Iran may eventually design an actual flying jet plane resembling the mockups it passed off as
the real thing—but even, such a plane would likely merely be a testbed and showpiece.
By now, one can consult the experience of the United States,
China and Russia to show what a real stealth fighter program would entail. By comparison,
Iran’s effort does not seem credible. There can be such a thing as posturing too hard.
Iran’s aviation industry has accomplishments
to boast about despite operating under heavy sanctions for nearly forty years.
It has managed to keep once state-of-the-art U.S.-built F-4 Phantom and F-14 Tomcat fighters in
operational condition for decades, including nine years of high-intensity aerial warfare with Iraq,
despite being cut off from spare parts from the United States. It has refurbished the rusting
hulks of old F-5 Freedom Fighters into twin-vertical stabilizer Saeqeh fighters,
reverse-engineered their J85 turbojet engines, and created a variety of viable capable drones.
All of these scrappy-underdog accomplishments fall far short of developing a working stealth fighter.
Russia, which possesses a mature military aviation industry, has basically thrown the towel on its
Su-57 stealth fighter program (at least on the short term) because the expenses and technical
challenges have proven so prohibitive. Much wealthier countries ranging from France, Germany,
India, Japan and the UK are only in the early stages of developing their own.
Stealth jets generally carry weapons in internal bays to maintain a low-radar cross section.
But such internal bays, or even provisions for external weapons or sensors, were visibly absent.
Iran claimed the little Qaher could somehow carry two two-thousand-pound bombs and six
air-to-air missiles—but the airframe simply did not have enough space to carry them all.
Iranian state media released a video which supposedly depicted a Qaher in flight.
But a glance at the footage made clear it was a less-than-full-scale remote-control replica.
After the outcry, Iranian media clarified that these
were in fact two different reduced-sized test drones.
Another dramatic photo depicting a Qaher flying against a mountain backdrop appears
to have been produced via the magic of Photoshop.
Basically, the Qaher was a highly unconvincing plastic mockup designed for crude propaganda
purposes—and international media called it out for being just that.
The hypothetical stealth jet disappeared for several years
only to resurface in a somewhat more convincing form in April 2017 when prototyped number “8”
was paraded before President Rouhani and recorded taxiing on a runway.
This time, Iranian media conceded that the jet had yet to undergo flight tests.
The new jet now has a cockpit that can fit a full-sized pilot,
two turbojet engines with exhaust nozzles so as not to melt itself, and an infrared-sensor
turret under the nose which could be handy but would likely mess up its radar cross section.
The turbojets are believed to be J85s, an American-built type from the 1950s which Iran
successfully reverse-engineered. The Qaher has a wingspan of only 11 meters and is 16 meters long.
However, the unconventional airframe still seems rife with
aerodynamic flaws and radar reflective hot spots.
Moreover, sharp-eyed analyst Galen Wright noticed that an
Iranian mechanic had stenciled on the tire-pressure for the Qaher as 50 psi.
For comparison, the tires on a lightweight F-16 ramp up to 300 psi. This suggests
even the more realistic Qaher model is too light to be a real, functioning jet fighter.
For that matter, the notion that even the mockup Qaher has a stealthy radar
cross section is dubious as Iran likely lacks the
prerequisite radar-absorbent material and precision-engineering technology.
Notably, the Fars news agency described the new Qaher as a “logistic aircraft” (whatever that
means—it’s clearly not a cargo plane) and a “light fighter jet for military and training purposes.”
This hints that if Iran ever does build flying Qaher,
it might not be intended for frontline service.
Perhaps it could serve as a prototype,
or a means to test detection of a quasi-low-observable airframe.
Iranian sources, including a deputy defense minister, have also offered the eyebrow-raising
claim that the Qaher is intended to shoot down helicopters, based on a chain of dubious premises.
Supposedly, the threat posed by swarms of Iranian motorboats armed with anti-ship missiles
is so great that the U.S. Navy will rely on attack helicopters to destroy them.
These, however, could in turn be easily shot down by fighters—so long as those fighters are
stealthy enough to evade the surface-to-air missiles of ships, so the reasoning goes.