China and Iran bought retired F-14 spare part

For a brief period after fall of Soviet Union, the US Gov DRMO sales of salvage/scrapped military parts was kind of loose and some civilians were actually able to purchase used AH-1 cobra's chopped in half. A few people managed to put them back together into flyable condition. I recall seeing some web sites about it years ago, but they've mostly gone under.

Under today's environment, I think the US Government is prolly much stricter in its military surplus/salvage sales. I'd also suggest staying far away from that business today, because if anything goes missing or end up in the wrong hands, you'd be considered guilty until proven innocent.

You all seem to be forgetting the arms for hostages deals in the 80s. The Iranians had access to spare parts for the F-14 from the source. I think that they got some (the planes are still in the air) and its possible that the Chinese have some now.

Finn McCool said:

You all seem to be forgetting the arms for hostages deals in the 80s. The Iranians had access to spare parts for the F-14 from the source. I think that they got some (the planes are still in the air) and its possible that the Chinese have some now.

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The Iranians still have the ability to keep their F-5's flying, and produce modifications for them, which indicates they have the ability to at least reverse-engineer some parts for their aircraft. I don't think parts were transfered in large quantities sufficient to last till today during those arms for hostages deals, so it leads creditably to the widely suspected ability of the Iranians to be able to reverse engineer some parts. Iran today has the ability to reverse engineer and locally produce some helicopters, namely the AH-1 Cobra, the Bell 206, and the Bell UH-1 Huey.

I feel the Iranians have the ablity to manufature parts for much of their old US equipment.

I saw a recent video of F-4's flying with modern Iranian colors.

The general consensus is that about 5 of the F-14s are still in flyable condition. If Iran has been able to get stuff it can't manufacture, it sure as hell didn't get a lot of them.

eecsmaster said:

The general consensus is that about 5 of the F-14s are still in flyable condition. If Iran has been able to get stuff it can't manufacture, it sure as hell didn't get a lot of them.

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No, I think there are around 20-30 F-14's flying around. Combat Aircraft magazine has stated that number. Also, this whole thing about selling F-14 spare parts...which countries besides Iran and the US even used F-14's? So a better question would be why was the US even selling spare parts of F-14's to other nations even though there are only two (now one) users of F-14's?

crazyinsane105 said:

No, I think there are around 20-30 F-14's flying around. Combat Aircraft magazine has stated that number. Also, this whole thing about selling F-14 spare parts...which countries besides Iran and the US even used F-14's? So a better question would be why was the US even selling spare parts of F-14's to other nations even though there are only two (now one) users of F-14's?

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Some of the parts may be dual use equipment, and fall under that purview.

crazyinsane105 said:

No, I think there are around 20-30 F-14's flying around. Combat Aircraft magazine has stated that number. Also, this whole thing about selling F-14 spare parts...which countries besides Iran and the US even used F-14's? So a better question would be why was the US even selling spare parts of F-14's to other nations even though there are only two (now one) users of F-14's?

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Foreign air forces always want to get a look at each other's technology. I can imagine that the PLAAF would be very interested in the F-14s radar, any Phoniex missles it could get its hands on and perhaps the swing-wing technology as well. I don't think that the Iranian F-14s have folding wings but the PLAN would want to see that for aircraft carrier purposes.

Finn McCool said:

I don't think that the Iranian F-14s have folding wings but the PLAN would want to see that for aircraft carrier purposes.

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Finn, All Tomcats had the swept wing design.



I don't think a F-14 could generate enough lift to fly without it's wings extended. A Tomcat is a very heavy aircraft.

Finn McCool said:

Foreign air forces always want to get a look at each other's technology. I can imagine that the PLAAF would be very interested in the F-14s radar, any Phoniex missles it could get its hands on and perhaps the swing-wing technology as well. I don't think that the Iranian F-14s have folding wings but the PLAN would want to see that for aircraft carrier purposes.

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The PLA can get a virtual copy in terms of capabilities of the Phoenix missile by acquiring the Vympel R-33 (AA-9 Amos) missile or the Vympel R-37 (AA-X-13 Arrow) missile. The Iranian F-14's radar is fairly dated, so it won't do much for the Chinese to look at the old AN/AWG-9 radar, but instead, look at the Zaslon-M radar that is fitted on the MiG-31 instead.