Persian Tomcats in service

In article t, "DDAY"
wrote:

However, the article that I refer to does make some interesting points that
the Iranians have managed to keep a lot of vintage American equipment in
service despite all odds. The one thing about the F-14 is that its Phoenix
missiles would make it a threat from long range. They could stay well
within the air defense umbrella and fire at distant American targets. If
the article is correct and at least a couple of dozen aircraft remain
operational, then they could present a problem to any American air campaign.
The threat to US aircraft is certainly greater from SAMs than aircraft, but
that has been the case for decades.

1. The AIM-54's that Iran has are well past their shelf life and probably don't
even work now. Maybe they have been mod'd locally to continue working,
maybe not. Only the CIA and the USN know for sure, but
2. since the Iranians were seen trying to fit a Hawk missile to the F-14 it's
probable that the AIM-54's don't work. Otherwise, why would they?
3. Even if the AIM-54's do work, the USN has the keys to the kingdom so
to speak. They know all the ways to defeat the missile both with
electronics and manuever.

I don't think the AIM-54 is a threat anymore.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

damm...50 to 60 hrs for 1 flight hr..sheeze...
the cost of a maint hr must be around 200-500
US$, ( burdened with labor and parts, overhead
etc)...makes my cessna 172rg l@@k like a bargin

However, the article that I refer to does make some interesting points that
the Iranians have managed to keep a lot of vintage American equipment in
service despite all odds.

Something none of us should discount.

Lookit the 1950s vintage American cars that still haunt Havana's streets.

--
Mike Kanze

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

- Albert Einstein


"DDAY" wrote in message k.net...
----------
In article .com,
wrote:

tone of their reporting seems to imply a bias toward the Iranians. And
they seem top have good access to unimpeachable sources inside Iran.
Were it not for their astute reporting, we would never know what was
going on inside Iran.

I think this is an overstatement, or at least a misstatement. You are
implying, essentially, that they are tools of the Iranian government. But
that's clearly _not_ the case. In their F-14 book they make it quite clear
that the Iranian revolutionary government has been pretty repressive towards
the air force and the pilots. This is actually understandable, because the
Iranian pilots were trained in the 1970s by the US and naturally a
revolutionary government would be suspicious of these people.

Cooper makes clear that many of his sources are ex-pat Iranians--people who
left the country even as late as the mid-1990s. Not all of these people
would necessarily be against the current government, but a fair number of
them certainly are.

My interpretation of this is that Cooper and Bishop are essentially a couple
of guys who have a major interest in the Iranian air force and are impressed
by it, but certainly not pro-Iran. They could be characterized as "pro
Iranian air force" while "anti Iranian government." But they're more likely
simply buffs who think that the Iranian air force is interesting--and cool.
That doesn't imply sympathy toward the government, or any kind of government
sanction. I think that they've probably built up sources over time and
these sources trust them to greater or lesser extent.

My concern is less with their bias than with their analytical methods. Bias
is easily detectable, but methods are not. I don't know how careful they
are at checking their information. I'm not saying that they're bad at it,
only that I don't know how carefully they check it. For instance, if one
person tells them something do they report it, or do they only report it if
they can confirm it from another source? We don't know that. Fortunately,
some of their claims are proven by their photographs. We can tell, for
instance, that Iran was still showing off its F-14s as recently as 2004.
And although they did not put an AIM-54 missile on display, they did display
a training round, which obviously implies that they still train to fire
these missiles.


Thanks for correcting me on our supply of curise missiles. It is nice
to have 2000 on hand and to be able to expend 300 in a day or two's
worth of attack.

The exact number is classified, but I believe that the last time I saw a
discussion of this in a military journal they said that the number was "over
2600."


area be raked over by SEAD Vipers, F-15E's dropping bombs on value
targets with cruise missiles hitting air bases to maximize confusion
and F-15C's doing air interdiction of enemy aircraft and all steps
being taken to ensure that the SAM belt is completely eliminated before
the B-2's come. You want to get them all the very first time, but you
never know what may happen. The Golden BB is the thing aircrew fear
the most.

