# Partless in Persia: How does Iran maintain its US made aircraft? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 20, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860 "2011-12-20T16:26:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_Wikipedia_Cites)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/1 "2011-12-20T16:26:38Z")
Word on the net is that the US ‘shredded’ F-14’s when they were decommissioned in 2006, to avoid Iran getting any spare parts. Iran got their F-14’s from the US in 1976 or so. Ok, so how does Iran keep them flight worthy, with no extra spare parts coming their way? It’s been 35 years. Can they manufacture their own? If so, why did we bother destroying our valuable F-14’s when we could have sold them to another (non-hostile) country in need of fighter planes? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/2 "2011-12-20T16:30:59Z")
Wikipedia says they have 44 but only 25 are thought to be operational, so I imagine they’re cannibalizing parts from some of them to keep the rest flying. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/3 "2011-12-20T17:14:04Z")
See them fighting for power, But they know not the hour; So they bribing with their guns, spare parts and money, Trying to belittle our integrity now. —Bob Marley ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/4 "2011-12-20T17:32:51Z")
> [@No\_Wikipedia\_Cites](#): > > Iran got their F-14’s from the US in 1976 or so. > > Ok, so how does Iran keep them flight worthy, with no extra spare parts coming their way? It’s been 35 years. Can they manufacture their own? If so, why did we bother destroying our valuable F-14’s when we could have sold them to another (non-hostile) country in need of fighter planes? What **Simplicio** said: cannibalizing parts from some airframes to keep the others flying. Kind of like a junkyard. It’s easier in Iran’s case because its aircraft were bought as one large order and are all the same variant other than a couple of trainers. They’ve almost certainly been buying parts from scrapped US Navy aircraft on the black market, too. It’s not an uncommon practice. India has been doing it for some time with its MiG-21s, because the Russians have stopped making parts. Until metal fatigue makes the airframes themselves inoperable (or dangerous) it can be done more or less until you run out of planes. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/5 "2011-12-20T17:48:10Z")
Oh sure…that’s the official answer. However, considering that Iran is able to reverse engineer one of our stealth drones (not to mention being able to ‘shoot it down’ by taking control of it remotely!), they are actually in the process of building a fleet of even more advanced fighters than those old, creaky F-14’s they had from before the Shah got deposed. So making spare parts for them is no sweat. It’s installing the 1920’s style death-ray features that took them more than 5 minutes to work out… -XT ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/6 "2011-12-20T18:34:45Z")
Cannibalized parts, reverse-engineered parts, black-market parts, parts obtained from countries that still have good diplomatic relations with Iran, etc. The parts may not be as good or reliable as original/approved parts, but they still work…at least for a time. On the commercial side of things, companies like Boeing and Airbus cannot sell parts to Iranian airlines, and people involved in aviation safety are pretty much united in thinking that this is a terrible idea… not because we want to support Iran, but _because planes are crashing and innocent people are dying_ as a consequence of this “punishment”. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/7 "2011-12-20T18:48:31Z")
In the case of F-14s, buying parts from other countries doesn’t work because they are the only foreign operator of the type. They can get other countries to refit the aircraft, but not to replace parts for the existing systems, for the most part. ---
**Author:** ![PacifistPorcupine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PacifistPorcupine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PacifistPorcupine)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/8 "2011-12-20T18:56:36Z")
How often do they fly the planes that are operational? Is it 15 minutes every year for a parade, or is it on a regular basis so that the pilots can get training? Pilots flying old planes with little training would not last long in a war against a modern enemy. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/9 "2011-12-20T19:13:13Z")
Not very. The Tomcat is a maintenance-heavy plane with highly stressed engines. I’d guess somewhere in between your once-a-year and regular scenarios. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2011, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/10 "2011-12-20T22:44:06Z")
Back to the OP. The F-14 is hopelessly obsolete now. Any thought that our run-out F-14s are “valuable” is wrong. So we’re not losing anything by shredding them. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/11 "2011-12-21T00:02:20Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Back to the OP. The F-14 is hopelessly obsolete now. If the Israelis want to bomb their nuclear facilities, are they going up against more than antiquated F-14s? If the Iranians can get surface to air missiles, why can’t they obtain modern fighter planes? ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/12 "2011-12-21T01:24:36Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > Cannibalized parts, reverse-engineered parts, black-market parts, parts obtained from countries that still have good diplomatic relations with Iran, etc. While not specific to F-14 spares as far as I know, there was one other source for spares for US made equipment. Anybody remember [Iran-Contra](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair)? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/13 "2011-12-21T02:19:36Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Anybody remember [Iran-Contra](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair)? I thought we filed the firing pins when we did that. