Iranian fighter planes (huh?)

One of the best students I ever had was a Turkish 1LT (teaching UH60).
The worst student? Drum roll. A Saudi. I know, I know, shocking. He is the one who let go at about 5' during a boost off landing, threw up his hands and said "Inshallah!". I don't think we flew again after that. He ended up being sent back to primary.
As for fighting I am with those who would not make generalities based upon a region. When led well people from that region can be fierce fighters. Gallipoli is often viewed in the Western world as a failure of the Allies, but it was as much a success of Mustafa Ataturk.
 
Blackhawk said:
. He is the one who let go at about 5' during a boost off landing, threw up his hands and said "Inshallah!". I don't think we flew again after that.
Click to expand...

Wow. Im all hands, all the time, fighting against the potential collective forces during a boost off landing. Couldn't imagine letting go of the controls!
 
Blackhawk said:
Actually I had a VHF and could hear guard on that as well.
Click to expand...

While I'm sure the GCI controllers are simulcasting on 121.5 and 243.0, the Hornet that replied in the story above isn't.

More importantly, having heard a warning from an Iranian controller on 243.0 personally, I can vouch that's not the terminology that they use...and in my case it was preceded by another call from the AWACS that used a different term, too.
 
MikeD said:
Wow. Im all hands, all the time, fighting against the potential collective forces during a boost off landing. Couldn't imagine letting go of the controls!
Click to expand...

I guess technically it would be easier. :)
 
CirrusMonkey said:
Bunk and Qutch: did you guys ever train a group of foreigners that did well? Anyone who raised an eyebrow?
Click to expand...

.
I earlier mentioned an Iranian Captain named Tahouri. . He was competent, but not his "group" as you phrased it. That's the only one I can recall though. . Springer mentioned earlier that his Iranian roommate "... had washed back into our class from gawd knows how many previous classes." We would have had the same problem on our base, and these guys would have reached retirement age while still in training if we'd held them to American standards. . So as a newbie instructor I was puzzled as to how to grade them, since it was obvious to me that their grade sheets had to have been falsified (or "pencil whipped" as we called it) by previous instructors. . So I sensed that the "fix was in", and I asked for guidance before Failing my first Iranian. . All I got was an evasive answer and a wink. . So I pencil whipped some barely passing grades for them and shoved 'em out the door. . Our problems with them were so bad that we started pencil whipping their solos also. . We put instructor "observers" in the T-38s on their solos to keep them from killing themselves or someone else. . Oh, the stories!

MikeD, Bunk22, Hacker and others here would never say it themselves, so I'll say it. . American pilots who manage to make it through the US military's tough training and weeding out process, particularly our combat/fighter pilots are unique. . (I never went near combat, always kept in a T-37 & T-38 flight instructor role, or AF Human Factors Research Laboratories). . What drew me to post here originally were the comparisons being made between Iranian hardware, and US hardware, as if that was the determining factor. . Our pilots and their support personnel are unbelievably good by any measure, and they make the difference. . I'd fly with them in a serviceable Iranian rust bucket before I'd get into any new high performance aircraft flown by a Saudi or Iranian military pilot (except Tahouri). . If you have not trained with our guys (or watched the Iranians, Saudis, Iraqis or Libyans), it might seem like bluster, but our guys and gals really are that good by comparison. .

No brag. . Just fact.

Official Photo: Iranian Air Force Flight Training :smoke:
funny-jet-pilot-reading-manual.jpg


.
 
Hacker15e said:
While I'm sure the GCI controllers are simulcasting on 121.5 and 243.0, the Hornet that replied in the story above isn't.

More importantly, having heard a warning from an Iranian controller on 243.0 personally, I can vouch that's not the terminology that they use...and in my case it was preceded by another call from the AWACS that used a different term, too.
Click to expand...
Probably wording not exact if it is a true story. Wording I received was pretty close- "Aircraft squawking 12345 this is Kuwaiti Air Defense on guard, identify yourself immediately or you will be fired on". At least I think that was the wording as I was 1/2 asleep and my crew chief had to point out that they were talking about our squawk.
Not sure about the -18, but the blanket statement that the military does not use 121.5 is false. The Air Force is part of the military, but the Air Force is not THE military.
 
CirrusMonkey said:
Bunk and Qutch: did you guys ever train a group of foreigners that did well? Anyone who raised an eyebrow?
Click to expand...

Yes, the Indians are hit and miss but I flew with a senior Indian Sea Harrier Pilot a few times and he was outstanding. One of our Brazilian students is top 10% at least and he started out real slow. I flew with two Italian students as a primary IP who were natural flyers. A big issue for foreigner pilots is the language barrier and they all go to the school in San Antonio, TX. Take for example the Brazilian student, controllers would say something to him and he would have to process that English to Portuguese back to English as he responded. It's interesting that the best Saudi pilot I had when I was the OIC was the one who one, wanted to be a pilot but more importantly, spent 4 years in America going to high school and spoke fluent English.
 
