Commander: Iran's Stealth Aircraft to Fly Soon

The difference is that it will have one seat. It's still going to be the same basic aircraft. It isn't easy to convert an airplane design meant for one purpose to something with super high performance.

Actually, that is pretty easy. There is inexpensive hi-res imagery available for anyone who wants to get it. There is a lot that is free, as in the Google Earth case. It is simply foolish to believe that a shipyard can be hidden.

The video I posted indicates that for "national security reasons" the journalists are not allowed to specify the name and location of the shipyard. While I accept that a lot of these "national security secrets" are things the US easily knows about, including through satellite imagery, the many "military" facilities bombed by the US in other places, only for those facilities to only turn out to be things like "baby milk factories", show that ultimately information about these kind of facilities is not as full proof as you suggest.

Maybe a shipyard is not easy to hide, but for some reason, Iran's military considers the location of that shipyard to be secret based on the comments that accompany the video I posted. As such, even if I wanted to, I am not going to speculate about its location.

Truth be told, none of us know right now what is the fifth generation "stealth plane" that the Iranian commander is referring to. Speculation that it is based on the Shafagh stems from the fact that the latter was a project that Iran had worked on for some time. But there are indications that while Iran did build a mock up and a prototype of the plane, the project was abandoned for something else.

My own guess is that the ultimate product will lean heavily on the Shafagh project, but won't be confined by its parameters. Indeed, there was a report by Jane's back in 2006, that the Shafagh project had been abandoned as anything more than a "design concept only -- and not even a fixed one at at."

http://www.janes.com/articles/Janes...afagh-fighter-project-stays-on-the-shelf.html

You seem to need help with what the Mig-29 look like. Here is a picture of one flying for Iran.


Islamic Republic of Iran Mig 29 Fulcrom

But I have to admit that the F-14 remains, in my eyes, Iran's best warplane.


Islamic Republic of Iran F-14 Tomcat