Part of 9/11 Plane Landing Gear Discovered in Lower Manhattan

By Sandy Fitzgerald/ newsmax

(AP/New York City Police Department)

Investigator are still trying to learn how a piece of landing gear from one of the jets that crashed into the World Trade Center almost 12 years ago ended up lodged near the site of planned Islamic community center blocks away in Manhattan.

Surveyors inspecting a site between 51 Park Place – where the much -protested community center is to be housed – and 50 Murray Street discovered the large piece of metal debris. An inspector for the crew, which was hired by the owner of 51 Park Place, was on the roof of the building when he noticed the debris and called 911.

Police secured the debris, which remains lodged between the two buildings, and marked the location, about three blocks away from “ground zero” with tape as a crime scene. A member of the NYPD's aviation unit confirmed that the serial number linked the item to one of the planes used in the attack.

Sharif El-Gamal, president of property owners Soho Properties, said the company is working with the police and the city to ensure the landing gear – marked clearly with the word “Boeing” and numbers – “is removed with care as quickly and effectively as possible."

The landing gear stirred emotions among New Yorkers.

Ilila Tahlov, a hairdresser at a shop near the Park Place building, told the New York Daily News that the discovery brought painful memories.

“It all came back,” she said.

But others were skeptical about the debris suddenly showing up.

“I don’t believe it for one minute,” said Adam Leitman Bailey, who represents El-Gamal. “I think this is a prank, and there’s no way this all of a sudden showed up. It’s hard to believe they now have found evidence that wasn’t put there recently.”

El-Gamal, though, said Bailey does not have the authority to speak for him, and that his company is “cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities to make sure this piece of evidence is removed with care as quickly and effectively as possible.”

The piece of landing gear, wedged one story above ground, is about 5 feet high and 3 feet wide.
Van Vanable, a former One World Trade Center ironworker, said he is amazed by the discovery.

“I was part of the cleanup,” he said. “It’s still devastating to think about — how people suffered from then to now.”

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the police are also exploring the possibility that the gear was lowered to the spot, as there was a rope found intertwined in the part, the New York Post reported. But he called the part a “historic artifact,” noting that “it brings back terrible memories from anyone who was here or anyone who was involved in that event.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newswidget/plane-sept-11-manhattan/2013/04/26/id/501618?promo_code=10E2C-1&utm_source=10E2Canadafreepress&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1#ixzz2RhmSXod1

 

FAA Sequester: Is Obama Intentionally Delaying Flights to Teach America a Lesson?

Pajamasmedia

AMERICAN AIRLINES GROUNDS ALL OF ITS FLIGHTS UNTIL 5 P.M. ET OVER COMPUTER PROBLEMS

Fox News

American Airlines flights across the country are grounded because of computer problems.
American asked the Federal Aviation Administration to halt its flights until 5 p.m. EDT. Flights on regional affiliate American Eagle heading to Dallas, Chicago or New York's LaGuardia Airport have been stopped until 3:30 p.m. EDT.
Some passengers are stuck on planes while others can't make reservations.
Passengers are using social media to flood the airline with complaints.
American Airlines spokesman Kent Powell said Tuesday that the airline is trying to resolve the issues as quickly as it can.
On Twitter, American is sending out apologies but not offering customers much information about when the problem will be fixed.

US Black Hawk Chopper Crashes Near N. Korea Border

breitbart

A US military helicopter crashed Tuesday near the North Korean border, a South Korean defence official said, with no reported casualties.

The helicopter, identified by the Yonhap news agency as a UH-60 Black Hawk, came down in Cheolwon county, which touches on the border with North Korea, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP. 

Rusia y Cuba comenzarán la construcción de un nuevo aeropuerto internacional en La Habana

Base aérea militar de San Antonio de los Banos/ Google Earth

EUROPA PRESS

   Rusia y Cuba comenzarán la construcción de un nuevo aeropuerto internacional en la capital cubana, La Habana, según ha informado este lunes la agencia estatal rusa RIA Novosti.

   El proyecto se puso en marcha durante la visita del primer ministro ruso, Dimitri Medvedev, a Cuba el pasado febrero. El aeropuerto se construirá en la base aérea militar de San Antonio de los Banos, situada a unos 30 kilómetros de la capital cubana y a 10 del aeropuerto internacional José Martí, el principal del país. La base aérea se construyó entre 1970 y 1980 con ayuda de la Unión Soviética

   En noviembre, el ministro de Industria y Comercio ruso, Denis Mantourov, anunció que el programa de cooperación entre Rusia y Cuba, que finaliza en 2020, incluye la creación de un centro de transportes y la fundación de una compañía aérea ruso-cubana, que aseguraría los vuelos en el interior de Cuba y los vuelos desde La Habana hacia los países de América latina e incluso América del norte.

   El número de turistas rusos hacia los países latinoamericanos está en constante aumento. En 2012, unos 87.000 ciudadanos rusos visitaron Cuba, un 10,8 por ciento más que durante el 2011.

Bali jet skids into ocean, splits in two

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"From the AIRCAT Files" - Dr. Richard Haines Testimony

csetiweb

Dr. Haines has been a NASA research scientist since the mid 1960's. He has worked on the Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs as well as several others. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Haines has compiled over 3,000 cases of unusual visual and radar sightings of unexplained aerial phenomena -- known as the AIRCAT files.

"Spacecraft over Mexico" -- Air Traffic Controller Enrique Kolbeck Testimony

csetiweb

Mr. Enrique Kolbeck is a senior Air Traffic Controller at Mexico City International Airport. In his testimony he speaks about the frequent UFO sightings seen at the airport visually and on radar. They are clocked at tremendous speeds and making almost instantaneous hairpin turns. Of the 140 air traffic controllers at the airport, he estimates that over 50 have seen this phenomenon.

Drones crash (a lot) but the military's safety lessons may help civilians

NBCNews

National Transportation Safety Board

The remains of a Predator B "Reaper" drone, sprinkled across the Arizona mountainside near Nogales, in this April 2006 photo released by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Around 9:30 on the night of May 1, 2011, an Air Force Predator that had been in the air for 18 hours suddenly hurtled towards the ground at 400 feet per minute, crashing near a U.S. base at Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

The soldiers who brought the craft back to camp had to cut off its wings so it would fit in their vehicles. Cause of crash? Engine failure, clogged oil filter.

Five years earlier, over American soil, a similar incident occurred. A Department of Homeland Security drone on a routine border patrol was destroyed after nosediving into hilly scrubland near Nogales, Ariz. Investigations revealed a number of causes: pilot errors, display failures, poor design.

Big drones actually crash a lot. Official statistics on large unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) accident rates vary, but drones are 30 to 300 times more likely to crash than small civil aircrafts, according to one estimate. According to a 2005 Department of Defense report, every 100,000 flight hours saw 191 AAI Shadow UAVs destroyed or in need of drastic repairs, compared to just four manned F-16s.

Drones suffer from the usual aircraft mechanical and pilot failures, but they also grapple with uniquely drone-ish issues: They're harder to launch and land, and lost communication links pose a problem. But as drones spend more time aloft, operators and craft manufacturers have had a chance to find and iron out kinks in the machinery. Most drones today are of the larger military variety, but that'll change. In 2015, regulators will begin granting permits to a wider array of small drone operators in U.S. airspace. Fortunately, they'll have detailed obituaries of hundreds of lost UAVs to help inform their safety guidelines.

Why do they fail?
Because they don't carry a human life, drones are sometimes pushed harder than piloted planes. In one instance, a Reaper drone was running perilously low on fuel as it neared its destination, but controllers felt that the target was important enough to sacrifice a drone. So they kept going, Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute told NBC News, citing a private Air Force briefing.

In another instance, a drone ran out of missiles. "But they really wanted the target, so they turned that system into a kamikaze," Singer said.

Like manned aircrafts, UAVs can run out of fuel or encounter mechanical failures, John Hansman, an aviation researcher at MIT, told NBC News. Though such problems aren't drone specific, they are significant — a DoD survey showed that 57 percent of accidents until 2005 were caused by flight control issues or engine or transmission problems.