.
Blackhawk said:
One of the best students I ever had was a Turkish 1LT (teaching UH60)........
Click to expand...
I was interested in your story of the Turk. . I always suspected they might beat the Muslim stereotype, but I never knew anyone who trained them. .


Blackhawk said:
......The worst student? Drum roll. A Saudi. I know, I know, shocking. He is the one who let go at about 5' during a boost off landing, threw up his hands and said "Inshallah!". I don't think we flew again after that. He ended up being sent back to primary........
Click to expand...

I learned quick that when a Muslim yells "Inshallah!" to grab the stick and take over. . That knowledge has been useful for me outside the cockpit. . Recently, in my work, colleagues had a frustrated Iranian engineer that was very difficult to work with. .They could not get him to agree philosophically with the team's approach. . So one day I heard the Iranian say "Inshallah" when discussing strategy. . No one noticed. . I took him aside and said "we don't operate on Inshallah here". . The Iranian seemed pleased that I understood it, and was willing to let me direct strategy after that. . Funny how a little cultural knowledge can improve relations.


Blackhawk said:
......As for fighting I am with those who would not make generalities based upon a region. When led well people from that region can be fierce fighters. Gallipoli is often viewed in the Western world as a failure of the Allies, but it was as much a success of Mustafa Ataturk.
Click to expand...

You are a history student. . My favorite character from that period is Lt. T.E. Lawrence (aka - Lawrence of Arabia). . He sort of proves your point. . I'm guessing you know his story well.

.
 
As a general rule it's safe to assume that the US military can defeat any other countries military in a stand up face to face fight. The question is at what cost? Can the US military establish air superiority over Iran or China, yes we could. Can they make that battle so costly that we would not want to chose that fight, yes they can.

As all previous posts have said, it's the man not the machines. The US military's strength lies not in the high tech weaponry (although that defiantly helps), but in the highly trained and combat tested personell.

USAF pilot in an F-4 vs a Chinese pilot in a MIG-29, my money is on the Phantom.
 
IMO, from a pilot perspective, any nation can have a corp of fantastic pilots. The key is the selection process, training and sustained training. That means money and many nations don't have or are unwilling to spend the money to sustain operations. Some probably don't need it either, perhaps having no immediate threat.

As for the Saudi's, other than the selection process, one thing that hurts them is attitude. They have a serious attitude problem. They immediate feel they are better than everyone, they don't give 100% effort at all and if they fail, it's never their fault. I don't know how many times I heard after a failed test or flight that it was the instructor's fault, he didn't train well enough. They also like to give 70% effort and demand the instructor give the other 30%. This was the general trend and a trend that I told the Saudi officials when they would ask why their students do so poorly on average.

There is a good fictional book written by Barret Tillman called Warriors.

http://www.amazon.com/Warriors-Barr...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328112989&sr=1-1

Though fiction (author uses real persons, the key character is based on CDR John "Pirate" Nicholas who is a high time F-8 Crusader pilot and real time Mig-17 killer) who is hired by the Saudi's to build an Air Force based around the F-20 Tigershark. The idea is to select the best candidates, create a training program and sustain that program. The reason being is war was imminent with Israel and the Saudi's wanted an Air Force capable of besting them. It was about the man and not the machine. In the end, they match the Israeli's plane for plane, something no Muslim Air Force has been able to do.
 
Qutch said:
.

I was interested in your story of the Turk. . I always suspected they might beat the Muslim stereotype, but I never knew anyone who trained them. .




I learned quick that when a Muslim yells "Inshallah!" to grab the stick and take over. . That knowledge has been useful for me outside the cockpit. . Recently, in my work, colleagues had a frustrated Iranian engineer that was very difficult to work with. .They could not get him to agree philosophically with the team's approach. . So one day I heard the Iranian say "Inshallah" when discussing strategy. . No one noticed. . I took him aside and said "we don't operate on Inshallah here". . The Iranian seemed pleased that I understood it, and was willing to let me direct strategy after that. . Funny how a little cultural knowledge can improve relations.




You are a history student. . My favorite character from that period is Lt. T.E. Lawrence (aka - Lawrence of Arabia). . He sort of proves your point. . I'm guessing you know his story well.

.
Click to expand...
Turkish student did not fit my preconceived stereotypes in many regards. He brought his wife to the o-club a few times. She was smoking... and I don't mean cigarettes.
The Saudi and I had a "discussion" that what allah wanted was for him to use his skills to help us out.
Thought of Lawrence as well (actually wrote a paper on him at one military course), but often he is used in the stereotype that they are only good fighters if lead by Westerners.
 
bunk22 said:
As for the Saudi's, other than the selection process, one thing that hurts them is attitude. They have a serious attitude problem. They immediate feel they are better than everyone, they don't give 100% effort at all and if they fail, it's never their fault. I don't know how many times I heard after a failed test or flight that it was the instructor's fault, he didn't train well enough. They also like to give 70% effort and demand the instructor give the other 30%. This was the general trend and a trend that I told the Saudi officials when they would ask why their students do so poorly on average..
Click to expand...

Besides the Iranian we had a Saudi in my UPT class. He too washed back and was finally "forced" back to Saudi. I am not sure of the repercussions of that.

Had a couple of Danes in the class too. They were terrific. One was the captain of that MD-80 SAS flight that lost both engines on TO and bellied it on to a snow clearing with no loss of life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_G._Rasmussen
 
Blackhawk said:
. Really got my heart racing as I was sure there was an F-15 pilot somewhere in the area.
Click to expand...

I had to chuckle at that one. I wonder how many here got that. As a side note the AF investigating officer was my UPT roommate after I ditched the Iranian...who later became an AF judge and brought charges against the AWAC captain.
 
Springer said:
I had to chuckle at that one. I wonder how many here got that. As a side note the AF investigating officer was my UPT roommate after I ditched the Iranian...who later became an AF judge and brought charges against the AWAC captain.
Click to expand...
Probably not really fair on my part, but my wife and daughter do point out that I can be a jerk. I'm sure Hacker got it but was kind and let it slide. Along with MikeD and the other Air Force and Army old timers also got it. They probably just treated it as you would grandma talking about the stinking yankees at Thanksgiving dinner after one too many sherries. In reality I was more worried about the Patriot missle site within visual range controlled by software designed by Skynet that. I was certain the last thing I would see in this life was a telephone pole with flames coming out the back streaking toward me.
 
Springer said:
Besides the Iranian we had a Saudi in my UPT class. He too washed back and was finally "forced" back to Saudi. I am not sure of the repercussions of that.

Had a couple of Danes in the class too. They were terrific. One was the captain of that MD-80 SAS flight that lost both engines on TO and bellied it on to a snow clearing with no loss of life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_G._Rasmussen
Click to expand...

Oh, the Danish pilots that came through at Whiting were all top notch, everyone.
 
Hacker15e said:
I do love to read the bluster on the internet from Americans who laugh at the Iranian AF and so easily proclaim what a piece of cake it's going to be to roundly trounce them if we ever engage in combat.

It's easy to have that gusto when all you're doing is matching up stats in virtual dick-measuring. It all looks so simple, and it's OBVIOUS that those fantastic US fighters are just going to clown all over those Iranians in their 70s-era rust buckets, right?

For me...I never underestimate the capabilities of a foe. He's the best pilot in their best equipment, right up until the minute he proves otherwise.

I have slain all manner of high-tech US fighters with fantastic pilots on board, all from behind the stick in a T-38 with no radar and only the most basic of (simulated) weapons. If I can do that, then a good pilot in a Phantom or Tomcat can certainly have his shot at gunning an Eagle, Viper, or Hornet.

As Quatch said, it is DEFINITELY NOT all about the equipment.
Click to expand...

I hear even a B-52 got a "kill" during Red Flag. It might have been a half-drunken layover story but I heard that someone got careless during an intercept and ended up in "the cone"
 
bunk22 said:
Oh, the Danish pilots that came through at Whiting were all top notch, everyone.
Click to expand...
I never had a bad NATO student. Usually they made the US students look like they took the short bus to the flight line when it came to academics. Flying side they were usually equal.
 
So ILL said:
I found these cool pictures on a foreign blogging site. Apparently the Iranians are escorting the Russian Su-27s across their airspace. I never knew Iranians have these surplus Vietnamish era U.S. fighters in the their AF. Hell I didn't even know they had an air force.

http://englishrussia.com/2012/01/30/the-russian-knights-flying-over-iran/#more-89562
Click to expand...

The Iranians have an Air force which consists of some very capable equipment in the hands of incompetent pilots. There are others here who know better than I why, it seems, Middle Eastern-ers have absolutely no aptitude when it comes to technical skills like flying an airplane. I've been told it's because of the servant / owner mentality, but I'm not sure. Iran was GIVEN a large number of our surplus F-14 Tomcats. There are several that are still flying, if just barely.

But, yes, Iran has an Air Force, and if looked at only from the equipment aspect could be legitimately dangerous.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top