OR

Retire all KC-10’s

Transfer all of them to asian/middle east/european allies and let them fork out the operational costs.

Btw is it feasable for the c-17 modified as a hose drogue refueller?

The problem is that you assumed that usa will come in with full force.

But looking at china’s recent skirmishes, with neighbours like philippines and vietnam, i dont think usa would intervene in spratlys, or the soryus for example…

What about the F-15se? Maybe a hi-lo mix of 2sqn of f-15se and 2-3sqn of fa-50?

IMO its better to discuss objectively how the iranians have managed to keep the tomcat alive (which has been discussed many times before) rather than discussing about the saeqeh. As there is not much anyone could say about them, even the iranian aviation enthusiasts…

But if you want to discuss more on the saeqeh (and I know you are thinking of doing a book on the jf17 right?) you could start by:

A) Listing all the serial number of saeqeh that you have found to date with a link to its picture.

B) pictures of a row of saeqeh being built in an assembly line.

C) picture of a saeqeh in primer

D) picture of saeqeh carrying bvr aams

E) cockpit pictures of 2 or more saeqehs to compare.

F) picture of saeqehs radar.

G) info of other squadrons using the saeqeh.

Vietnam orders 2 SIGMA 9814 corvette?

http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2013/08/22/nederlandse-werf-bouwt-twee-oorlogsschepen-voor-vietnam/

If Iran could even show to the world a production line for even a reverse engineered f-5e, like what china did with the mig-21 more than 40 years ago, that would be something big for Iran, let alone a production line for the saeqeh.

IMO the best thing for Iran to do right now is to locally produce a plane jointly with China ala-JF-17. Maybe a single seater L-15, the J31 or even the JF-17 itself, maybe selling some to Venezuela in the process?

If us can help Taiwan build the Cheng kuo, why not china help Iran to do something similar?

Its just a rebuild of the f-5 with fancy stuff put on it to make it look different. Mainly as a propaganda tool targeted at local iranians, as a showcase of iranian “indigenous” capability. AFAIK only the 1st airframe featured the square intake, others has the normal f-5 intake. apparently IRIAF is not keen on the idea at all as it destroys a workable airframe just for the sake of propaganda. Only about half a dozen airframes are converted into the saeqeh, almost all with the blue Angel-like paint scheme.

The diversity comes from the countrys belief of non-alignment during the cold war years.

As for the f-35, will the US allow India to the source-codes to integrate ingenious weapons and avionics? And will the US be okay if the plane is used against Pakistan for example?