I don't think there is any point to playing armchair general and positing
highly speculative scenarios about how a war would be conducted.

However, the article that I refer to does make some interesting points that
the Iranians have managed to keep a lot of vintage American equipment in
service despite all odds. The one thing about the F-14 is that its Phoenix
missiles would make it a threat from long range. They could stay well
within the air defense umbrella and fire at distant American targets. If
the article is correct and at least a couple of dozen aircraft remain
operational, then they could present a problem to any American air campaign.
The threat to US aircraft is certainly greater from SAMs than aircraft, but
that has been the case for decades.




D

"Harry Andreas" wrote in message
...
In article .com, "~^
beancounter ~^" wrote:

in going through some old navy paperwork i came across this..
"the f14 requires 50 to 60 maint hrs every hour it flies, while the
super hornet needs 10 to 15 maint hrs for each flight hour...

if true, thats a hell of a difference...

Those are more or less the numbers that I've heard.
BTW, the maint hrs/flt hr is still going down.
It's lower on the E/F than the C/D (so I've heard).

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

Having had the additional duties several times as Asst. MaintO and MaintO in
a squadron, (for earlier generations of aircraft) and spending a number of
years in DOD (mostly DARPA), I can tell you that those figures are pretty
solid. The more modern an aircraft is, the more it is "plug and play" to
borrow a computer term.the aircraft is. Just about everything is a SECREP
(secondary repairable). Organizational Maintenance will unplug and swap
boxes, board, modules etc. on the aircraft, replace with new/repaired items,
test and if passed "up the system". If it fails then another is plugged in
its place. Heck even bad wires are replaced as part of a harness assembly.

The SECREP then goes to Intermediate or Depot Maintenance for repair, and
after repair it goes back into the supply system. About the only, "old time
maintenance" that takes place on an aircraft anymore is cleaning, polishing,
fueling, ordnance, maybe a little adjustment on the gun or hard points etc.
and occasionally some body work/repair, just about everything else is
swapped. This swapping out means that an aircraft can be turned around
quickly, and doesn't have to wait until the specified hours of maintenance
have been performed. In other words it could actually be back in the air as
hours of maintenance are still being performed.

When the hours are figured (maintenance hour per hour of flight, mean time
between failure) or whatever the "bean-counters" want to know, it usually
included all the maintenance hours throughout the system organizational,
intermediate, or depot. (New manufactured items are not included in these
calculations but may be in other service wide figures. As everything is in
the computers, these figures can be easily recovered for an individual part,
aircraft, squadron, wing, ship, fleet, service, manufacturer, year, month
day, hour, what ever keeps people happy, and employed.)

And as with all figures, people can manipulate them to show just about
anything they want to show in any light. In fact many build a career on
doing just that.

----------
In article , "Diamond Jim"
wrote:

solid. The more modern an aircraft is, the more it is "plug and play" to
borrow a computer term.the aircraft is. Just about everything is a SECREP
(secondary repairable). Organizational Maintenance will unplug and swap
boxes, board, modules etc. on the aircraft, replace with new/repaired items,
test and if passed "up the system". If it fails then another is plugged in
its place. Heck even bad wires are replaced as part of a harness assembly.

The SECREP then goes to Intermediate or Depot Maintenance for repair, and
after repair it goes back into the supply system. About the only, "old time
maintenance" that takes place on an aircraft anymore is cleaning, polishing,

Certainly modern systems are more reliable than older ones. However,
correct me if I'm wrong, but it is not simply the issue of having "plug and
play" systems, but also sufficient spares to replace them. It doesn't
matter if you can pull the faulty system out of the aircraft and send it off
to maintenance if you don't have a replacement. No replacement and the
aircraft sits until the system is fixed.



D

----------
In article ,
(Harry Andreas) wrote:

1. The AIM-54's that Iran has are well past their shelf life and probably
don't
even work now. Maybe they have been mod'd locally to continue working,
maybe not.

