February 21-2014
The Iranian Air Force says it is focused on building new fighters since it believes wars will be fought and won in the sky in the future. It said it would soon unveil a new generation of its Saeqeh (Thunderbolt) jet fighter. But Iran doesn’t have many homebuilt planes. There are some estimates that it has built as many as 24 Saeqehs, but only eight have been identified by tail number. Altogether, Iran has fewer than 300 fighters, of which more than half are American-made, more than quarter Russia-made and the rest mostly Chinese and French.