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Iran's 'fake' fighter jet which experts say can't fly is spotted in the air

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Iran's freshly unveiled fighter jet has already been derided by aviation experts who likened the plane to a mock-up model and expressed serious doubts over whether it could actually fly. And a new picture of the domestically produced Qaher-313 apparently soaring over Iranian mountains has done little to curb scepticism, amid claims the plane never actually left the ground but was simply superimposed over the snow-capped peaks using Photoshop. (www.dailymail.co.uk) More...

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Boatinman
Boatinman 14
I love the canopy. It looks like it was made out of recycled water bottles.
SootBox
SootBox 6
Kind of like the Pope-mobile's canopy. Actually to me, it looked like the sneeze cover of a 1970s Vegas buffet.
jnavratil
John Navratil 4
Interesting that in the picture with the pilot the distortion of the background is profound, but not in the action picture. Also, what it flying that thing? A pair of disembodied headseat?
mariofer
mariofer 1
Probably is LOL
davysims
David Sims 12
You can even see the reflection of the blue light on the tail from the original photo. Sad
Lunarstorm777
(v)e Same 11
So riddle me this... Its an "Iranian aircraft" right? With tons of Arabic writing all over the walls and crap. Then why are the placards along side the cockpit and the "Remove before flight" tag written in English? My little nephew could do a better job of photoshoping this thing lmao. What morons.
nofunick
N Moss 4
They don't write or speak the Arabic language in Iran. Their language is Persian (Farsi).
Boatinman
Boatinman 4
Hahaha doesn't change the fact that it's written in English...
Bobqat
Bob Harrington 2
That's for the propaganda effect - we American infidels don't read Farsi...
1ahunter172
Allison Hunter -2
Obama gave it to them
jcasey
James Casey 11
My favorite part of this is how they said twice that "it's capable of flying at low altitudes." Duh, it's called taking off geniuses. The 1903 Wright Flyer was also capable of flying at low altitudes. I'm sure Israel is having a pretty good laugh at all this.
Wingscrubber
Wingscrubber 9
Not Photoshop, it just switched off its cloaking device!
chris13
Chris Bryant 8
I think it's really the lighting on the top of the aircraft that gives it away as being 'shopped. It's the exact same pattern and intensity as the one in the hangar. That's not going to happen outside at altitude.
PilotSwede
Tyler Girouard 6
WOW talk about not even trying to correct the lighting. Epic Fail Iranian losers.
chalet
chalet 5
WRONG HEADLINE. With a photoshop you can make a beautiful girl out of some ugly beetch but no expert can turn a fake plane into a real one FLYING (LOL!!!), these retards didn't show a video clip so it can NOT be said that it was spotted in the air as this wrong headline is claiming.
delmonaco03
We've got more sophisticated looking computers in our cranes than that thing has in it's cockpit. Looks like a few toggle switches and plastic straws going into the back of it.
Vicw926a4
Amazing that it is airborne, and still attached to its stand.
benin
benin 4
Even though it's obviously a fake, it still looks pretty cool
alan75035
alan75035 4
Maybe it was designed to be flown by their space monkey?
chalet
chalet 4
Saddam Hussein was able to trick Bush and his cohorts into believeing that he had all kinds of WMD when all evidence pointed to the contrary. But these Iranian fools did not get anywhere with this "cartoon".
smoki
smoki 1
"....trick Bush and his cohorts..."

Yes and those cohorts included a majority of the democrats in Congress who voted for the invasion of Iraq! At least Congress, the people's representatives, had a say in that unlike Obama and his war in Libya that has since backfired causing the unnecessary loss of American lives. But where did all those chemical WMDs come from that have now been discovered in Syria which are of great concern to the Israelis given the missile launch platforms being sent from Iran to terrorist groups in Lebanon, a convoy of which was recently the target for destruction by the Israeli Air Force? I doubt Assad and his thugs produced them. Intel from a former Saddam Hussein loyalist military officer revealed to CIA debriefers some time ago that in the days leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq when Congress was debating the issue, multiple heavy lift air cargo flights were made to Syria from Iraq loaded with such materials and more. WMDs are not exclusively nuclear. Saddam tricked no one nor is Iran with this fake stealth fighter or their coordinated effort (Russian, North Korean, Pakastani and Chinese assistance) to not only produce nuke WMDs but biological and chemical WMDs as well. Arrogantly thumbing our noses at this perilous danger is no laughing matter and should be taken dead serious lest we "wake up dead!"
henri5
Of course Iran can't make a good stealth fighter. And neither can the US for that matter (check out the F35 debacle...).

Henri
isemann2
Frank Eisenman 1
F-35 is a well preforming aircraft, but they still have several major issues to fix with the pilot support systems. So far the rest of the aspects of the aircraft has worked, in non-combat roles.
HunterTS4
Toby Sharp 1
you aren't getting it confused with the F22 are you?
augerin
Dave Mathes 3
'F' designation stands for FAKE, FRAUD, FUNNY, FLOP or maybe FAILURE....it looks a bit like that lame Soviet fighter Clint Eastwood stole in Foxfire/Foxfire (?) some 30 years ago...
JetMech24
JetMech24 2
Nah, the plane from "Firefox" actually looked cool. lol
CTaylor959
Chuck Taylor 3
It is a fake, some dumbass over there photoshopped it and made international news. Read the comments at the end of the story
skitchen8
Eric Spittle -1
Wow, you are smart enough to realize the exact same thing as everyone else, but not smart enough to read a single other comment before posting yours. You win the idiot of the day award.
ObGyn
Gary Oberst 3
Hmmm....can't PhotoShop remove glare from the original?
mrichter1970
Photoshop FTW!
NF2G
David Stark 3
False headline. Iran released another publicity picture. Nobody else has actually seen this aircraft in the sky.
warbird
warbird 3
They can't even Photoshop, let alone build a decent fighter.
vanstaalduinenj
Hilarious, the same counrty that still flies 707's for passenger flights makes stealth technology state of the art fighter...
KW10001
KW10001 4
From flying boats, to 5th gen fighter in 2 years flat!!!
floatplaneS7
floatplaneS7 2
Yep, you can see the spot light ontop of the fuse located on the show room floor and bingo, it's still there over the snow fields :-)

