When its leadership is not busy seeing Zionist conspiracies everywhere, there must be some pretty resourceful folk in Iran. They’ve been blockaded for decades, yet they have managed to assemble a nuclear power plant with the help of some international allies, and since getting cut off from the rest of the world, they’ve also managed to develop their own military equipment. Granted, most of it is based off of old or stolen designs, but they’re working hard to become self-sufficient from a military standpoint in that country. Now, they’re working on their arsenal in the air. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has debuted the new Qaher-313 fighter/bomber on state television.
“Qaher-313 is a fully indigenous aircraft designed and built by our aerospace experts. This is a radar-evading plane that can fly at low altitude, carry weapons, engage enemy aircrafts and land at short airstrips,” Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said.
Of course, like Iran’s official haircut guide, the plane has a retro design. Despite claiming it has the same capabilities as an F-18, the plane looks like an updated F-5E Tiger II, the kind of which were sold to the pre-Iranian Shah government back in the late 1970’s. Of course, Iran has gotten good at reverse engineering stuff bought from other countries, and there’s always the chance international arms dealers have helped them improve their arsenal of home-grown stuff; Iran debuted the Azarakhsh, or Lightning, fighter in 2007 and followed up with the Saeqeh, or Thunder, fighter in 2010.
Tags: Iran, Iranian military, Qaher-313, Dominant-313, new jet fighters, new airplanes, new military aircraft, iran builds up military air force, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ahmad Vahidi, azarakhsh, saeqeh, military planes, iranian military, international relations
