The F-14 Tomcat fighter jets of Iran, Israel said they have all been destroyed, but it's uncertain whether it's true or not! However, the F-14 Tomcat fighters almost played no role in the war between Iran and Israel, which is a fact! Before 1979, Iran had equipped a total of 79 F-14 Tomcats! Then the Islamic Revolution broke out in Iran, the Pahlavi dynasty was overthrown, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was established. After that, relations between the United States and Iran deteriorated, and they never got back to good terms again. The maintenance and spare parts supply for the F-14s became a big problem.

However, Iran found a way, by smuggling and selling parts everywhere, it barely maintained the use of the F-14s. Iran also turned its eyes to the American aircraft boneyard, from these channels, Iran obtained key parts of the F-14 engines, such as turbine blades and fuel pumps. Although the U.S. government strengthened its regulation, it was still difficult to prevent the theft by the staff on duty!

In addition, Iran also used international black market transactions to find F-14 parts, as long as you pay money, someone would sell them, regardless of where the parts came from, as long as they were usable! In addition, Iran used its own planes to constantly disassemble parts, patching up one part with another, so that the original 79 F-14s now only have a third of them operational. Now, the Iranian Air Force still has about 25 F-14s that can perform missions.

Currently, the service life of the F-14s in Iran is about to approach 50 years, making it an old aircraft that's even older. Iran is searching worldwide for F-14 parts, trying to keep them flying for another ten or twenty years, which is impossible. Previously, the United States retired all F-14s to cut off Iran's access to their parts, and stopped producing parts for the F-14s.

As a result, Iran has many ways, and the U.S. isn't a monolithic block. Some people want to make money by selling plane parts, so Iran has been able to hold onto the F-14s until now. However, no matter how Iran tries to maintain them, it won't be able to do so for many more years. These 25 F-14s will probably fly for another 10 years, maybe even 20 years at most.

Iran previously bought the Chinese J-10C fighter jets, and there were many reports, but finally decided not to buy. Later, Iran decided to buy Russian Su-30 fighters, but it hasn't been delivered yet, so it seems to have failed. Iran then said it wanted to buy Russian Su-35 fighters, but again, it hasn't been delivered, so it seems to have failed as well.

It may be that Iran really doesn't want to buy Chinese or Russian planes, or it just doesn't have the money, but we can't say for sure. Anyway, it's easy for Iran to buy planes, but it just can't get them. It's estimated that Iran will try every possible way to ease relations with the United States, in order to buy new American planes. This is possible, because Iran's planes are mostly American-made equipment, and they've been using them smoothly for many years, but the United States doesn't sell planes to Iran, so Iran remains desperately waiting for American blood relatives.

If Iran is so pro-American, why did it start the Islamic Revolution? Why go through all that? At first, Iran was anti-American, then it became pro-American. Now it's so pro-American that it doesn't know its own name anymore. I really don't understand the Iranians.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1834508714258432/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author.