Saturday, February 9, 2013

Iran Unveils New “Stealth Fighter”

The Iranians would like us to believe that they have a new stealth fighter with all the bells and whistles to compete with the U.S. military’s F-22 and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran Defense Ministry Ahmad Vahidi attended a Feb. 2 unveiling of what the Iranians are calling the Qaher 313.

Don’t worry yet. Our military has some questions and comments. The angles built into the structure don’t look very stealthy to our guys and the cockpit is way too small to house the avionics, radars, electronic countermeasures, heat masking gear, and, most importantly for a fighter, the weapons that make modern stealth jets effective.

John Reed at Foreign Policy looked at the new fighter and wrote: “In fact, it looks like the Iranians dumped some rudimentary flight controls and an ejection seat into a shell molded in what they thought were stealthy angles.” He goes further writing: “The jet is so small it looks like the man is sitting in a clown car, er, clown fighter. It’s seriously unlikely that such an aircraft has room to carry”

Thus the military has already got a nick name to identify the Iranian fighter: a “Clown”.

 Below is a video of the unveiling (in Arabic, but fun to watch). Enjoy.
 


 
Live Long and Prosper...

No comments: