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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Technical Analysis of Alleged Iranian Shootdowns of Allied Aircraft
2026-03-28
Useful illustrative photos and PowerPoint slides at the link. Select bits below — read the rest, including another rant against President Trump at the link. Note that Mr. Cooper appears to specialize in airplanes, so does not address except in passing the obliteration of Iran’s navy, before returning to rant about the obliteration of its air force. If those here with more knowledge of the subject would share their analysis of Mr. Cooper’s, I would be grateful.
[XxTomCooperXx] Have received really a lots of messages with, essentially, the same content in regards of specific topics. Thus, I’ll address these in form of a ‘special Q&A feature’.

1.) Regarding those MANPAD-hits on USN’s F/A-18Es and/or F/A-18Fs… (as it turned out: both videos were taken in the Chahbahar area):

AFAIK, no: the IRGC didn’t claim a ‘shot down’. Or if, then it claimed a ‘shot down’ in the case of the jet visible on the second still - in reaction to which the CENTCOM denied the loss.

I’m ‘booking’ them as a pair of damaged US jets (and the pilots/crews as taught few elementary lessons about air-showing-it over the combat zone).

As for ‘how comes the missile missed/detonated behind the jet’ etc.... Oversimplified: the seeker-heads on IR-homing/heat-seeking missiles from the 1980s-1990s are programmed to go for the hottest part of the jet. No matter from what aspect, that’s always the exhaust/s or, and even more so, the hot exhaust BEHIND the jet. The problem is that jets are moving and it takes a fraction of second for the fuze to activate: this fraction of the second is usually enough for the missile to detonate in the hot plume behind the exhaust, and thus well behind the targeted aircraft, instead actually hitting and damaging the airframe.

With other words: both of these cases are indicating the deployment of MANPADs from the 1980s or 1990s, nothing modern. While, especially modern jets have lots of built-in survivability.

Additionally to the above mentioned, please mind that MANPADS - like, for example, the 9K38 Igla-3 (ASCC/NATO-reporting name ‘SA-14’) - have a warhead of mere 1kg.

Such a small warhead would ‘border on miracle’ to shot down ‘even’ an F/A-18E/F. Not to talk about certain more advanced types.

Readers of books like, for example, War of Intervention in Angola, Volume 4, are certainly going to recall cases (and not ‘just a few’) were the stuff as old as MiG-21bis was surviving direct hits by FIM-92A Stingers, in Angola of the late 1980s. Here’s one example:

2.) …which is bringing me to the next topic: aircraft survivability, and your questions like, ‘how could that F-35 come away from such a hit’ and/or ‘how could that F/A-18 come away form such a hit’...

Attached below please find a photo and two stills from a video from testing of the F-35. The photo is showing the complete test rig, the two stills are showing a direct hit by a MANPAD-like warhead on the ‘feathers’ of the afterburner ‘can’.

Bottom line: for actually shooting down any such aircraft by a ‘missile’, one needs weaponry with much more sophisticated seeker heads, and much bigger warheads.

For example: a warhead calibre 60kg-70kg - like that on an AIM-54A Phoenix/Fakkur-90 air-to-air missile of the Iranian F-14s, or Taer-2 SAM - is certain to be far more lethal than the 20kg-heavy warhead of the Taer-3C.

Combined with three similar questions prompted by the same illustration -
- this with ‘obliterated’ is prompting me into the following explanation.

Sure, some 17 years ago I’ve co-penned the book IRIAF 2010: Modern Iranian Air Force, but: this does not mean I know precisely how many of what types were still in service with the IRIAF as of, say, 27 February this year. A lots of things have changed ever since, and over all these years, have been ‘distracted’ by researching, writing, illustrating, or helping other authors publish some 250+ other books. But, few things are sure:

The illustration is based on videos released by the IDF, and sat photos released by other sources so far. I’ve got no idea if the IDF has got additional videos showing the destruction of additional IRIAF aircraft, or if there are additional sat photos showing destroyed IRIAF aircraft - but which haven’t been released yet. One way or the other: the grand total of IRIAF aircraft confirmed as ‘destroyed’ so far is irrelevant, because - except for transports (see below) - the mass of jets confirmed as destroyed by the US-Israelis were non-operational. And then: non-operational for years already. In detail:

  • 10 F-7s: delivered in the early 1990s, the mass of Iranian F-7s were meanwhile subjected to two overhauls, and thus at the end of their flying careers. Indeed, the majority of those that were still active were used as advanced trainers and expected to be replaced by Yak-130s. Thus, sorry but: ‘no major loss’.7 F-14: the ones hit were non-operational for years already (indeed: several were parked in exactly the same spot for years already). Moreover: as of early 2025, the IRIAF still had some 60 F-14-airframes on hand, of which around 24 were ‘recently operated’, of which around 10 were ‘regularly operated’ (roughly 50:50 for training and air defence purposes). Foremost, this is a far cry from ‘Israelis destroyed all the remaining Iranian F-14 Tomcats’ (and there is no need for Tom Cruise to cry).

  • 3 Su-22: these were ex-Iraqi jets (evacuated to Iran in 1991), and were operated by the IRGCASF, not by the IRIAF. Had next to no combat use (indeed, I doubt even the IRGCASF knew why was it wasting time to overhaul and operate them; especially not since, back in 2015, it made ‘much better use’ of them through donating some 6-8 to the Assadist regime in Syria).

  • 2 MiG-29: the remaining aircraft of this type were out of ressouces and proved ‘hard’ to overhaul; thus, even had the Israelis destroyed all the 20 or so that were still intact (less than 10 were fully mission capable), ‘no big deal’. But, so far, there’s no evidence that the US-Israelis have destroyed as many.

  • 1 F-5, 1 F-4 and 1 Yak-130: all of this is ‘no big deal’. Before this war, the IRIAF still had a sizeable fleets of F-5B/E/Fs and F-4E, and most of these were operational. Thus, the more important question would be: where are all these jets now?

  • 1 Bell 214: we’ve had this one (at least on this blog). Was an example operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Red Crescent, which meant that when bragging with its destruction the Israelis were actually bragging with a war crime.

  • 4 ‘Other’… what do you expect me to say in this regards?

  • The Ilyushin Il-76, Lockheed C-130 Hercules and Boeing 747s… these were the true heavy losses of the IRIAF in this war. Especially the loss of 15 C-130E/Hs is going to be felt massively: regularly overhauled at Mehrabad, and largely in good condition even after some 50 years in service in Iran, they were the backbone of the IRIAF’s transport fleet.

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