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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran tests "flying boat" and land-to-sea missile
2006-04-04
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran successfully tested a "super-modern flying boat" on Tuesday and the land-to-sea Kowsar missile that military analysts say is designed to sink ships in the Gulf, state media reported. The tests came in the middle of Gulf war games that started on Friday. Iranian state radio said the Kowsar could evade radar and that its guidance system could not be scrambled.

The Defense Ministry was not immediately able to give details of a "flying boat" that was shown on television. The small propeller-driven aircraft floated on a trimaran hull until it took off and flew low over the surface of the water. State television said it could reach speeds of 100 knots.

"A super-modern flying boat was successfully tested in the 'Great Prophet' war game in Persian Gulf waters," state television said. "Because of its hull's advanced design, no radar at sea or in the air can locate it. It can lift out of the water. It is wholly domestically built and can launch missiles with precise targeting while moving."
Iran Focus has a picture. Looks like a kit plane, could be mass produced for suicide attacks. Doesn't look big enough to carry the super torp.
An aviation web site showed the vessel shared features with WIGE vehicles, known to Russians as ekranoplanes.
Winged In Ground Effect (WIGE or WIG) The WIG vehicles take advantage of an additional lift provided by cushion of dense air trapped between large wing of the craft and the surface. Induced drag (drag due to the lift) of wing is considerably reduced if the altitude of the aircraft is similar to the chord of the wing. Ground effect provides a considerable fuel economy and increase of range than convenient flight. WIG can operate over water, flat surfaces of Earth (shallows and wetlands), ice and snow. The major application of WIGs is anti-submarine warfare (ASW), search and rescue, sealift, amphibious assault and coastal defense. This class of vehicles is commonly known as "ekranoplanes" in Russia. It is believed that Russia is far ahead of the West in air-cushion vehicle technology and in WIG in particular.
Earlier in the war games, Iran said it had tested a radar-evading rocket and the Hoot (whale) underwater missile which could outpace any enemy warship. On Monday, Iran's Revolutionary Guard test-fired a torpedo it said was being mass-produced in Iran. State television said another missile would be tested on Tuesday afternoon.

Iran rarely gives enough details of its military hardware for analysts to determine whether Tehran is making genuine advances or simply producing defiant propaganda while pressure ratchets up on its nuclear program. Although Iran can draw on huge manpower, its naval and air-force technology is largely dismissed as obsolete. The United States said it was possible Iran had developed weapons that could evade sonar and radar but warned the Islamic Republic had a tendency to "boast and exaggerate".

Although Iran's military technology might not be highly advanced, analysts say Iran would not need much know-how to cause chaos in vital oil shipping channels.
They say Iran could be testing arms in the Strait of Hormuz, a key tanker nexus, to dissuade Israel and the United States from taking military action against Tehran's nuclear program. Iran has been referred to the UN Security Council after failing to convince the world its atomic scientists are working exclusively on power stations and not branching into weapons.
Posted by:Steve

#28  It still has to survive both US-Allied air strikes
+ US Navy defenses-in-depth - its still slowewr than the Navy's curr missle systems, plus lest we fergit the Navy's PHALANX-based CIWS can take out. i.e. SHRED TO PIECES, ANY MULTIPLE AIR-SEA THREAT(S) within its scopes. This "flying boat" is likely most useful in night-time suicide attacks and where Iran still holds any beach area(s) near enuff to US naval units - in end, it still comes down to the Mullahs wilfully engaging US milfors in pre-planned, PC, asymmetric warfare, aka "People's War", to includ nuclearized suicide attacks.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2006-04-04 23:51  

#27  Hell, all I asked for was a flying Persian rug
Posted by: Captain America   2006-04-04 20:42  

#26  The Iranians might want to paint concentric circles on the craft with numbers increasing towards the center. Make it more challenging for our military.
Posted by: DMFD   2006-04-04 18:41  

#25  Nice plane, question, how do they load the camels?
Posted by: Democraps   2006-04-04 18:39  

#24  All this publicity is Irans pitch to hugo chavez aka bobo. who needs new arms suppliers to put expropriated oil money to work? bobo.

who is building a million man army as a substitute for jobs and free enterprise? bobo is. The world as we'v known it has changed, the disentagled left has found its new useful idiots and the whole damn thing is being orchestrated by one vladimir putin.

Posted by: Uling Glaimp1885   2006-04-04 17:21  

#23  I guess it's just coincidence that ALL the Russian WIG testing was done on the Caspian. The Russians began testing WIG aircraft in the mid-1960's, and had built several dozen different designs. Many of them failed, some spectacularly.

I see Iran boasting of devices that the Russians designed and built five, ten, twenty years ago, and which they had very little success with. Are the Russians selling Iran all their junk? Seems like it...
Posted by: Old Patriot   2006-04-04 15:39  

#22  These have already taken out two ships-of-the-line. We just haven't noticed yet; it's *that* good.

But Nelson has.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2006-04-04 15:22  

#21  These have already taken out two ships-of-the-line. We just haven't noticed yet; it's *that* good.
Posted by: Seafarious   2006-04-04 14:57  

#20  Can't be detected on radar? Sounds tough. We'll have to send Clint Eastwood in to steal it.
Posted by: eLarson   2006-04-04 14:50  

#19  Re # 13: the Russian craft is a pure WIG while the P6M was designed to be the USN's sea-going equivalent to the B-52: rotary bomb bay, 4 J-79's w/ AB (think F-4 Phantom) and the abiltiy to ride rough seas for mid-ocean refueling from tanker subs. Depending on which version of history you read, it fell victim to either budget cuts of USAF-USN in fighting and the AF won. All tooling and remainging aircraft were cut up and sold as scrap ( 2 crashed during tests and one story still circulating says that one of the engineers on the project saved a set of the wing tip floats and made a houseboat from them).
Posted by: USN, ret.   2006-04-04 14:48  

#18  No radar can detect it. That is...no Soviet 1990's era radar can detect it.
Posted by: anymouse   2006-04-04 14:17  

#17  
Proper countermeasure is #9 bird shot.
Posted by: Master of Obvious   2006-04-04 14:11  

#16  Correct. Proper countermeasure for this is helicopters.
Posted by: buwaya   2006-04-04 14:02  

#15  Winged In Ground Effect craft made of composite.
A Chain Gun would turn one into a pile of shredded carbon very quickly.
Posted by: SPoD   2006-04-04 13:55  

#14  If they really work hard to perfect that WIGE thingy, it may someday grow up to be a Supermarine Walrus.
Posted by: Mike   2006-04-04 13:27  

#13  Soviet Lun Ekranoplan



P6M Seamaster
Posted by: RD   2006-04-04 12:35  

#12  This is all very interesting, but I didn't realize there was a water border between afganistan and iran...
Posted by: flash91   2006-04-04 12:23  

#11  What do people know about the Kowsar? I googled it and have come up the Shahab-6 ICBM. But given its purported role and capabilities, this doesn't mesh. Could it be the AS-15 they got from Ukraine, or the C-802 they got from China and further developed with North Korea? Or a reversed engineered, indigenously produced variant of either?
Posted by: GradStudent06   2006-04-04 12:22  

#10  That WIGE should be meat on the table for the R2D2's
Posted by: Cheaderhead   2006-04-04 11:48  

#9  next up?....a flying carpet! Something "nice" with great patterns and a fringe to die for
Posted by: Frank G   2006-04-04 11:42  

#8  "...Back off, man - we've got super-advanced flying boats..."

No probs, guys. Our TARGET drones have better performance than that. Oh, and by the way, for people who are so obsessed with history, you should look up what happened to the Japanese when they mass produced special one-off suicide planes.

Mike

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2006-04-04 11:36  

#7  That flying boat is pie in the sky. I don't see it's weapons capability. No armor, no lifting capability, probably doesn't manuver very well, and needs highly trained operators, but Iran feels a need to boast of it's superior technology.
I think we should hold manuvers called the Cartoon Strikes Back. We can feature those air colume thingys; a Mohammed with swinging swords trying to stand straight, weaving and bobbing, thrashing about with bloody swords.
Posted by: wxjames   2006-04-04 11:23  

#6  Smacks of an extra-terrestrial intelligence being at work.
Posted by: Howard UK   2006-04-04 11:23  

#5  The Iranian military better have enough gasoline stored for those Rotax engines. Domestic gasoline production will be a goin' down.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2006-04-04 11:20  

#4  Also testing new deep fry technology stolen from internship at American McDonalds. Can quickly heat oil to 350 degrees to pour on special forces infidals trying to breech the castle walls.
Posted by: capsu78   2006-04-04 11:20  

#3  Iran is the very model of a modern military machine.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2006-04-04 11:05  

#2  I give up. They are way to advanced for us. Before they kill us all, let's give in. I want to live in a world where a earthquake kills 44,000 people, but they are far superior to us militarily.
Either that or just nuke them.
Posted by: plainslow   2006-04-04 11:03  

#1  From Jan 2005: TEHRAN, Jan. 22 (MNA) -- A number of Iranian engineers have designed a two-seat flying boat in the Malek Ashatar University of Industry in Shiraz which is able to fly over water for 1-4 meter distance and even 50 meter distance in emergency to jump over obstacles, according to a report released in the Persian Gulf exhibition that wound up on Jan. 21 in Kish.

That's a WIGE plane.

The flying boat is in final stages to be produced massively.

Gearing up asembly line for mass production.

It speeds as fast as 160 km per hour and can be continuously driven for two hours with a fuel tank of 60 liter. The boat is fully made by composite and is equipped with an Austrian-made 110 horse piston engine.

That matches the photos. 160 km at 2 meters off the water will make it difficult to hit with normal anti-aircraft missiles.

Less than ten countries such as Russia, Germany, China, the U.S., and Australia have so far been able to obtain the production technology of this sort of boat in the world.

Russians have been working on WIGE planes for years.

Meanwhile, the managing director of Fajr Air Industry Co., said that his company has produced four fully composite-structure planes entitled “Fajr 3” so far but the figure will reach 11 by next year and 15 soon after that.
Einollah QalÂ’eh added that Fajr 3 plane is mainly used for training, traffic control, and mapping. It might be used as an air taxi or for private flights. The minimum price of the planes stands at 2,700 million rials (300,000 dollars) and cost owners some 1,500 rials per hour flight which is much cheaper than helitaxis that cost 5,000 rials per hour flight, he said.

Cheap, mass-produced suicide planes, perfect for the Iranian jihadi corp.
Posted by: Steve   2006-04-04 10:52  

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