Google Earth: Iranian Air Power

I’ve browsed through the many Iranian air bases looking for interesting stuff. Depends what you find interesting I guess. For the most part Iranian bases have numerous hardened aircraft shelters and it seems that their aircraft are kept in these most of the time with few active combat aircraft being caught in the open by the satellite.


Mehraband AB, 35 41 19.42N 51 18 46.67E.
A huge base used mostly for transport aircraft such as the C-130 and An-74, Boeing 707 & 747 and an assortment of other types. Two F-4 Phantom II can be seen.

There is also what appears to be a semi-permanent SAM emplacement there:


Tabriz AB, 38 07 44.99N 46 14 24.97E. – not clearly visible.

Shahrokhi AB, 35 12 37.58N 48 39 12.60E.
Reportedly an F-4 Phantom II base, the only aircraft I could find here were a bunch of ex-Iraqi Su-22 Fitter Strike fighters which are not reported to be in use.


Vahdati AB, 32 25 57.28N 48 24 07.66E. – not clearly visible.

Umidiyeh AB, 30 49 51.88N 49 32 35.26E.
Reportedly a base for F-7 Fishbed (Chinese version of MiG-21) fighters, there are no combat aircraft to be seen.

Bushehr AB, 28 56 45.66N 50 49 42.15E.
Another well maintained base with many hardened aircraft shelters, few aircraft can be seen in the open. Two F-14A Tomcat fighters are in evidence though as is a mysterious swept wing jet:


Shiraz AB, 29 32 11.24N 52 35 18.26E.
The star of this show is an Il-76 with AWACs type radome. Possibly an A-50 “Mainstay”(?), it is more likely an ex-Iraq AEW conversion and appears to be missing an engine. There are also Su-25 Frogfoot attack aircraft and P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, as well as numerous c-130 and other assorted transports and helicopters.

There are also 11 Su-24 Fencer strike aircraft in the open on the southwest side of the base:


Khatami AB, 32 44 49.36N 51 51 17.62E. – not clearly visible.

Bandar Abbas AB, 27 12 58.83N 56 22 50.43E
Reportedly a base for F-4 Phantom IIs, I am unable to find any combat aircraft in the open.

Chahbahar AB, 25 26 41.87N 60 22 55.10E.
The only combat aircraft I found was a single F-4 Phantom II in a scramble position:


Ghale Morqhi AB, 35 38 35.80N 51 23 05.73E.
An active helicopter and light aircraft base with numerous Heuy, Mi-8 etc.

Tappeh, 35 41 46.69N 51 28 32.97E. No combat aircraft in sight.

Zahedan, 29 28 27.46N 60 54 40.94E.
This one appears to be a civilian base with only secondary military infrastructure. The key item of interest is an SA-2 “Guideline” SAM system:


Mashhad AB, 36 15.73N 59 38 38.15E.
An An-72 Coaler tactical transport can be seen on the runway and a mix of Mirage F-1 (ex-Iraqi but in service with Iran) and F-5 Tiger II fighters can be seen:


Kermanshah, 34 20 47.10N 47 09 23.70E
Only a single civilian aircraft seen but the whole north of the airfield is one gigantic fixed SAM battery:


Kerman AB, 30 15 57.77N 56 57 34.33E. –Not clearly visible.

Masjed Soleiman AB, 31 59 54.86N 49 16 16.67E. –Not clearly visible.

WATS for that Planeman

Weird place to do engine maintenance for the awacs, but i assume Iran should be able to obtain spares for IL...

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cool find

Great Work, Planeman

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Thats an absolutely incredible post. If you don't get the WATS this month, something is wrong.

Do you think that the lack of planes in view and the pressence of those old ex-iraq 'out of service' planes indicate that the Iranians are trying to not only hide their jets, but also give the US a false impression about what they have? A trick, so to speak?

Outstanding!

This is the sort of post I would love to see more of on ATS.

Presented well, a joy to read, and packed with enough useful facts to serve as a concise but authoritative reference.

Very nicely done.

Thank you so much for sharing it with us!

Good post.

Does anybody else think that some of these could also be decoy aircraft and fake airbases.

Great post

But you have to remember you cant always trust your eyes. That AWACs could easily be a decoy nothing more then a empty fiber glass dome on a old airplane. Seeing that it doesn't seem fight worthy (missing a engine and al)l its not out of the realm of possibility. Its a tactic that goes back to atleast WW2 with plywood tanks and other fake military equipment.

Im not saying that this is the case in these pictures but its something to always keep in mind since deception is such a important part of Warfare.

Originally posted by planeman
Bushehr AB, 28 56 45.66N 50 49 42.15E.
Two F-14A Tomcat fighters are in evidence though as is a mysterious swept wing jet:

It looks like a su-27 to me. It's certainly not a su-24. It may very well be a mig-29, Anyone?

not surprised at all, iran has relocated many of its tomcats to the Bushehr Airport. That's where Iranian nuclear reactor is built.

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It isn't the possibility of these being decoys that interest me. It is what is the operational status of the hardware that is shown? After the fall of the Soviet Union it was found out that the operational capability of much of it's military hardware was lacking. I can see that Iran has the planes and missiles, fine, but are they operational, what is the training level of their pilots and is the infrastructure in place to support sustained operations? This is not to detract in any way from planeman's excellant post.

Firstly, thanks for all the encouragement and feedback, it's nice to know my hard work is appreciated.


My take on what I found using google earth:

Il-76 Candid with AEW radome. I think it's an ex-iraqi one which probably fled to Iran in 1991. The engine missing is not conclusive that it doesn't fly and it is blocking a taxi way so I doubt it's in perminant storage in that position. BUT, I don't think a single AEW platform makes that much difference on its own to the strategic imbalance in a US-Iran show-down; just as they didn't help Iraq. I don't think it's a decoy, or if it is, it wouldn't fool the US.

Tomcats
I am sure that they aren't Su-27s. There are no reports of Iran operating Flankers which wouldn't have gone unnoticed. Iran has maybe 80 F-14 airframes of which I found just two. How many are airworthy?; at least some.

General absence of combat aircraft
Credit where credit's due, they use their shelters unlike many air arms. I couldn't see many of their air bases and notably saw none of their MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters. It may be a deception, but more likely it's just professionalism on the part of the IIRAF.

Ah so their MiG-29s are most likely in their hardened aircraft shelters. Wasnt Iran suppose to upgrade a bunch of their Mig-29s to SMT verisons?

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Nice research. The NRO should recruit you...

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
Ah so their MiG-29s are most likely in their hardened aircraft shelters. Wasnt Iran suppose to upgrade a bunch of their Mig-29s to SMT verisons?

apparently, Iran has bought as many as 35 Zhuk radars from Russia as part of the program to upgrade its Mig-29s to SMT standard. as soon as I find the source, I'll provide the link.

Cheers,

Originally posted by planeman
Iran has maybe 80 F-14 airframes of which I found just two. How many are airworthy?; at least some.

79 F-14A’s were sold to Iran, considering the timeline and all subsequent problems that come as a result I’d say at the most they have one squadron operational <18 planes. I don't know what missiles they may be equipped with, if they still have Aim-54’s I strongly recommend they do not fly with them.

Good find, and awesome work on identifying all those planes from those grainy aerial photos

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Wow that was interesting. I'm aware that Israel has sold China all kinds of military technology that the US won't sell them. With China's investments in Iran I think it's safe to say Iran has all the modern radar systems. Plus whatever missile batteries and cruise missiles that Iran has obtained legally or illegally.

It's going to be a terrible bloodbath for everyone in the persian gulf when the USAF and IAF attack.

[edit on 14-6-2006 by Crazy_Mr_Crowley]

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Way the go planeman!

No one operated an E-3C in the middle east did they? the EAW&C (Early Air Warning and Control) aircraft pictured here is most definitly a IL-76 though but I was wondering if they ever were able to get a hold of one.

Ok, re the AEW aircraft. The leading theory seems to be that it is an ex-Iraqi "Adan-1" aircraft which is rumoured (and likely) to have flown there during GW1. There are several AEW versions of the Il-76 "Candid" around the world:
1. A-50 "Mainstay", Russia
2. KJ-2000, China
3. Phalcon, Israel~India
4. Adan-1, Iraq
5. Baghdad-1, Iraq

We can rule out the Baghdad-1 for two reasons. Firstly it's Tigre radar was mounted under the rear fuselage not in a top-mounted radome as seen here, and secondly, the only example was apparently rebuilt into an "Adan-1" before GW1.

Ok, so next I go find google-earth images of the other Il-76 derived AEW platforms for comparison:
(Note that they are all the same size in reality....)

note that the A-50 Mainstay's rotadome is all one color. This is consistant throughout all web images of the A-50.

We can also rule out both the Chinese KJ-2000 and Phalcon because they have three phased array radars mounted in a triangular pattern as shown in the satalite image above.

That leaves the Adan-1 or some new conversion. Here's two pictures of an Adan-1 I found on the web:



I think we can safely say that it is an ex-Iraqi Adan-1.


Re the small swept-wing mystery jet at Bushehr. It could be an ex-iraqi Super-etendard. It's too small to be a Falcon 20.