World trembles in confusion and/or fear at Iran's fiberglass airplane | Hacker News Reader

World trembles in confusion and/or fear at Iran's fiberglass airplane

arstechnica.com

55 pointsmatan_a59 comments

I happened to flip past Fox News on Saturday and caught their coverage of this aircraft. The Iranian claims about the aircraft were presented in a serious and menacing fashion. Their coverage reminds me of the US policy of trumpeting a huge imbalance of power favoring the USSR back in the Reagan years.

The 'plug' at the back seems about the right size for an ICBM. Maybe the idea is to fit this contraption in front of an ICBM and then crash it into targets while people are still confused why the plane is angling for the ground.

Can't see how else it would work!

I could see it being a cruise missile of sorts, but I honestly don't see them pushing that thing into space as is anytime soon and it certainly wouldn't withstand reentry.

Swap out the ICBM for a cruise missile and you might be on to something.

I think the second they launch it on top of an ICBM the hatch will break open...

Why would all those labels, like the labels on the "engine plug" be in English and not Persian? I mean, unless this thing were meant to be consumed by an english speaking audience...

You make a good point, but it is not uncommon for engineers to use English around the world. There are so many text books and source materials available in English, especially in aerospace. They claimed to use CATIA software for the design, which is originally French but has an English version. I'd be shocked if there is a Persian version of the software.

The flip side is that you would really want ground crews to be able to read warnings and such. So while one could justify english on the engineering front, native language makes more sense on a production version.

Fair enough. The labels on the plane itself didn't seem quite as odd to me.

Iran and France had quiet close relations. Today English is a more common second language than French in Iran.

I am a Danish software developer.

All our code, all comments, designs, file names, variable names, etc is in English. If I am looking for a solution to an issue on the internet, chances are I am googling in English.

So labeling something in English is peculiar, but not that strange.

Using English on labels is already extremely unlikely if we are talking about a country as nationalistic as, say, France. It becomes downright unthinkable in the case of Iran.

In addition to what asynchronous13 mentioned, the Iranian Air Force maintains and fields several US exports (notably the F4 and the F14). It wouldn't be terribly surprising if their techs were already proficient in English in order to service those aircraft.

Some funny things I noticed:

  It looks like they built in 2 or 3 car radio systems.
  When the pilot is sitting in his chair he can't reach the controls in front of him.
  The exhaust will melt the body.
  The canopy doesn't give a clear view.

Also funny

I showed this picture to Science Editor Dr. John Timmer, who knows a thing or two about how science works, and after a moment of silence he responded by saying, "No f------ way."

They are actually real avionics, but off-the-shelf ones.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=6432&ra=true

http://www.trutrakflightsystems.com/products/Sorcerer.html

I think people are mistaking a flying bomb for an actual fighter aircraft. The goal would be to overwhelm naval resources in the cramped gulf. If you have enough people willing to do one way missions, a different sort of chariot is in mind. Considering the massed wave tactics of the Iran-Iraq war, I don't think they were thinking of making something to show at the Paris Air Show between the Lockheed and EADS booths.

It must be pretty expensive to create these all as basically cruise missiles with a human for guidance.

They'd have a hard time flying it into anything with the cockpit controls not even wired in, and no attachment points for the canopy. It also doesn't look like the landing gear is even retractable.

> flying bomb

Otherwise known as a missile, which doesn't require designing and building a clone of the incredibly expensive F-22. Why would they waste time and money designing something that would fly slower than a missile and be much easier to shoot down? The whole thing is a poorly executed hoax.

There's an official video here http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/02/02/286841/iran-unveils-...

Iran's state media is hilarious.

Those of us from the US really shouldn't be laughing. Had US propaganda wished, we'd be running around in fear of these things, just like with Saddam Hussein's WMDs and all the other boogieman tales which whip up support for international violence.

This is described as a "fighter plane" but I fail to see how you could attach any destructive payload on such a tiny plane. The wings are so small that anything attached underneath would severely impair airflow

This thing has more in common with a homebuilt kit plane like a Vans RV-8 than it does with a modern fighter jet. No HUD, and the rest of the c*pit looks like it is made out of styrofoam and plywood. The exhaust doesn't even have a variable nozzle, let alone thrust vectoring. The exterior is absurd, I know that LO coatings and materials take special application, but they should at least be able to have a non-wavy surface. I'll second the opinion of most other people, I doubt this thing actually flies, and if it does manage to fly I'll bet its performance is dismal.

