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In article , Jim wrote:

Agreed. But purchasing from the Iranians......................

This incident is actually discussed in the Cooper article in the current
issue of Combat Aircraft that I discussed in another thread.

In short, Cooper says that the Iranian pilots told him it didn't happen.
Instead, he says that at least one F-14 and one or more F-4s was flown out
of Iran to Egypt or another pro-US country, where they were destroyed. This
was the result of a CIA operation.

Such an operation actually seems plausible, because many of the F-14 pilots
during the 1980s had actually been trained in the US and would have been
easier to approach. They also could have been bribed. What is easier to
believe--that the Iranians willingly sold a valuable aircraft to the
Russians and delivered it, or that an Iranian pilot was encouraged to defect
with his aircraft and rewarded by the CIA?

One of many things I found interesting about that article is that it
explained that the Iranians and the Russians do not get along well when it
comes to military sales. The reason is that the Russians will sell the
Iranians aircraft, but they will not allow them to manufacture spare parts.
The Iranians do not like having to pay the Russians every time they need to
replace a part. If true, this answers a question that I have long had,
which is why the Iranians choose to keep flying 30+ year old American
aircraft instead of simply buying the latest MiG-29s and Su-27 variants.




D