A fiberglass mockup, or at best a kit built level of complexity technology demonstrator (I doubt it is even flyable but see the BD-10 for a loose comparison) and video of an RC airplane? Wow Iran. After a good laugh I realized how much this “unveiling” actually scares me. If they think anyone would even begin to buy this bad news sideshow act than your view of the world is even more slanted and insular than I had ever imagined…
The Chengdu J-20, Lockheed F-35 and Boeing’s Bird Of Prey technology demonstrator get drunk on JP-8 and proceed to have a three-way, 9 months later this thing pops out…
Someone, please translate this for me!
Well, this is laughable!!!… Completely agree with you! I’ve already commented in “The Aviationist” site, where I first saw it… What a show! The scary thing, is that many people believe in this, and are willing to sacrifice themselves for a bunch of idiots and radical people…
The shape of the wing would generate a large radar reflection which would be against stealth principles, so they have effectively created an anti stealth plane.
I like the shot at around 3:00 that makes it look like ayatollah ali khamenei is in the cockpit, but you are right. If Iran thinks they are that smart and we are that stupid we may have serious problems.
I think they are doing this simply to instigate United States and start a war.
Why # 313? That 313 denotes the number of men who will accompany the 12th hidden Shiite Imam to conquer the world.
Some of the comments on Aviationist are quite laughable. I wanted to comment there but now that I see the reasonable people are here, I do it here.
I am ok with the small size, the French Mirage I was very small and Boeing Bird of Prey was small so if Iran just wanted to have a small flyable aerodynamic model to scale up later, Ok, I could see that. Lots of things are a bit shaky like the wings seem way too thick, surface controls are small, inlets seems wrong, nice vertical shape near cockpit so there goes your RCS, plexiglass for canopy,landing gear looks fixed,etc so I thought ok, it is some sort of mock up, needs some serious work… but,hey,it is a nice effort and I thought “I can’t wait to see some pictures in the coming weeks of trials”.
Lo and behold, we have “video” of it flying and maneuvering! On a first flight nevertheless! Then I waited to see the triumphant pilot coming out of this death trap and realized that wasn’t going to happen, looked again and saw that it was an RC model. No background, just sky, crappy video just a few seconds long really, no landing or takeoff, no chase plan, etc…what a joke! Someone posted you can’t see the landing because it is VTOL! Yeah, that’s what you do on a first flight! Sure and you don’t use a chase plane either…
I’m not surprised some people among the pro Iran gvt buy this, saw the same thing on Iran defense forum, the Iran fan boys are ecstatic but for anyone with a sense of objectivity this is nothing less than propaganda for internal consumption which I’m not even sure they are buying. It is pretty sad that Iran is lead by these fools…
Typically, Iran’s poorly crafted homespun weapons are not marketed for export, so I think your assertion is invalid.
Best comment I have read on another site so far: “maybe the space monkey can fly it”!
Head on view shows a very similar layout to the old X-36 UAV demonstrator.
As an American I am disheartened to see the mocking and even racist tones of posts on theaviationist.com and here. Do you think this plane is an F-22 or an F-35? No way. It was never meant to be and it will not stand a chance against these planes. It’s a prototype, which will undergo many changes over the next few years to become a viable weapon of war. It is an Iranian solution for problems the Iranians foresee facing in the air. It is meant to be inexpensive to produce, simple to service, have a degree of stealth, and takeoff/land from short runways. Look at other homemade weapons in Iran’s arsenal – they all have the same ‘cost’, ‘simplicity’, and ‘reliability’ factors. These indigenous weapons (missiles, warships, tanks, …) and their space launch vehicles are what a regional power which has been under 30+ years of sanctions has produced. They are all part of their asymmetric defense doctrine. They deserve respect, even as our enemy. Look at Iran’s defense budget and ours and then open your mouth …
@ Paul
So why release video footages of a small RC model with sound effect to gave an impression of an a/c with “more then 1000 flying hours”? In this case be prepared to harsh comments.
China has no need for cheap propaganda: they develop their jets and they fly them. They produce viable weapons of war.
And if Iran was under sanctions for +30 yeras it was not by chance.
@Winston
I think that 313 is more of a reference to Donald Duck’s car.
Context is everything here. Iran has 2 air forces, one serious (IRIAF) and one not so much (AFAGIR, an arm of the IRGC — the people who brought you the WIG prop attack craft). Think of the IRIAF as the equivalent of the Third Reich’s regular military and the AFAGIR as the equivalent of the SS. This aircraft is probably an AFAGIR project designed to undermine the IRIAF, who have sponsored development of the Saeqeh (imagine a Northrop F-5E with MiG-29 avionics and radar, which has entered limited production). The AFAGIR will now say that their project is superior and that development funds should be taken away from the IRIAF to devote to this project.
Well, there probably would be less mocking if they wouldn’t pass the RC model for the real deal, don’t play a loud jet engine noise in the background and crop the video to make it seem like it is a real size jet.
As a old nation, the population and economy deserves better and this isn’t it. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel and go crazy with ideas and such, just do what other nations have done, start SMALL! Start with something like an AT-6 or Super Tucano that can be modified into a small civilian plane. Then move on to something like a HAWK or even better, get your hands on a Aero L-39 and reverse engineer that. You get good training for your engineers, technicians, university students,good practice for ground instrumentation and trials,etc and it replaces the old beat up crap they are flying now.
As an American, I read a lot of Iran news and check out the Iran fan boy forums and as much as they talk trash and how they have nothing to worry about the USA and Israel because they have Russia and China in their corner, I am still waiting to see them deliver new Sukois or J10s or J11, shoot, Iran Air force could use 200 JF17s TODAY! So since Iran isn’t get away from the embargo anytime soon and their buddies don’t seem in a hurry to replace the beat up F4s, F5s and MiG29s in inventory, they need something real and tangible, F313 isn’t it…it is a waste of resources, money and talent.
Americans are just jealous that they cant produce a stealth fighter so small & agile. The F313 would make mince meat of the F-22 ( which doesnt really work ) and the farce that is the F-35. Be afraid US air force
Why are the “Danger” (Ejection seat triangle) decals in English instead of Farsi?
Massimo, the Iranian news report clearly states that the video is of a ‘model’, not the real thing.
Also Ahmadinejad said the pilot he met had 1000+ hours of flight under his belt, not that the new plane had flown for 1000+ hours.
They didn’t say it flew for 1000 hours, they said the pilot had 1000 hours of flight time. Meaning that Ahmadinejad talked to the pilot who commented on the plane. The pilot who had 1000 hours of flight time gave his professional comment on the plane. Have you people forgotten how to speak Farsi? It is a scale model of the plane to be modified and eventually/hopefully built. Anybody who really knows anything about planes, knows it still needs alot of work. But you have to start from somewhere. In the meantime, the TV people get a chance to exagerate which is their job everywhere in this world. Most people in the world think the F-22 is the ultimate plane, but the professionals can tell you that it is still not ready despite the millions of dollars spent on the project. If you are a real man go and write an article about the failures of the F-22, it is easy to mock a few engineers who are trying their best to build a plane with a budget less than one F-22 tire!
Gonna try to consider this one seriously rather than assuming this is an Iranian propaganda ploy…
Firstly, if this thing is real, we can be reasonably sure it isn’t going to go supersonic. It has no stabilators, and the inlets look as though they’d struggle to divert shock waves. Since there’s no sign of the classic bump of a divertless inlet, or moving surfaces to vary the geometry, there’d have to be a ramp hidden inside the inlet. Even then, the whole position and shape just looks like it’s going to terrible at boundary layer control.
The aircraft clearly has a partial lifting body design which would help explain how the wings could be so small, but seems to entirely ignore the area rule. I think it would be a struggle just to pass through the sound barrier, let alone maintain any sort of control afterwards.
Assuming this thing was designed for a small frontal RCS, why then does it have such thick wings? Also, what purpose do those drooping winglets serve? They will increase the RCS dramatically from below and they will cause quite a lot of drag. The only reason I can think of is to increase lateral stability or lift at lower speeds, and if that thing needs better lateral stability with those tails then they really have problems.
At best this is going to be slow, have a decreased RCS from the front, and likely be difficult to dogfight in. It’s also going to struggle to carry a meaningful payload with those small wings and no visible internal stores, so it will be only be useful in the defensive AA role, which when you think about it fits the Iranian doctrine quite well.
I doubt they’d ever consider using these for air superiority or in the ground attack role, but it would be viable against an IAF incursion relying on their ability to see Iranian aircraft before they themselves are seen. We can assume Israeli radar and ECW is far in advance of Iran’s, so the Iranian answer is to build cheap LO planes that are useless for anything except getting within range of Israel’s F-15s and F-16s. This is not unlike the concept of swarming US ships with cheap boats that are harder to hit but serve little offensive purpose.
@Paul
No one has said anything racist here. The plane is at best a mockup. At worst, it’s a failed propaganda stunt. Those are the facts.
Iranian press just released a commentary on how F313 is real.
It appears not to have fly by wire, wow, that is really going to make it easy on the pilot to fly this thing. Internal payload bay can carry 2 2000 lbs bombs, did I just mention there is no FBW on board? LOL! That is going to do wonders for CG and weight and balance,etc, yeah, it is going to be real stable and easy to fly. Not sure how it is going to take off because that doesn’t look like a huge engine powering this thing, you are going to need one hell of a long runway, especially in Iran, nice cool summers there…
Again, I am repeating myself, if leadership really wanted to defend Iran and help its nascent aerospace industry, this isn’t it. I would prefer if Iran just kept working the F5 design, Northrup did wonders with Tigershark so it is possible to move forward the design and actually would be more useful…
@Will, like the idea of a cheap,lo RCS, easy to fly, easy to produce bird that could do some damage, very asymmetrical warfare type, like the idea for Iran but F313 isn’t it. It would be better to go with a more proven design like F5, Iran understands it, got plenty of parts,pilots, training and experience on it, get that set up, produce in house a bunch of them, make some mods for RCS and ease of production, that could work for a swarming type of attack on USNavy.
Post today on this guys, you will find it very interesting I think. GREAT COMMENTS! Thanks and keep talking, we all learn when we share.
Post is up, please read it with an open mind. I really put some thought into this one.