National Transportation and Safety Board

Another 2006 photo of the downed Predator from Nogales, Ariz.

The same DoD survey said 14 percent of failures involved lost communication links. "Even if things move at the speed of light over fiber optics, there’s still a delay," Singer told NBC News.

It's getting better
These days, takeoffs and landings are controlled by a local crew within sight of the craft, while in-air maneuvers are controlled by mission control at a base in the U.S. To help drone pilots, researchers like MIT's Missy Cummings and Raza Waraich are studying ways to develop control systems and environments in which drone operators can operate more efficiently.

The unmanned craft are getting smarter, too. AeroVironment's small military drones can return to their launch point or land at a safe spot if their communication link falls silent, company spokesman Steve Gatlin told NBC News.

A tall tree or hill can interrupt the link, so some AeroVironment drones are programmed to climb in altitude and reestablish that link. If General Atomics' Predator or Grey Eagle UAVs lose contact, they can navigate to different air space and try connecting again. If that doesn't work, the crafts navigate back to the operating base. The Grey Eagle can even land itself.

Air Force stats reflect these improvements. In 2005, for every 100,000 hours of flight time, 22 drones cost the Air Force $2 million or more (each!). By 2012, that number fell to 3.5 per 100,000-hour interval, Air Force Safety Center spokesperson Masao Doi told NBC News via email. According to General Atomics, the original Predator now encounters 8.5 mishaps every 100,000 flight hours.

What about smaller flying robots?
The military tends to fly big UAVs, but the drones that may soon dot the skies over local municipalities are smaller, weighing under 55 lbs. For now, safety data on civil drones is scarce, Gerald Dillingham, a civil aviation expert at the Government Accountability Office told NBC News.

In preparation for a more drone-friendly U.S. airspace, the Federal Aviation Administration is working with the DoD. They signed an agreement in 2011, in which the DoD agreed to share military drone data on safety with the civilian regulatory agency.

Meanwhile, the FAA has begun collecting accident reports from companies that apply to test their drones domestically, and will set up six test sites within the U.S. to help establish the airworthiness of smaller UAVs.

"It’s still not black and white," Dillingham said about applying data from military crashes to civilian safety concerns. However, "I do still say that some information is a lot better than no information."

Wright brothers flew 2 years after Gustav Whitehead, researcher claims

 Fox News

Aviation Pioneer Whitehead with daughter Rose in front of his "No. 21". In the foreground is his self-built gas pressure motor. (Flight Historical Research Foundation Gustav Weisskopf)

Were we wrong about the Wright Brothers?
That's the shocking claim by Australian aviation historian John Brown, who told FoxNews.com he has photographic proof that German immigrant Gustav Whitehead flew over Connecticut in 1901 -- Orville and Wilbur were second.
“Two years, four months, and three days before the Wright brothers, somebody else flew first,” Brown said via phone from Germany. "It’s really a radical revision of the history of aviation."

'Two years, four months, and three days before the Wright brothers, somebody else flew first.'

- Australian aviation historian John Brown

Even “Jane’s: All the World’s Aircraft” -- widely considered the essential bible of flight -- has acknowledged Whitehead's achievement and Brown's research. With the headline "justice delayed is justice denied," editor-in-chief Paul Jackson wrote about the early aviator's story for the overview to the newly released 100th edition of the reference guide, published online on Saturday.
“Today, it seems impossible that a vast cache of documentary evidence ... can be overlooked by the world at large,” he wrote.
The Wright brothers soared into history books on Dec. 17, 1903, following their historic, 852-foot, 59-second flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina -- an achievement for which the duo are widely described as being “first in flight.” But historians have long known that others were working on a variety of flying machines, including a fellow U.S. resident, German immigrant Gustav Whitehead (born Weisskopf).
Whitehead flew early in the morning of Aug. 14, 1901, Brown said. His winged, bird-like plane was called  No. 21, or "The Condor"; with wooden wheels and canvas wings stretched taut across bat-like wooden arms, it rose over the darkened streets of Bridgeport, Conn., and covered an estimated 1.5 miles at a height of 50 feet, he said.
Whitehead brought the chief editor of the Bridgeport Herald to witness the event, which led to a news article for the paper and a photo of the historic event -- a photo that, unfortunately for history, turned out to be awfully blurry.
“There were four journalists who saw the photo back in the early 1900s. They saw it up close, the real-life version. I have to use their eyes to be able to see it,” Brown, who has cultivated a vast crop of information on Whitehead, told FoxNews.com.

