News photo of Iran’s new radar-evading jet looks photoshopped

Photoshop Disasters says: "Introducing Iran’s fancy new Qaher-313 radar-evading jet, seen here lazily superimposed over a generic photograph of Mount Damavand."

Iran: not-so-stealthy

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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CSBD

Many of their “new wonder weapons” are the physical equivalent of being photoshopped. I would not be surprised if this turns out to be a heavily modified Northrup F-5 fighter or a mockup that uses parts from the F-5 which has been the basis for more than a few imaginary Iranian designs.

They have also been known to hang surface to air missiles (old HAWK missiles) on aircraft and then claim that they “made them work” as new weapons.
- nowimnothing
  
  If you check out the other pics you can see it is obviously a mock-up made of fiberglass and not even any real jet parts.
  http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/02/world-trembles-in-confusion-andor-fear-at-irans-fiberglass-airplane/
  - for_SCIENCE
    
    Thought it exuded an air of being a prop.
  - donovan acree
    
    I would have guess plywood.
crummett

A radar-evading UAV, as well. Or they just didn’t bother to ‘shop in a pilot, too.
- http://twitter.com/Skyhawk1 skyhawk1
  
  Look closer, you can see Rubio drinking water.
IronEdithKidd

*facepalm* Why do they even bother?
Just_Ok

It’s pretty clear they added the hangar background.
- Matthew Bondy
  
  Yeah, I mean since when does the next greatest thing in aviation have its debut in an old ice rink? Someone needs to let Iran know we’re getting tired of the modesty.
Daneel

Shopped. I can tell by the nacelles.
eldritch

Remember back in the day when MiGs were scary? Then the wall came down and we found out that they were basically held together with superglue and wishful thinking?
- http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
  
  which ones? the ones that beat the crap out of the US in Vietnam or the horribly outdated ones they fought in Iran?
  - $19428857
    
    MIGs have never beat the crap out of US planes, and Vietnam wasn’t a dogfight war, so I don’t know what you are talking about. We lost a lot of planes, but not to MIGS, and the loss rate on the total number of sorties was 24 times loer than WWII. US kill to loss ratios in air-to-air combat in Vietnam were 1.5:1 at the very worst (and it rapidly got better) in the US favor, with the vast majority of the total losses coming from North Vietnamese AAA and SAMs.. The NVAF never had more than 30 or so Mig-21s and they used them for quick hit and runs at US attack jets to make them drop their offensive ordinance prematurely. They were under orders not to fight, rather to scare and git. They would high tail out at full afterburners. The majority of their planes were MIG-17s, which couldn’t begin to match an F-4. After tactical changes and the F-4Es got guns things changed a lot. The Israelis also completely pwned MIGs with the same American planes again losing way more to AAA and SAMs than MIGs. And I think you meant Iraq, not Iran. So FAIL, Hibiki.
    - donovan acree
      
      The UN coalition (which includes the US) lost more planes than the Chinese coalition during the Korean war. Whether or not this was due to the MiG 15s solidness of design is another question. The US says the F86 racked up more jet to jet kills than the MiG, (whose primary design was as a bomber interceptor) but other sources say otherwise. However, the MiG 15 devastated bomber flights on a routine basis.
      - $19428857
        
        Bullshit. We’re taking dog-fighting fighter jet to fighter jet, not shooting up slower bombers. Even with the Sabre Measures Charlie downward estimates, the F-86 to MIG-15 kill ratio was 7:1. Both of you guys want to argue total aircraft losses, but in Korea a third of the losses were from flak alone, Vietnam was almost all SAMs and AAA. That doesn’t make MIGs superior, it makes them an sidebar when it comes to American fighter losses. My basic argument is that latest generation American made front line fighters have never been outclassed by the comparable MIGs of the same era. Not refutable. Sure you can pick a bad day like when we lost 9 F-105s in one day in 1966, but they were borderline obsolete by then. You can argue Soviet “volunteer” pilots in MIG-15s shot up a lot of F-80s and B-29s over Korea, but they were obsolete. You can’t make an apples to apples comparison and make it stick.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Sebastian-Spinczyk/100001312688624 Sebastian Spinczyk
  
  I’d like to see you tell that a MIG-21 to its face.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/65CSAR3QATRNKJW4NYNB2BESZE JohnQPublic
    
    I’ll give them the finger while I’m inverted above them and taking a polaroid photo.
    - http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
      
      Polaroid? what’s that?
      Some sort of Black Berry app?
    - Snuffy2
      
      Dan: I think that was a reference to Top Gun.
      - http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
        
        ah. so it’s something homoerotic.
        gotcha.
    - Just_Ok
      
      polaroid is what you get sitting on the ice in antartica
      - http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog
        
        http://www.hiyoooo.com/
- http://www.facebook.com/marko.raos Marko Raos
  
  I believe you’re referring to the discovery that mig-25 is not the super-all-in-one wonder aircraft.. (although that occured in the 70′s and the foxbat still remains one of the finest interceptors and high speed recconnaisance aircraft in history… during the nineties you could take paid rides to near space in that thing)
  As for other planes.. during the cold war (mig-15 and onward) ruskies squarely lead the aircraft arms race except in strategic bombers and occasional exceptional plane (such as f-4 and f-15). As a dogfighter mig-29 is still unsurpassed 30 years after its debut and SU-27 derivatives are still considered the finest multipurpose non-stealth combat aircraft. You can say a lot of things about dem old soviets, but they sure made some awesome planes.
- http://twitter.com/ocschwar ocschwar
  
  Plenty of Syrians getting plenty scared when a Mig flies overhead right now.
Benjamin Palmer

I like the red tag that’s supposed to be removed before flying that’s still hanging out in the middle of the plane. Unmoved.
vonbobo

Seriously! What is going on?