Well, read the article. They go into this. The article claims that the
Iranians manufactured replacement components to keep the missiles
operational. These included batteries. Later they developed a system that
did not require the F-14 to provide cooling. The article also claims that
the Iranians eventually reverse-engineered the missiles.

Only the CIA and the USN know for sure, but

Well, and the Iranians.


2. since the Iranians were seen trying to fit a Hawk missile to the F-14 it's
probable that the AIM-54's don't work. Otherwise, why would they?

The article goes into this. They tried that (it flopped) in order to add to
their missile inventory.


3. Even if the AIM-54's do work, the USN has the keys to the kingdom so
to speak. They know all the ways to defeat the missile both with
electronics and manuever.

I don't think the AIM-54 is a threat anymore.

One could say the same about the SA-2, and the SA-3, right? But SA-2s and
SA-3s, a design dating back to the early 1960s, have downed American
aircraft.

That's not to say that this is an extreme threat. And it's not to say that
the USN has no countermeasures. It's simply saying that they apparently
still have limited stocks of this formidable missile and the potential to
use them.



D

Mike Kanze wrote:
However, the article that I refer to does make some interesting points
that
the Iranians have managed to keep a lot of vintage American equipment in
service despite all odds.

Something none of us should discount.

Lookit the 1950s vintage American cars that still haunt Havana's streets.

Or the 1950's vintage American cars that some clever Cubans turned into
boats and tried to drive to Miami.

ALV

--
Mike Kanze

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not
certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

- Albert Einstein



"DDAY" mailto wrote in message
k.net...
----------
In article .com
egroups.com,
wrote:

tone of their reporting seems to imply a bias toward the
Iranians. And
they seem top have good access to unimpeachable sources inside Iran.
Were it not for their astute reporting, we would never know what was
going on inside Iran.

I think this is an overstatement, or at least a misstatement. You are
implying, essentially, that they are tools of the Iranian
government. But
that's clearly _not_ the case. In their F-14 book they make it
quite clear
that the Iranian revolutionary government has been pretty repressive
towards
the air force and the pilots. This is actually understandable,
because the
Iranian pilots were trained in the 1970s by the US and naturally a
revolutionary government would be suspicious of these people.

Cooper makes clear that many of his sources are ex-pat
Iranians--people who
left the country even as late as the mid-1990s. Not all of these people
would necessarily be against the current government, but a fair
number of
them certainly are.

My interpretation of this is that Cooper and Bishop are essentially
a couple
of guys who have a major interest in the Iranian air force and are
impressed
by it, but certainly not pro-Iran. They could be characterized as "pro
Iranian air force" while "anti Iranian government." But they're
more likely
simply buffs who think that the Iranian air force is
interesting--and cool.
That doesn't imply sympathy toward the government, or any kind of
government
sanction. I think that they've probably built up sources over time and
these sources trust them to greater or lesser extent.

My concern is less with their bias than with their analytical
methods. Bias
is easily detectable, but methods are not. I don't know how careful
they
are at checking their information. I'm not saying that they're bad
at it,
only that I don't know how carefully they check it. For instance,
if one
person tells them something do they report it, or do they only
report it if
they can confirm it from another source? We don't know that.
Fortunately,
some of their claims are proven by their photographs. We can tell, for
instance, that Iran was still showing off its F-14s as recently as 2004.
And although they did not put an AIM-54 missile on display, they did
display
a training round, which obviously implies that they still train to fire
these missiles.


Thanks for correcting me on our supply of curise missiles. It is
nice
to have 2000 on hand and to be able to expend 300 in a day or two's
worth of attack.

The exact number is classified, but I believe that the last time I saw a
discussion of this in a military journal they said that the number
was "over
2600."


area be raked over by SEAD Vipers, F-15E's dropping bombs on value
targets with cruise missiles hitting air bases to maximize confusion
and F-15C's doing air interdiction of enemy aircraft and all steps
being taken to ensure that the SAM belt is completely eliminated
before
the B-2's come. You want to get them all the very first time,
but you
never know what may happen. The Golden BB is the thing aircrew fear
the most.

I don't think there is any point to playing armchair general and
positing
highly speculative scenarios about how a war would be conducted.

However, the article that I refer to does make some interesting
points that
the Iranians have managed to keep a lot of vintage American equipment in
service despite all odds. The one thing about the F-14 is that its
Phoenix
missiles would make it a threat from long range. They could stay well
within the air defense umbrella and fire at distant American
targets. If
the article is correct and at least a couple of dozen aircraft remain
operational, then they could present a problem to any American air
campaign.
The threat to US aircraft is certainly greater from SAMs than
aircraft, but
that has been the case for decades.




D

i would put my $ on the us navy over
any irian'ian navy....time will tell, we
have controlled that area now for 15
years....i am sure our boys know their
"way around"......

Certainly hours are being saved where they count most - at the tip of the spear.

But what's really happening here is that some of the needed maintenance hours are transferred from the squadron level to the intermediate or depot levels. (Presumably the other hours saved have come from quality and reliability improvements: Tom generation versus Bug generation versus SuperBug generation.)

A total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis of the entire aircraft fleet and the spares inventory supporting it would show the real total maintenance hours/$. Unfortunately, I am also realistic enough to know that if you're a squadron skipper and it's not all coming out of your own pocket, you will rightly give a rat's fanny about the rest.

--
Mike Kanze

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

- Albert Einstein


"Diamond Jim" wrote in message ...

"Harry Andreas" wrote in message
...
In article .com, "~^
beancounter ~^" wrote:

in going through some old navy paperwork i came across this..
"the f14 requires 50 to 60 maint hrs every hour it flies, while the
super hornet needs 10 to 15 maint hrs for each flight hour...

if true, thats a hell of a difference...

Those are more or less the numbers that I've heard.
BTW, the maint hrs/flt hr is still going down.
It's lower on the E/F than the C/D (so I've heard).

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

Having had the additional duties several times as Asst. MaintO and MaintO in
a squadron, (for earlier generations of aircraft) and spending a number of
years in DOD (mostly DARPA), I can tell you that those figures are pretty
solid. The more modern an aircraft is, the more it is "plug and play" to
borrow a computer term.the aircraft is. Just about everything is a SECREP
(secondary repairable). Organizational Maintenance will unplug and swap
boxes, board, modules etc. on the aircraft, replace with new/repaired items,
test and if passed "up the system". If it fails then another is plugged in
its place. Heck even bad wires are replaced as part of a harness assembly.

The SECREP then goes to Intermediate or Depot Maintenance for repair, and
after repair it goes back into the supply system. About the only, "old time
maintenance" that takes place on an aircraft anymore is cleaning, polishing,
fueling, ordnance, maybe a little adjustment on the gun or hard points etc.
and occasionally some body work/repair, just about everything else is
swapped. This swapping out means that an aircraft can be turned around
quickly, and doesn't have to wait until the specified hours of maintenance
have been performed. In other words it could actually be back in the air as
hours of maintenance are still being performed.

When the hours are figured (maintenance hour per hour of flight, mean time
between failure) or whatever the "bean-counters" want to know, it usually
included all the maintenance hours throughout the system organizational,
intermediate, or depot. (New manufactured items are not included in these
calculations but may be in other service wide figures. As everything is in
the computers, these figures can be easily recovered for an individual part,
aircraft, squadron, wing, ship, fleet, service, manufacturer, year, month
day, hour, what ever keeps people happy, and employed.)

And as with all figures, people can manipulate them to show just about
anything they want to show in any light. In fact many build a career on
doing just that.

In article , "Mike Kanze"
wrote:

However, the article that I refer to does make some interesting points =
that
the Iranians have managed to keep a lot of vintage American equipment in
service despite all odds.

Something none of us should discount.=20

Lookit the 1950s vintage American cars that still haunt Havana's =
streets.=20

I haven't located a copy of the magazine yet, but keeping a missile in service
is slightly more complex than a 50's era car.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur