Iran unveils first domestic fighter jet. It looks a lot like a US plane from the 1970s
President Hassan Rowhani said Tehran’s defence programme is aimed at deterring an attack by the US
Iran unveiled what it called its first domestic fighter jet at a defence show in Tehran on Tuesday. The country’s president said it would enhance Tehran’s deterrence capabilities in confronting Washington.
Images on state television showed President Hassan Rowhani sitting in the cockpit of the new plane at the National Defence Industry exhibition in Tehran.
The Tasnim news agency described the jet as a fourth-generation fighter, with “advanced avionics” and multi-purpose radar, adding that it was “100 per cent indigenously made”.
The aircraft is nicknamed “Kowsar”, which in Islam is a river in paradise and also the title of a chapter in the Koran.
At the ceremony, Rowhani said Iran’s defence programme is aimed at deterrence vis-à-vis the United States.
“The enemy should see how expensive an invasion of Iran would be,” he said. “Why does not the US wage a military attack on us? Because of our power.”
Images released by Tasnim showed a dual-cockpit jet with a single tail fin, resembling the US-made F-5F Tiger. That aircraft, which first flew in 1974, is a variant of the 1950s-era US Northrop F-5 fighter that is a long-time mainstay of the Iranian Air Force.
State television said the Kowsar had already been through successful testing and showed it waiting on a runway for its first public display flight.
The plane was first publicly announced on Saturday by Defence Minister Amir Hatami. He gave few details of the project, focusing instead on Iran’s efforts to upgrade its missile defences.
Hatami said the defence programme was motivated by memories of the missile attacks Iran suffered during its eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, and by repeated threats from Israel and the US that “all options are on the table” in dealing with the Islamic republic.
Iran has dismissed any direct talks with Washington to resolve the issues raised by Trump.
“Our top priority has been development of our missile programme. We are in a good position in this field, but we need to develop it,” Hatami was quoted as saying by Fars news agency on Saturday.
“We will present a plane on National Defence Industry Day, and people will see it fly, and the equipment designed for it,” Hatami added. Iran celebrates National Defence Industry Day on August 22.
In 2013, Iran unveiled what it said was a new, domestically built fighter jet, called Qaher 313, but some experts expressed doubts about the viability of the aircraft at the time.
Iran’s functional air force has been limited to perhaps as few as a few dozen strike aircraft, either Russian or ageing US models including F-5s that were acquired before the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Reuters