(RIOs) suitably quali ed, the IRIAF was
forced to retain the F-14As as the Iran-Iraq
war loomed in 1980. In the event, the
Iranian Tomcats scored many kills against
the Iraqi Air Force and Army Aviation
Corps with their primary weapon: the big
Hughes AIM-54A Phoenix.
The IRIAF lost 11 F-14As during the war.
Among them were six shot down by Iraqi
Air Force ghters (mostly Mirage F1s),
while two were lost to ‘friendly re’
surface-to-air-missile (SAM) shots. A
further pair fell victim to technical failures
and the last loss was down to ‘an act of
treason’ as its pilot, Capt Ahmad Moradi
Talebi, rebelled against the execution of
his brother.The Tomcat prevails
In 1981, IACI (Iranian Aircraft Industries)
was contracted by the IRIAF to begin
programmed depot maintenance (PDM)
of the inactive (NORM, not operational
ready for maintenance) Tomcats in a clear
sign of their value. Seven years on and IACIhad completed the overhaul of around 30
jets, of which 24 ew in a parade over
Tehran on September 22, 1988. The event
caused considerable confusion amongst
western analysts, who mistakenly
estimated that the parade included the
sum total of Iran’s Tomcat community.
Following the Iran-Iraq war, and on the
orders of the IRIAF commander Gen
Mansour Sattari, 16 fully mission-capable
F-14As of the 8th Tactical Fighter Base
(TFB) at Isfahan — amounting to nearly
half the IRIAF’s airworthy F-14As at the
time — were redeployed to the 6th TFB at
Bushehr to re-form the 62nd Tactical
Fighter Squadron (TFS), its role being to
protect Iranian airspace over the Persian
Gulf. Sadly, it marked the start of a decline
in the force. By 1996 just 11 aircraft were
operational, and only two were fully
mission-capable with operational AN/
AWG-9 radars. The trend was attributed to
a shortage of spare parts, the lack of a
corrosion control shop at Bushehr and an
inexperienced technical team in placehttp://www.combataircraft.net // June 2018 45
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