This was posted on reddit a few days ago and was called a giant hoax / RC controlled. Any deeper insight on this? The pilot seat looks way to small, and there are no landing or take off videos either.

It's difficult to offer a deep insight on this, because it's so patently absurd. The easiest way to understand why this can't possibly be a real aircraft is to look at photos of actual aircraft. Do a Google image searches for F-117, F-22, F/A-18, F-15, and F-16. Keep in mind that the F-16 is a very small aircraft. Now compare the proportions of the Iranian "aircraft" to any of these actual aircraft. Also keep a close eye on the surface textures, shapes, and connections on the real aircraft and compare them to the Iranian hoax. Reality quickly comes crashing down around it.

I have a hard time believing anything Iran releases to the "media" as anything but propaganda until proven otherwise.

Is this suppose to be functional plane? Prototype? Mockup? Until this thing is seen in the least flying this isn't even cause for a second look.

While i am 100% american and other countries are following this i can bet with almost the same certainty that they are in no way in "fear" of it. In comparison to there nuclear program this is a mere side note.

IMO this thing looks like it will fly about as well as a whale, but then again i am no aerospace engineer.

Whatever they want the world to believe it to be, it's a mockup. It's a thin fiberglass shell with non-functional canopy, and it's the wrong size to actually fly.

I used to doubt stuff like this, but Iran did built their own uranium centrifuges.

Also seemly they did captured some drones, and this would be plenty of material to reverse engineer.

Did you actually look at the pictures?

The most shitty looking part is that canopy. I wouldn't want to drive a car looking through that, much less a plane.

Oh, just look at the pictures! Look at the fiberglass seams on the body and the shoddy finish of the skin and moldings in the cockpit. Look at the edge where the canopy seals. See any structural attachment points for the canopy? Compare to a real airplane [1] and see if you can spot the differences.

1. http://www.airforcetimes.com/xml/news/2009/01/airforce_pilot...

The De Havilland Mosquito ("The Wooden Wonder", also known as "The Timber Terror") was a military aircraft that excelled in a number of roles during World War II. It was a twin-engine aircraft with the pilot and navigator sitting side by side. Unorthodox in design, it used a plywood structure of spruce and balsa in a time when wooden construction was considered outdated.

No they didn't. They used oil money to pay the Russians to build/assemble/train them on their illegally imported centrifuges such as the Siemens ones the Stuxnet worm targeted.

...this joke aside, I really wonder how the first 3d printed / milled aircraft will look like (I mean put together entirely from printed components using a home-brewed or bought from ebay 3d printer and metal mill) ...and then I imagine someone getting their hands on some "printable" cruise missile schemes and printing one his garage - scary shit...

A cruise missile milled out of plastic and missing components like the explosive payload and the rocket fuel...

You can build a 'cruise missile' right now in your garage pretty easily, being able to print one shouldn't be any scarier than that.

The scary part is the warhead, and you don't just print that from a spool of plastic. If someone can make such a thing for a printed cruise missile and do mean stuff with it, they can surely stick it in the back of a pickup truck too.

The plane as a whole is clearly non-functional but there are parts that are from a real aircraft. Where do you think that landing gear came from? Certainly not the downed RQ-170...?

This is an embarrassing and desperate stunt from the Iranian establishment. They are clearly aiming this at an uneducated voter base who outnumber those who know the reality.

Whether points made about the aircraft are valid or not, the tone of the article is very biased. As if only the idea of inventing your own modern airplane is ridiculous, let alone iran could do such a thing. I highly doubt iran is not aware of the (critique &&) attention it gets with this news and their space monkey.

Ha! The Iranians are trying to pretend to be a military superpower. Iran is so backwards that the country can barely keep their planes flying. It takes an open minded culture to achieve technological advancement. The brightest people may come from anywhere, from any background, sex, or sexual preference. If you don't embrace everyone an open mind, you will never have the top talent working for you.

Now I do believe that North Korea could make great scientific and technological strides on its own. Its economy may be faltering, but I suspect their culture seeks out the very brightest people & puts them to work on very hard problems.

> Now I do believe that North Korea could make great scientific and technological strides on its own. Its economy may be faltering, but I suspect their culture seeks out the very brightest people & puts them to work on very hard problems.

or kills them.

North Korea appears to have had at least partial success building a nuclear weapon. It is my personal belief that Iran is incapable of doing the same. I base this belief on the little that I know about the two cultures. One society is a communist government, that will presumably accept anyone provided that they tow the party line, and the other demands religious fanaticism, and disrespects over 50% of their population.