A friend told me that all of the denying historical events, and all of the crazy made up things are a simple cultural trait of Iranians to start dialogue to lead to more serious discussion.

I don’t know how to process this sort of thing coming from Iran.
- http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
  
  and do those serious discussions then end with a permanent visit to the local prison?
- Boundegar
  
  Very much like a certain American political party. And in both cases, most of it adds up to confirmation bias. Iranians will see this photo and be awed at the power of Islam.
http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

The scale is all wrong. We see a pilot under the canopy but he is at least 50% shorter than the real pilot we saw sitting in the plane when it was being displayed.
- Bucket
  
  What is this, a stealth jet for ants? It needs to be at least… 3 times bigger!
- orwell
  
  that’s because its a monkey… :)
spiessbraten

they could at least have used the skyline of NYC or the Pentagon as backdrop.
http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

Also, that’s a fucking ugly plane.
http://dustindriver.com dustindriver

Well, to get advanced fighter planes that really work you need to spend, like, 50 percent of all the money ever on defense. And then, you know, they still might not work. But they will look BAD ASS.
ImmutableMichael

Doesn’t the US have laws against exporting weapon systems to dangerous states? Why isn’t Adobe being prosecuted???
Bucket

In other news, Iran also announced the completion of its first nuclear powered submarine: http://boingboing.net/2007/06/14/photo-of-comic-book.html
waetherman

To be fair, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed Martin photoshop stuff all the time to try and sell it to Congress. Heck, apparently we’ve had so few F35′s up until now (six years after it first flew) that just last week we were able to put together the first flight of four aircraft. And apparently they’re a lot more like fiberglass mockups than the original plane that was designed (and paid for).
- Isaac Rinke
  
  And to think congress killed the F-22 because we were spending too much. I blame the Norwiegians.
mccrum

You fools! Obviously the plane was photoshopped to appear on the ground in a hangar! Feel the power of our fully operational awesome jet: Zoom!

So stealthy you didn’t even see it.
margaretpoa

Well, at least they photoshopped out the intake covers and some of the groundlock pins.
Chuck

It doesn’t need to fly anywhere. The World moves underneath it.
Cowicide

Iran? They would NEVER do such a thing!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49403380@N00/2658316482/
http://www.facebook.com/marko.raos Marko Raos

/yawn.. a bit of propaganda war there…
a) This is not an official photo release… it was published by an iranian independent news site. It’s akin to saying that f-22 doesn’t exist because Alex Jones made a poor photoshop of one flying over mt Rushmore.
b) That being said, no way Iran’s got a stealth aircraft unless they bought it from the Russians or Chinese (and even then…) On the other hand, they do have Shkvals and Sunburns purchased from the same sources, and those are nothing to joke about.
pjcamp

I like the way the ayatollah pictures look like third grade milk posters.
CHilke

I’m willing to go to war to stop Photoshop technology from falling into the hands of the enemy.
Snuffy2

Wow, a virtual airplane. Like the F-35.
Halloween_Jack

Great success!

https://twimg0-a.akamaihd.net/profile_images/1079908235/borat_855_18535194_0_0_12672_300.jpg

Seriously, though, that thing reminds me of this thing from an old Star Trek episode. It’s so tiny. Kind of cute, actually.
edthehippie

the flaws of the drooped wingtips would be obvious to anyone with any aerodynamics , even those of model aircraft , not meant for flight , not suitable for flight ~
- Isaac Rinke
  
  It just means they had trouble keeping the aircraft stable. It’s not like they’re the only country that’s ever had to do that. Just look at the F-4 Phantom.
  - edthehippie
    
    anheanhedral wingtips are ok , curves along the span of the wing are ok , wingtips that are curved along the longitudinal direction of the aircraft , or along the chord direction of the wing , are NOT ok !! really !! one could also argue aspect ratio , lack of area ruling , overly large rudderudders for the length , and etc etc !!
http://2000ah.blogspot.com/?m=1 edward

OMG Iran has photoshop!
Comedian

I imagine that F-313 was settled upon after a dialogue that went a little like this:

“We need to appear strong, stronger than the Americans. Ten times stronger!”

“Well, we could call out stealth plane the F-350, that would be ten times better than the zionists F-35.”

“No, no, no. Too obvious.”

“Well then, how about the F-315? That’s nine times better.”

“Nine times. No, that will not do. Too Ed Rooney.”

“So just change it a bit. F-314.”

“100 Pi? They’ll just call it a Pi Fighter.”

“F-313?”

“Hmmm. 313. Not only is it nine times better, it reminded me of the Battle of Badr.”

“Well, sir, it’ll be badder, that’s for sure.”
http://braindonkey.com/ Braindonkey

Just curious, but isn’t the big giant F on the tail a giveaway that its not Iranian developed, and therefor a shop? I would have assumed Arabic.
- http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
  
  The F stands for Farsi
http://redesigned.com redesigned

To be fair…the radar evasion works awesome, it’s like it was never even there.

The best way to avoid radar is to never fly at all.
goldenmansacks

Totally photoshopped. It actually looks more like this: