Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Okay, I have a plan...

We get Clint Eastwood to go undercover as a businessman into Iran. He steals their ultra-advanced hypersonic stealth prop and its mind-controlled weapons systems and flies it out at low altitude, evading pursuit. On the way back to U.S. territory, he drops bombs that take out the Norks' nukyular weapons program and then lands on the icepack and refuels before flying to safety. (Clint can think in Farsi, right?)

Seriously, who did Mad Mad Ahmadinejad think was going to buy that? The very fact that they were deluded enough to put that dog and pony show on in the first place is a little troubling. There is some seriously insular groupthink going on there to have put that much effort into something that any sane person had to know is going to wind up the laughingstock of the internets.

23 comments:

og said...

Look! They used CAD to design it! It HAS to be real!

Can you say "Cargo Cult?" I knew you could!

fast richard said...

I saw that Clint Eastwood movie. I don't remember much about it. It was a long time ago and a very forgettable movie.

That Iranian mock-up may not be much of a real airplane, but it would make a great piece of playground equipment. I have fond memories of playing in the cockpit of a stripped F9F Panther Jet before the parks department locked it up to prevent further vandalism.

Robert Fowler said...

It looks like they need to find a shorter test pilot. Flying with your knees bumping your chest has to be pretty uncomfortable. That and the head rest is useless.

Fighter plane for midgets?

Ritchie said...

But it's just the thing for your parade.

og said...

Do you suppose they used a reliant robin?

og said...

OOOH! OOOH! Mr Kotter! I got a name for your movie! You could call it "Fauxfire"

Firehand said...

I read a piece a couple of years back that had a section on dealing with Arabs and their mindset; very interesting, and scary(can't remember the title, dammit).

Very short version: "Saying the proper(at that moment) thing completely outweighs ANY fact or information. And proper(in their mind, at THAT time) display counts as much as actually accomplishing something."

Entirely possible that, to their minds at this time, making a bullshit display counts just as much as actually DOING/ACCOMPLISHING something.

Firehand said...

Yeah, I know, Persians aren't Arabs, but the mindset seems to be endemic over there.

Anonymous said...

The other thing with it is that it's SMALL. You'd be hard pressed slamming a decent engine, fuel, electronics + a weapons load into or onto that chassis.
(Aside from which ,unless they are outsourcing their electronics, I'd be thinking that these things would be sitting ducks for American/Russian/Japanese/(even Chinese) equipped countermeasures.)



One of the fun recollections of building models as a teenager was comparing an F-15 to a WWII B-24 ( I think) and realizing that though the F15 is a "Fighter" it was significantly as big as a WWII Fight.

(Also the price of WWII Bomber was a tiny fraction of an F-15's)

Jake (formerly Riposte3) said...

"Fighter plane for midgets?"

No, just a mix up at the factory. Somebody misread the plans, so they built it at 90% scale instead of 100%

They really shouldn't have hired B.S. Johnson as their consultant.

Anonymous said...

Don't be too hard on the mullahs: if they read our newspapers and watch our news broadcasts, they've got to have a pretty low opinion of our credulity if not our intelligence:

"The American Zionist infidel pigs believe WHAT??? Are you kidding me??? Mohammed H. Prophet, those clowns will believe ANYTHING! Quick! Call Mohammed and Achmed and Ali, and tell them to meet me at Suliman's house. We got a 'stealth fighter' to build!"

Scott J said...

Fast Richard, after reading both books I found the movie a bit of a letdown.

Not some of Clint's better work.

Stretch said...

They should leave the model making to the Japanese.
http://mokehana.web.fc2.com/e-photo-yamatomovie-set.htm

Cincinnatus said...

Great place to put an inlet ... where its masked by the leading edge at high angles of attack.

Jake (formerly Riposte3) said...

"Great place to put an inlet ... where its masked by the leading edge at high angles of attack."

Meh. We did a similar thing with the F-117, and for probably the same reasons. It puts the inlet out of the immediate path of ground-based radar systems - masking it with the leading edge of the wing. If properly designed, I suspect that the performance drawbacks can be significantly reduced.

That being said, I bet that if this were a real aircraft the engines would flame out at even a moderately high angle of attack. I mean, we are talking about an Iranian design, here.

fast richard said...

Scott, It sounds like you are saying the books were worth reading. I may take a look at those.

Goober said...

That thing is like 50% scale ar best. The headrest hits the pilot mid shoulder. Should be over his head.

Anonymous said...

Mad Mad Ahmadinejad - isn't that a song sung to the tune of Bad Bad Leroy Brown?

Anonymous said...

Let's all just be happy for the pilot that they didn't trim his legs to fit!

og said...

I know where i saw that before. It was in front of Venture, and cost 25 cents for 3 minutes. The pony was more fun.

Scott J said...

"Scott, It sounds like you are saying the books were worth reading. I may take a look at those."

I read them in high school so they might not play as well to adult tastes but definitely worth a try.

Anonymous said...

I think this fighter is "indigenous" in the sense that it would fair incredibly badly against any foreign invasive species. Like it's a weird shrewey marsupial thing or waddling flightless parrot.

Ardaric

Joanna said...

"I know where i saw that before. It was in front of Venture, and cost 25 cents for 3 minutes. The pony was more fun."

Pony nuthin'. The tiny carousel with three horses and no head room and an overall radius of less than four feet, now that was a ride.