS to pick it up at a distance, and relay lock data to a squadron of F-15s that are well outside of visual range. I think that its possible stealthy f
The sharpest blade is no match for the sharpest mind.
But it can only do it once.
I personally believe that flying footage was powered by your classic Thimble-Drome .049 piston-port two-stroke engine, running nitromethane and methanol as a fuel. Remember those? Here... http://www.airplanesandrockets.com/magazines/Thimble-Drome-Cox-049-1961-AM-Annual.htm
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
I'd say that's the RC engine sound from the video!
Stealth craft... unveiled? Sounds like somebody's been breaking the first rule of Not Being Seen.
So Iran is posting lots of photoshopped, obvious false boasting of their miltary might. The US is thinking what a bunch of farmers, we're going to walk all over them. In reality, Iran probably has some pretty top secret shit hidden away, waiting for the right time (war time) to jump out and bite ya. Iran is lulling the enemy into thinking they are inept and you guys are falling for it. What military strategist would annouce to the world that they have a stealth fighter? The US had their stealth fighter for something like 20 years before the general public heard about it during the war with Iraq. Think about it. There's a lot of highly educated people in Iran
They were probably planning to print out some millions of copies, so that they can crush those eeeeeevvvvvil Zionist-Crusaders. Just build 1 model on screen well, and then keep hitting the print button
It was later revealed that this aircraft could only be piloted by Iranian monkeys who had recently been to space!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
The mockup that the pilot is seen sitting in is one of the worst I have ever had the displeasure of never being able to unsee. And the flight video? That's an even worse RC job. Pathetic, but then again, typical of that regime. On another science note, however, I say we crowd source the funds to pay Iran to launch leisure suit Larry into orbit.
I am no longer interested in taking over the world, I just want a modest corner of the Solar System
http://goo.gl/F3mpt
As we continue to doubt about this new Iran stealth jet fighter, may we also doubt how Iran can easily capture the most advance stealth drone ???. LOL
How about a more realistic setting. See this Cobra rendition of the F-313:
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2725/f313cobra.jpg