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/14 "2011-12-21T02:42:32Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Back to the OP. The F-14 is hopelessly obsolete now. Any thought that our run-out F-14s are “valuable” is wrong. That’s a bit much. The F-14 is hopelessly outclassed by the F/A-18, F-22 and F-35, but in terms of speed and maneuverability, it’s capable of taking on the F-16s and MiG-25s it’s most likely to come up against. Modern avionics are a different story, obviously; generation-4.5 and beyond aircraft (including Israel’s upgraded F-16s) would slaughter it. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/15 "2011-12-21T03:01:26Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > If the Iranians can get surface to air missiles, why can’t they obtain modern fighter planes? Who would they buy them from? I don’t know how many manufacturers of fighter planes are out there, but most of them rely on domestic government funding to design and manufacture their aircraft, so if the domestic governments don’t want the product being sold to certain countries, the manufacturers won’t sell them, because they want their defense contracts. Is Russia dealing with Iran and willing to sell them planes that they design? The USA and Western Europe aren’t. Iran could design their own, but they may not have the natural resources…or access to imports…of materials they may need. If they can’t source components and materials, they can’t build a plane, and it’s rather difficult to build a modern fighter plane from scratch (no existing manufacturing lines, no current skilled labour with experience in the industry, etc.). It’s just not that easy when significant parts of the world won’t trade with you! ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/16 "2011-12-21T14:34:23Z")
The Iranians also have some MiG-29s which were flown in by Iraqi defectors, and some it bought itself, and is building some of its own fighters (whose foreign input is in question). ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/17 "2011-12-21T17:34:59Z")
Well, if you want it bad enough, and have enough money, you can make your own parts. This isn’t an uncommon problem for people who restore antique vehicles like cars, motorcycles, and even airplanes. Not saying it is easy, and the jet engines are particularly tough, but a well equipped machine shop and decent craftsman can pretty well make any part you need…after all that is where the OEM parts came from in the first place. Airplanes are so ungodly expensive precisely because they never build a million of the same model to pay off expensive tooling that could whack them out cheap. Any special tooling has to be amortized over, at most, a production in the thousands, and often less than a hundred. As a result, much of the aircraft is made on general purpose machine tools by craftsmen working from drawings…even if these days they are just dealing with CAM files instead of turning cranks. It is especially helpful if you have a working sample to duplicate, as the Iranians do. You measure one, look at the application to get some idea of what tolerances are required, program your CNC machines to make them, and run off a batch of 10 or 100 spares while you are at it. After a while you have a room filled with the most needed parts. If you have good machinists and engineers looking over their shoulder, you might even make an improvement here and there, and have parts that outlast the OEM version. Or you might make the part a little heavier because you are machining it from bar stock instead of forging it, which would require expensive forging dies to be made first. Further, in many cases this is not a lot more expensive than buying the part from General Dynamics, etc. In some cases there will be no spare parts, and they will have to pull up the prints, divert someone from current production, and make you one. This is how you end up with $3000 toilet seats that congressmen love to whine about. Yup, when the toilet seat had to have certain dimensions to fit in that head, and it had to be made of fire resistant material, and it could only weigh X grams, and there are none on the shelf, it is expensive to replace. Even if it was on the shelf, you need to pay for all the people’s time over the years that kept track of it so they could find it when you needed it ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2011, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/18 "2011-12-21T20:59:20Z")
Maybe they don’t bother with it because keeping 40 year old American planes flying is a waste of time? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/19 "2011-12-22T03:28:39Z")
It’s not a waste of time if they’re all you’ve got. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860/20 "2011-12-22T03:54:33Z")
Seriously why don’t people look it up. Its available on many sites, including Global Security. [The IIRAF Order of Battle](http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/airforce-equipment.htm). There is a [whole page](http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/airforce-tech.htm) on aircraft spare parts. The salient bits of the above are [QUOTE=Global Security website] While often derided by Western observers as mere propoganda, Iran’s aircraft industries have embarked on what have appeared serious bids to reclaim portions of their pre-1979 fleets or reverse engineer replacements. Necessity was the beginning of such development, with shortages of Western technology and replacement parts during the Iran-Iraq War. Iran modified I-HAWK surface to air missiles to function as air-to-air missiles, these in turn to be used by the F-14 fleet as supplies of AIM-54 missiles dwindled. Rumors that US personnel had sabotaged stocks of AIM-54 missiles in Iran prior to their post-Revolution departure were generally proven to be false, and a small number of missiles that were in fact deactivated were returned to operational condition by Iranian technicians. The effectiveness of the modified I-HAWK missiles in the air-to-air capacity is unknown, and similar experiments to modify the Standard SM-1 were not deployed. [/QUOTE] [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/partless-in-persia-how-does-iran-maintain-its-us-made-aircraft/606860.md?page=2)