I remember after the Iranian revolution the fears that the Soviets would either steal or be given an F-14.

Iran was said to be as distrustful of Russia as it was of the U.S., so any "exchange" seemed unlikely.

Well, I stumbled onto this Australian site today that contained the attached picture. Is this a surprising sight to anyone else?

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Flanker.html

Is that pic suppose to be the proof? Because it looks like a game screenshot to me.

Photoshopped.

You can see below the canopy rail where they cut the original Insignia off, and the entire image was blurred/noise reduction filtered to get rid of low DPI Scan noise.




Original:

Ahh.., very nicely solved.

there was a forum thread like 2 years ago with like 10 photoshopped images.

Haha, nice work Skatezilla!

this was a magazine photo of the BuNos that was the last Iran Tomcat that Did not get delivered to Iran.

Amazing what people will photoshop and how easy it is to spot, even more amazing that the website passes it off as legit.

Magnum P Zilla

ausaurpower.net is a nefarious website that seems to do nothing more than stir the sh!t.

I wouldn't doubt that the Russians have an F-14 or at least access to one. Just like how we (US) probably have several Mig-29s.

Even if for some case or for some remote possibility that picture was "true" (which clearly it isn't), couldn't it be possible that F-14 was a US Navy "aggressor" instead of a Soviet owned aircraft?

Nicely done 'Zila, I can't honestly say I could spot that it is a 'shopped pic.

Good job Skate. That was quick

I'm pretty sure the Russians have an F-14, A LOT of money, promises, help, whatever... is involved in all those
spy and capturing technology activities.
And an opponent as the Russians (or Chinese) have all posibilities to get a plane like that if one of their allies or (far)friends have them.
Technology is all the time exchanged between countries, friend or enemy.

My best regards, Kodiak.

We have at least 21 that we bought quite openly in the late 90's.

http://articles.latimes.com/1997/nov/05/news/mn-50473

I am pretty sure that there are more that we either got from the Germans when they retired theirs, or captured in Iraq.

There was some stuff around the same time about the US secretly getting some Su-27s and I have a book that lists the US an an operator of the Flanker. I remember e-mailing the author a question about it but I can't remember what his reply was. Regardless there is a company in IL that has 2 Su-27s that they are supposed to be using as DACT planes and I think also have offered for sale for about $5M a piece.

As far as what the Russians have access to, they got access to the F-117 that got shot down in Serbia in 99 which I think might be worse long term.