Re: KAL007 Coldwar Mystery

Fred J. McCall wrote:

>:Key words: "F-14A configured like the ones we sold to the Iranians"
>:The Iranians could have modified it. I've never seen a photo of one, but
>:the Iranians were supposed to have modified their F-14s to carry Hawk
>:SAMs in an air to air mode in place of the Phoenix missiles.
>
>Which didn't work for shit, by the way. The AWG-9 in no way gives
>guidance to HAWK.
>
>:If they could pull that stunt off,
>
>They couldn't.
>
>:hanging bombs on it would be a piece
>:of cake by comparison.
>
>And hitting anything with them without ANY kind of air-to-ground
>aiming system would take a bloody miracle!
>
>There's much more to strike warfare than just hanging ordnance on the
>airplane.
>
>

This is almost cruel to do, but look:
http://www.afwing.com/gallery/iran/7.jpg
Here's one in flight with a Hawk on it:
http://www.afwing.com/gallery/iran/6.jpg
I assume they modified the Hawk's homing system so that it worked on the
AWG-9's frequency as a giant SARH missile.
According to reports though the plan didn't pan out- although the range
from that missile-radar combo would have been impressive, though
probably not up to Phoenix standard.
In exchange for getting to go over the F-14s and the some of the 284
simplified Phoenix missiles we supplied Iran with the Soviets helped to
keep them in service for the Iranians:
http://www.vectorsite.net/avtomcat.html
As to whether they ever got bombs on them is an open question, but they
did have Standard ARMs for their F-4s:
http://www.afwing.com/gallery/iran/8.jpg
And unlike a bomb, that would self home if launched at a naval vessel.
If you want to see just how inventive they could get with their aircraft
mods, feast your eyes on a Northrop F-5F converted into a poor man's
F-18: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAMI_Azarakhsh
With a pair of MiG-29 engines shoehorned into it.
Then there's the Iranian stealth fighter:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/shafaq.htm

Pat
.
Received on Tue Feb 7 21:00:04 2006