What happened to Whitehead?

  * Patent problems. Orville and Wilbur filed a patent as well as numerous injunctions against other early pioneers, Brown said.   * Criminal associates. Whitehead disastrously picked a convicted criminal to help commercialize the technology. He was locked from his own factory.   * The Smithsonian. Jackson wrote that the Institute obtained Wright Flyer No. 1 from Orville only after agreeing not to state that any earlier aircraft was capable of carrying a man under its own power, something Jakab called a misunderstanding of a feud between Orville and the Smithsonian. "On the surface, yes this agreement does exist … and the agreement has never been secret," he told FoxNews.com.

Whitehead’s story has long been a widely known but buried fact of history, one studied at length by numerous aviation enthusiasts. Tom Crouch, who has written four books on the Wright brothers, is one of them. He remains unswayed.
"Gimme a break," Crouch told FoxNews.com. "I have not seen anything that convinced me that Whitehead got off the ground in a powered machine at all."
The problem is that the blurry original photo disappeared years ago, but numerous newspaper articles about the event are easy to track down -- many of them are linked from Brown's website. There's a copy of the Bridgeport Sunday Herald from Aug. 18, 1901, and the Washington Times from Aug. 23, 1901, for example. The site also has pictures from a German museum dedicated to Whitehead.
One image is of key interest: a 1906 photograph of an exhibit on Whitehead’s flight, taken at an aviation exhibition. The 1906 photograph shows several other photographs of the man and his flying machine -- possibly including the lost blurry original of the historic flight in 1901. Brown said he asked Bavarian police to analyze the photos seen in the 1906 image.
“The photo has been enlarged 3,500 percent,” Brown said. It validated the blurry picture, and the analysis confirms the numerous early press reports on Whitehead’s flight as well, he claims.
“He had the only monoplane. It’s a high-wing monoplane, and it has a big mast in the middle. It’s obviously his plane.”
"And it’s in the air, so it’s obviously flying," he told FoxNews.com.
Other experts remained skeptical of Brown's claims: Peter Jakab, associate director of curatorial affairs for the Smithsonian Museum, said the 1906 photograph was examined thoroughly long ago.
“I see a lot of blurriness. I don’t see a lot of airplanes,” he joked. He argues that the legacy of Orville and Wilbur's plane is more important anyway.
“It was able to evolve into something we have today. And that’s its real powerful significance -- in addition to being the first to fly,” Jakab told FoxNews.com. Crouch went so far as to call Whitehead a pretender, noting that people he worked with in later years didn't believe he had flown.
“Up until now, historians said he was a pretender, a fake and a fraud. The truth is quite the opposite,” Brown told FoxNews.com.
The German Interior minister on Tuesday awarded €9.5 million for a new museum dedicated to Whitehead, Brown noted. But first or second, that investment might be taking things too far -- even for Brown.
“[Whitehead] applied for U.S. citizenship. This is something the Americans should be celebrating more than the Germans,” he said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/03/13/first-in-flight-wright-brothers-flew-2-years-after-gustav-whitehead/#ixzz2NRDiY2Zn

Tampa International's flights to Cuba hit political, market turbulence

Tampa Bay Times

Cuba lies just 300 miles away. It was 50 years, though, that really separated it from Tampa. ¶ That ended in 2011 when Tampa International Airport was allowed to resume commercial flights to Havana for the first time since the trade embargo took effect in 1962. ¶ The city coveted the route, which boosted the airport's international portfolio and gave hope to those who want to restore ties and trade with Cuba. In the 18 months since, more than 57,000 people have traveled from Tampa International to Cuba. Miami no longer had a monopoly on the Cuban travel market, and Tampa's 80,000 Cuban-Americans could visit family without first driving four hours south to catch a plane. ¶ The Cuba flights are considered a Tampa success story. Yet to many key players, there's been a lot of turbulence behind the scenes.