I am not saying I approve of the North Korean government (that said, I don't like most governments). But I do believe the North Koreans are better positioned to be a real threat.

My father-in-law was a VP for Northrop Grumman's satellite and aerospace division whose primary customer was the US government. Needless to say, this put him in contact with many people and many defense secrets.

North Korea is the thing that keeps him awake at night. The combination of the capability you mention with egotistical insanity at the reigns is never a good combination.

  | One society is a communist government, that will
  | presumably accept anyone provided that they tow
  | the party line

You do realize that if you fail to tow the party line your entire family gets sent to a concentration camp (even if they were all towing the party line), right?

Yeah, and if the regime starts to need you for whatever reason, then you get picked right back from the concentration camp (at least Stalin did it many times). The parent post is claiming the efficiency difference from not repressing the people you need to do X; repressing/not repressing innocent people is somewhat irrelevant for that part.

The other difference is that North Korea is a Chinese buffer state and is explicitly enabled by the Chinese for their own purposes. The danger is that nobody really understands the power structure within the DPRK, if Kim or some crazy military faction decides that they can act unilaterally, anything can happen.

The Iranians at the end of the day are playing the 21st century version "the great game". They have strategic goals, and they aren't a 1984-style totalitarian state.

"puts them to work" indeed. I'd imagine you'd be working more or less at gunpoint...

North Korea was only able to get as far as they did with Russian and the Chinese help. Iran cut ties with about everyone since the revolution in 79 and has been relatively too unstable for anyone to be a true supporter.

Plus we can be assured they are making the same presentation to their own people. Remember, its far easier to stay in power when you convince your own that the bogeymen "over there" are far far worse and its the sacrifices being made by everyday citizens that keeps us all safe.

You have an economy spiraling out of control, see http://www.cato.org/blog/value-iranian-rial-hits-all-time-lo... , as an example, so expect more boasting other similar redirects. Look at how Argentina, Venezuela, and yes North Korea, all employ similar tactics.

Then shudder when you realize how our own government does the same with us and how many fall for it. People inherently want to trust their government and governments exploit that

>>>It takes an open minded culture to achieve technological advancement

Were you alive in the 1960s when the Soviet Union and the US were in a space race?

EDIT for a typo

Just so you know, they were quite open minded and were doing very well, until the US came in for the oil:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_AHJQiMxIw

Photo of women in 1979, before Islamic Revolution:

http://i47.tinypic.com/eagiv9.jpg

That's an odd photo to use to support your claim. In 1979 Iran was under the leadership of the Shah, who was heavily supported by the US.

The shah didn't bring forth the current cultural state, but he was a cause of the revolution that in turn brought about the current cultural state.

Are you saying that what happened on and after 1979, would have happened anyway? How hypocritical. I can't understand that need to rewrite history to look good. I guess it's hard to tell your children stories of how you destroyed entire cultures. Fairy tales are nicer.

I think you're confused about Iranian history and US-Iranian relations.

I'm certainly no expert on the matter, but in broad strokes...

The US supported(propped up) that "free" regime of the Shah prior to 1979. They did that for cozy relations and cheap oil. That regime was actually quite brutal in its repression of dissidents (islamists mostly) and while it might look all pretty and western and "more like us" it was a brutal police state not unlike Egypt under Mubarak - which was also supported by the US.

There was a islamist revolution that took over the country in 1979 which ushered in the current situation - I'm sure the people that supported it then didn't envision it turning out the way it did but the whole thing is much more nuanced than black and white you seem to assume. And it wasn't the west trying to get oil that caused the 1979 revolution, it was a reaction AGAINST that western influence that caused the revolution.

Calm down. I'm not disagreeing with you.

What I'm saying is that you claimed Iran used to be a much better place before the US interfered and supported that by showing a photo from 1979. I just thought that was an odd way to support your claim since the photo is from a time when the US-supported Shah was in power. I take that as evidence that things were pretty good under the US-supported Shah.

> "It takes an open minded culture to achieve technological advancement. The brightest people may come from anywhere, from any background, sex, or sexual preference."

The US managed to become a superpower despite excluding half of their potential work force (see HN post re: IBM from yesterday) and suffering from rampant, systemic racism. The USSR became a superpower despite incredible repression

This announcement by Iran may look like a joke, but I don't think an enlightened, liberal society is a prerequisite for acquiring power.

How much do you know about that country besides regular media propaganda? Now lets look at it from other side

http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/np5dh/iran_some_...

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