Don't you just love them
ikiyasui
Rod Williams 2
"Photoshop: Eagle-eyed observers claim the Iranian jet was superimposed upon a generic picture of Mount Damavand"
How fucking eagle eyed would you need to be to see that the cloud formation is identical in both shots. What's the odds ?
arctic22
tony mcewan 2
Now you would think that the person altering this pic would have at least tried to alter the lighting reflections.Well if they can't work photoshop not much chance of them building a stealth fight haha.
freneticmonk
Keith Smith 2
I wonder if the technology advances they developed for this will transfer to their nuclear program. Next we will see them tape a M80 to a model rocket and call it an ICBM.
mfishuk
Mel Fish 2
Is the production team of 'Thundrbirds' planning any remakes?
lacholan
C S 2
Divid Sims is right. I looked at the picture before feading comments, and saw that blue, green, and white light reflection lined up perfectly...
joelwiley
joel wiley 2
I disagree with the posters who say it was photoshopped. I think it more likely that a free open source tool such as GIMP was used. At least they didn't claim the peak was Mt. Ararat, INMNSHO.
ReddogKS
ReddogKS 1
All the lighting features of the original photo are present although some may be subdued but it is exactly the same image of the aircraft.
njnut
Todd Shaw 1
Neat what you can do with some plywood, glue and some paint. I love how the clouds are the same around the mountain in the "plane" pic and the generic pic.
bagginit72
Colton Mizen 1
Who cares?
bishopbigans
Mark Hubbard 1
It's not even a good Photoshop job.
kettler
karl kettler 1
The "inflight" photo is an obvious depiction because one doesn't fly at cruise with flaps extended as shown in the fly photo. But that doesn't mean the actual aircraft is a fake. We bad mouthed the Russian Mig-15 until we met it in combat. We din't bad mouth it anymore after that!
gelrod2354
Mike Elrod 1
Unfortunately the people this is meant to impress know nothing about aircraft only need to believe that a Muslim nation can build technology like the west. Any infidel who says different is a devil. Could prove to be the most lethal fighter ever built.
dmanuel
dmanuel 1
If they like their aircraft to be displayed using Photoshop, perhaps some talented folks could pair it with King Kong or a kite tail and string etc.
siriusloon
siriusloon 1
Don't rule out the possibility that this thing is a red herring designed to attract attention away from something else they're doing in secret. The West, and the U.S. in particular, loves to denigrate its foes as bumbling boobs who couldn't make toast if they were starving, but those same foes have too often surprised the West. The Iranians aren't stupid people. This isn't their first indigenous design and while I agree that the mockup and the faked photos mean this particular aircraft is not real, it doesn't mean they're not working on something else in secret. Will it be a world-class fifth-generation fighter? Unlikely, but that doesn't mean they're incapable of developing their own aircraft. Igoring that fact, as the West usually does, is a mistake.
Bobqat
Bob Harrington 2
Indeed, the Iranians have managed to keep quite a few of their prerevolution-era Phantoms and even a couple Tomcats airworthy - sans parts and support - for over 30 years.
HunterTS4
Toby Sharp 1
Excellent Point
augerin
Dave Mathes 2
I doubt this creation would classify as a 1st gen anything let alone a 5th.
joelwiley
joel wiley 2
Good point. How is progress on their nuclear program? I'm fairly certain they are not starving funding of that program for their gen-x mock fighter.
chalet
chalet 1
If you believe they can build a supersonic plane, well I have some property in Florida, beach front of course, that I want to talk you about (LOL!!!)
HunterTS4
Toby Sharp 1
Didn't they just put a monkey in space last month? That's about a 30 year gap in history compared to the U.S......just saying.
clogging
Xxxx Ccccv 0
The U.S. put a monkey in space in 1983?
markeg
markeg 3
Actually the U.S. launched the first monkey June 14, 1949 and numerous others in the 50's and 60's.
onceastudentpilot
tim mitchell 2
1948-1961 with one flight in 1969 and one in 1985
chrisq5835
Chris Quinn 2
His call sign was "Iceman." And they didn't actually release the film until 1986.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092099/
motormitch88
All Iran has to do is fly it in France this year....
kettler
karl kettler 0
Sour grapes! The West is so arrogant they think that only they have the tech know how! First it was amock up now it's phony photo. They did the same to Pre-WWII Germany. People like that aren't "sceptics".They are stupid!
chalet
chalet 4
You are stupid for equalizing German tech with these bozos who can only make carpets that can't even fly (LOL!!!)
freneticmonk
Keith Smith 3
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is that you. I didn't relieze you followed Flight Aware.
skitchen8
Eric Spittle 0
Skeptic, not sceptic, moron. Sounds like the pot calling the kettle stupid.
1ahunter172
Allison Hunter 2
I think he was right about using septic, Iran is after all the cesspool of the middle east
m20fdriver
Dale Denisar -1
Comparing the two photos, it looks like they had the same cloud formations on two separate occasions. Global warming?
StuGotz
StuGotz -1
To the obvious; every shadow and every reflective light from within the show room is exactly the same as the ones in flight. Which we all know is impossible to have happen.

Nice try guys. Get a better photoshop user.

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