Will iran ever finish their stealth jet

Oozlefinch said:

And who exactly are they going to use it against?

The US? Saudi Arabia? Israel? Pakistan? Turkey?

Even the modern Iraqi Air Force uses the Su-25 and F-16, fighters that would have little problem defeating the MiG-17.

Yea, the MiG-17 might be a good platform, if their only possible enemy was Somalia (which has 4 C-27s and 5 helicopters) or Armenia (which has only 11 Su-25s). Even Yemen would have little problem going against Iran with the 17.

They would have to put together and operate an air force on a huge scale in order to make that fossil pay off. To where they would have a 5 or 7 to 1 advantage against any possible enemies. Maybe. Against more advanced enemies like Saudi Arabia, they had better go in with at least a 10 to 1 advantage.

Might as well say that Kyle Petty is going to return to NASCAR with the Super Roadrunner. Sure, an incredible car for it's time, but a fossil today.

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The iraqui airforce using a su25 means nothing while the f16 means something, an su25 would get ripped apart by a mig17 as it was never designed for that role, it was a cas fighter not an air superiority fighter, while the f16 is a purpose built air superiority fighter that is better than an f-15 at air superiority, but unlike the f15 is incapable of other roles in an efficient manner.

The a-4 was made in 1952, the same year as the mig17, and america modernized them and sold them to argentina, where many compare them to the f-16, it would not be hard at all to aquire rights and modernize them by adding radar systems or adding a2a missiles with modern guidance systems.

Also the mig 17 was a better dogfighter than the f-4 which was used heavily by iran, so much so in vietnam american fighters had to resort to trying to fight mig17s on the vertical plain or using disengage tactics then re engaging them at a distance since in a close air battle the mig17 would tear them apart,since the mig17 could turn sharp but suffered on climb rate,


And I would not call iran using a mig17 modded a fossil since most of their airforce are fossils, seriously the f-4 is a vietnam relic that was mostly crap when compared to soviet counterparts, and the f-5 was a stripped down f-4 with better dogfihting capabilities but no radar and poor power to weight ratios compared to the f4. America did not turn the tide in air superiority until after the vietnam war with the f14,f15,f16 jets, so iran is already using a jet that in the 60's and 70's had to resort to tactics outside standard ones to defeat jets from the 50's. Keep in mind when the f-4 was made, the air force was convinced dogfights were a thing of the past, atleast until they saw that air to air missiles had a poor success rate, and that dogfights still happened when missiles beyond visible range failed to do what they wanted.

beerftw said:

The a-4 was made in 1952, the same year as the mig17, and america modernized them and sold them to argentina, where many compare them to the f-16, it would not be hard at all to aquire rights and modernize them by adding radar systems or adding a2a missiles with modern guidance systems.

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"Acquire the rights"? What, did you really just say that? Do you even think there is a chance in hell that Iran will ask the US for the rights to produce the A-4? Or that the US would let them do it? Not that I believe that they could produce them at all in any case. You somehow keep ignoring the fact that Iran has no aircraft industry.

In fact, even their ability to produce modern weapons is rather limited. That is why for example they keep "modernizing" obsolete equipment, like the Mersad. one of their newest ground to air defense systems. Released in 2010, it is literally just a modified MIM-23 HAWK missile system. First deployed by the US in 1960, obsolete for almost 30 years now.

And a modified version has been deployed on their F-14s as an air-to-air missile. If they had the capability to make a more modern anti-air weapon, they would be making and deploying them. Not trying to modify 50 year old designs to work in ways they were never intended.

And nobody uses the A4 anymore really, other than Iran and a few specific roles.

Brazil still uses it, but only as carrier based aircraft. And the aircraft they bought (from Kuwait) were some of the last ones produced, and heavily modified and upgraded from the original design. But even these upgraded and modified aircraft are only a stop-gap with an expected lifespan of only 10 years. It is expected that by 2025 the Sao Paulo will be retired, and right now many believe it will not be replaced.

The only other nation that currently uses it really is Argentina. As part of the improving of relations between the US and Argentina, the US updated and improved 36 Marine Corps A-4s specifically for Argentina. Called the A-4AR Fightinghawk, they are generally F-16 avionics placed in rebuilt A-4 frames. But it is believed currently that the majority of the remaining aircraft (22) are down for maintenance due to lack of parts. In the last 3 years, only 3 of the aircraft have been seen in flight.