Combat aircraft

escorted six Russian Aerospace Forces

Tu-22M3 bombers, which had  own

from Mozdok air base in southern Russia

in order to bomb IS targets in Deir ez-

Zor, Syria.

IRIAF goals

For the IRIAF, the main goal of the

exercise was to increase the combat-

readiness of almost 100 pilots and

navigators, and dozens of ground crews.

Other objectives, however, were equally

important for the IRIAF commanders.

First was to prepare the Chengdu F-7N

 ghters and their pilots for close air

support missions. This work began in

summer 2017, when the commander

of TFB.8 decided to ready some of his

recently overhauled F-7Ns for launching

unguided rockets. This was the  rst

time this had been done in the 27

years since the aircraft entered service.

Following delivery, the  eet has mainly

been used to train advanced  ying and

weaponry courses.

Iran never procured Chinese-made

air-to-ground ordnance for its F-7Ns

and FT-7Ns, and instead they were

all modi ed in Iran to use available

US-made weapons. They added the

capability to launch 2.75in unguided

rockets from LAU-3A pods. Upon

establishment of the  rst two F-7

squadrons at TFB.5 Ardestani in

Omidiyeh (which were disbanded in

2007), the air base received a huge

quantity of LAU-3A rocket launchers but

never used them. Following the transfer

of all F-7Ns and FT-7Ns from TFB.5 to

TFB.8 in 2007, armament stocks were

also relocated to the new base. After 10

years, the TFB.8 commander decided to

Bottom: An F-4E

with a TGM-65A

gets airborne for

the fi rst day’s

missions.

Hamed Ataei

Below left to

right: The three

Su-24MKs that

participated.

Mehdi Shamkhani

An F-5F lets rip

with a salvo of

2.75in rockets.

Akbar Tavakkoli

EXERCISE REPORT // ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN AIR FORCE

48 February 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net

42-49 Iran Exercise C.indd 48 13/12/2017 14:41