Iran unveils new fighter jet - Are you watching BIS?

[Beagle 684]

TBH this looks ridiculously bad. I watched a video earlier today where you could see that it's welded together real bad.

€: here it is:

I guess you have no clue how badly manufactured a lot of western hardware ist...we just use more time for a better polish.

I know it because I worked in Production and I was told often enough to make parts fit that did not wanted to fit because of very poor craftmanship by the subcontrators. Everthing runs on Chinese parts these days even your precious F22. And by the way...it's 2013 every single company on the planet has it's own steath paperplane in the sleeves by now.

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/mako/

Edited February 3, 2013 by Beagle

[Sakai 1]

Why is the topic called "are you watching BIS?" it sounds like one of those youtube videos of "Chinese Powerful Army - Are you prepared NATO?" It kinda annoyes me everytime I see that kind of names :|

On to the plane, it looks like it will start missing parts everytime it flies.

[Beagle 684]

Maybe it is a manned drone, a new idea on the horizon...the man inside does not have to a be a pilot anymore

[-Paladin- 10]

somthing like a autopilot?

By teh way where is radar in this thing?

[max power 21]

I think it's a light attack aircraft and probably doesn't require a powerful air to air radar.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Maybe it has such a advanced superstealthy radar that nobody can see and detect? Guess Iranian just want to counter the "almighty" F-22 and F-35 herpderp propaganda with their own domestic stealth projects.... :D

[Sakai 1]

Maybe it has such a advanced superstealthy radar that nobody can see and detect? Guess Iranian just want to counter the "almighty" F-22 and F-35 herpderp propaganda with their own domestic stealth projects.... :D

Obviously you wont see it on a radar... Its made out of cardbox.

[Beagle 684]

Obviously you wont see it on a radar... Its made out of cardbox.

But that kind of Stealth works...thats why Planes made from wood and canvas like the AN-2 are still used...it's cheap low radar signature but can deliever 20 paras for sabotage at night. Things do not have to be high tech to work in modern times...a lot of military stuff is quite old fashioned still it just got a more modern design...MRAPS and other light armoured wheelers are just a example....those designs date back to WWII but were considered obsolete in cold war...now its back. The cheapest way to build a full stealth capable transport plane is a wood and canvas cargo glider like used in WWII. Still works today.

[Derbysieger 11]

btw beagle, what do you make of this:

google translate: http://translate.google.com/translate?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&twu=1&u=http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/technik/passivradar-nimmt-stealth-jets-die-tarnkappe-a-855711.html%23ref%3Drss

original: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/technik/passivradar-nimmt-stealth-jets-die-tarnkappe-a-855711.html#ref=rss

If this becomes standard equipment for modern militaries around the world it would make all this fancy stealth technology obsolete.

[Dwarden 1124]

nothing new http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_radar

being developed and in use by our army since 196x years (and now widely used in civil air control sector)

[instagoat 133]

I think it is wrong to dismiss the performance of this aircraft merely on the looks of what is obviously a first prototype. Iran has to literally smuggle in any high tech industrial equipment, so the fact that they managed to put this together at all is quite astounding. By the looks of it, it´s also a more radical and ingenious design than the two chinese Jets.

There are some places out there that have read the books and could do stealth shaping calculations on this, but just from the mere outside look of it, this looks very well to be competetive with the F-35.

But it is small. Small airframes are not good, if you want to have overhead room for future development.

The fact that they don´t show any taxi, takeoff and landing footage, as well as air to air closeups like the Russians did with their pak-fa and the chinese with their two jets is suspicious, however.

There seem to be some clever design tricks in this little jet, and that they could get it this far should be applauded, but realistically, I doubt that they will be able to mass produce this to any competetive standard if even the materials Industries of China and Russia are doubted by some analysts to be able to produce stealthy surface materials for their own new low observabillity designs.

[Beagle 684]

btw beagle, what do you make of this:

google translate: http://translate.google.com/translate?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&twu=1&u=http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/technik/passivradar-nimmt-stealth-jets-die-tarnkappe-a-855711.html%23ref%3Drss

original: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/technik/passivradar-nimmt-stealth-jets-die-tarnkappe-a-855711.html#ref=rss

If this becomes standard equipment for modern militaries around the world it would make all this fancy stealth technology obsolete.

TjThat's what im about to point out...THE OLD tech is even to slow and low for passive radar...

[toxim 0]

http://i.imgur.com/0TrGCI0.jpg

I probably shouldn't say this outloud, but something about the wings make me think of a turkey or a chicken broiler :confused:

But overall, good for them. Iranians should have nice things as well.

*at Max Power; ooops, lesson learned!

Edited February 4, 2013 by Toxim

[max power 21]

Toxim

Please remove image tags when you quote. It's not just a good idea, it's the rules.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Having the Engine intake and thrust shielded is presumably to reduce IR signature. Particularly to the ground and sides by the look of it. I am guesing the curves on flight surfaces are straight copies from the Drone they captured. The Canard design looks like it is taken from the stuff Israel gave to China. Wing design looks like that for a supersonic at ground level aircraft. Engine sound in short flight example seems to be aproaching supersonic, possibly a General Electric J-85 turbojet copy?

Designed to take out Maritime targets?

Other aspects of the aircraft look designed for agility and mass production. Possibly derived from the Shafaq trainer? With a stealth capability just capable enough to get close to the F15 in numbers where superior agility would tell, F15 is said to be inferior in this apsect, plus a numbers advatage from mass production and home turf advantage for speed of aircraft turnarround; the battle of Britain effect, would give Iran an advantage in an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities and a significant counter strike capability.

The Iranians probably with the Chinese and Russians will have copied the materials on the Drone. It is probable that the Russians and Chinese sold the Iranians electronics and maybe designs and production facilities in order to get a look at the drone.

The key factor then is how many hours and how much training and experience the respective pilots have. Iran's experience is from the Iran Iraq war its training is down to hours. With no shortage of fuel Iran is not limited by that cost. The real cost for Iran is parts. If this is a totaly home made aircraft and Iran has been making them for a decade or so now then that is not so much of an issue for them.

I would be watching how much training the Iranians are doing. And trying to figure out if they have been using Simulators.

Kind Regards walker

Edited February 4, 2013 by walker

[NoRailgunner 0]

Well maybe if this mock up will get an arrestor hook just glued on its airframe it will be soon called "Navalised Flying Scimitar".... killing all the infidels with allmighty Eyeball MK1 radar/sensor - in any weather condition, at any speed and at any altitude!! :D

[Mattar_Tharkari 10]

Until I see something more than plywood and grey garage floor paint (you can see brush strokes when the light reflects off it) I'm not impressed rofl.

[rksl-rock 1300]

Here's 9 reasons its a mockup and cannot fly. I can probably supply about another 10 about its apparent construction, placement of cannards and some of the more obvious flaws. The aerodynamics are very "unlikely" given the state of tech on display and the simplicity of the cockpit.

But one of my favourites is the Canopy. Look at the shots with canopy open. Then go and look at a real aircraft with the cockpit open. Pay special attention to the details of how the canopy locks work, locating pins, wiring, demisters etc. Then go and look at this mockup...

[Mattar_Tharkari 10]

Add to that list - no leading edge flaps - landing must be frightening experience. There is an 'election' looming in Iran - he's just trying to look good.

[slatts 1978]

Even if what was shown was a mock up and not the real size..it still looks like BS to me

[rksl-rock 1300]

Add to that list - no leading edge flaps - landing must be frightening experience. There is an 'election' looming in Iran - he's just trying to look good.

Even if it did have a proper leading edge the wing area and the size and position of the cannards would mean that the landing speeds would have to be very high just to maintain the lift. There are so many features on that "plane" that do not make any aerodynamic sense what so ever. It would be a nightmare fly.

[slatts 1978]

You know people are going to say in it's defense two things, Fly-by-wire and F-117.

[rksl-rock 1300]

You know people are going to say in it's defense two things, Fly-by-wire and F-117.

Yeah I know :P

But given what we've seen here (And that is really all we've got to go off) does the cockpit look like its a Fly-By-Wire system installed? It uses a stick from an old (Mechanical) F-5 and instruments from a light aircraft. There's no apparent wiring looms, complex or otherwise. And I promise you that any FBW system on any plane is a very complex beast and requires a lot of complex avionics to run.

As for the F-117, well the aerodynamics are odd I'll give you that. But the surface area of the underside and wings give quite a large lift generating area at speed and the quite powerful twin engines give it quite an advantage. But the F-117 does have very high take off and landing speeds and has/does exhibit some very nasty flight characteristics. It was nicknamed the "Wobblin' Goblin" for a reason early in its life. That and the fact there is enough cable in one of those to reach from London to Manchester. I suspect the amount of cable in the Q-313 would stretch down the steps of Liverpool Street station to the taxi rank and no further. :P

I'm not any aerodynamicist. My field of expertise is more production but even I can see that cannards are directly in front of the wing. They are roughly the same width and have a similar thickness. The airflow coming off them would be very "dirty" and create a load of drag, disrupting the airflow of the main wing. Which means poor lift, poor control response, very high speed take off and landings, tiny weapons loads, horrific stall performance. This looks more like some ones "what if" model made from spare parts of model kits. I can see Testors F-19, MDD's X-36 (incidentally a flying part scale model too used to develop tailless designs and FBW), Boeing's Bird of Prey , F-35 and a few others. I used to draw things like this when I was a kid in school. :cool: And I can promise you 99% of those wouldn't fly either.

Edited February 4, 2013 by RKSL-Rock
DM pointed out my double width issue.

[walker 0]

Hi all

More information and critique here:

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline//2013/02/irans-new-qaher-313-stealth-fi.html

Radar Cross section is being reported as being 0.025 m2 (0.269 sq ft) that is presumably without weapons or extra fuel tanks. It seems to be based on the Iranians home made and developed supersonic training aircraft. There is only a short video of the supposed aircraft in flight.

Interesting to compare the Qaher to the Saeqeh Fighter on which it is suposed to be based:

u-2CfS226h8

I wonder how much the Iranians have learned from the US Drone they downed video here of it actualy being captured:

Y08LHkl3ggs

Clearly the Iranians had very good control of the hacked RQ-170 UAV suggesting they have already got descent UAV pilots and technology capable of controling UAVs to a serious level. Since they Hacked the UAVs controls it would suggest they are also able to put out flight control signals equal to and localy superior to what the USA was using then.

I wonder if the Qaher is a piloted mockup for a future drone aircraft. That would explain the small size. In such a case replacing the meat and its attendant support packages with fuel and weapons payload would make it a considerable threat.

Kind Regards walker

Edited February 4, 2013 by walker

[instagoat 133]

I believe the in flight videos are faked with a scale model, and the engine noise is just copied over from a flight recording of an F-5 or F-4. The full scale plane is most likely a mockup.