Supporters grumble that the Tampa-Cuba route needs to attract more non-Cubans. The route was also hindered by an airline price war, bureaucratic red tape and — no surprise — Cuban-American politics.

Keep reading on  Tampa Bay Times >>

Holder: No drone strikes on Americans in US, except in ’extraordinary circumstance’

Michael Reynolds / EPA

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder

openchannel

By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

The Obama administration has no intention of carrying out drone strikes against suspected terrorists in the United States, but could use them in response to “an extraordinary circumstance” such as the 9/11 terror attacks, according to a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder obtained by NBC News.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who received the March 4 letter from Holder, called the attorney general’s refusal to rule out drone strikes in the U.S. “more than frightening.” 

The letter from Holder surfaced just as the Senate Intelligence Committee was voting 12-3 to approve White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan to be CIA director. The vote came after the White House agreed to share additional classified memos on targeted drone strikes against U.S. citizens overseas.

Paul had threatened to hold up Brennan's confirmation on the floor of the Senate if the administration did not clarify whether targeted drone strikes could be used inside the U.S.

In his letter, Holder called the question of drone strikes inside the U.S. "entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur and we hope no president will ever have to confront. … As a policy matter, moreover, we reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat."

But Holder then appeared to leave the door open to such strikes in extreme circumstances.

Read the full letter

"It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States. For example, the president could  conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances of a catastrophic attack like the ones suffered on Dec. 7, 1941 and Sept. 11, 2001."

’So scary’: Midair jet scare cuts David Copperfield’s journey in half

 

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Harlem Shake dance on a plane

itnnews

High-flying Holder: Report shows AG, FBI director used luxury jets for personal travel

foxnews

Shown here is the FBI Gulfstream V jet. (FBI)

By Barnini Chakraborty

Two high-tech luxury jets that the FBI convinced Congress were needed for the fight against global terrorism have instead been used to ferry around Attorney General Eric Holder and his predecessors, as well as FBI Director Robert Mueller, according to a government report released Thursday.

Those officials -- which included Holder and Mueller, as well as former Attorneys General Michael Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales -- racked up nearly 700 "nonmission" trips between 2007 and 2011, at a cost of $11.4 million, according to the Government Accountability Office 

Those officials are required to use government aircraft, and in some cases reimbursed the government for a portion of the expenses. But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said given the cost they should either not use the expensive Gulfstream V jets or cut back on their miles. 

“These luxury jets were supposedly needed for counterterrorism, but it turns out that they were used almost two-thirds of the time for jet-setting executive travel,” he said. “Nobody disputes that the Attorney General and the FBI Director should have access to the secure communications, but, for instance, there’s no reason they can’t take a less expensive mode of transportation, or cut their personal travel." 

A call to the Department of Justice for comment was not immediately returned. 

The cost attributed to attorney general travel was $5.8 million; the FBI director's travel cost nearly as much. Roughly 70 percent of the AG flights were for business, and 28 percent were for personal reasons. 

The findings in the report come amid a highly publicized fight over spending cuts set to take effect Friday. 

The Obama administration has repeatedly painted a dismal picture of what could happen if across-the-board spending cuts are allowed to take place under the process known as sequestration. The $85 billion in cuts are scheduled to go into effect on March 1 unless Congress can reach a compromise, which is unlikely.

“I’m really interested in how the Attorney General can claim that federal law enforcement agents will be cut, knowing that over the last five years the Department has allowed for millions of dollars to be spent on personal travel. It’s ludicrous,” Grassley said.

According to the report, from 2007 through 2011, 61 percent of the flights were aboard one of the two Gulfstream V aircrafts, and 25 percent of the flights were aboard the FBI’s Citation (CE-750). The remaining 14 percent of flights were aboard another FBI aircraft.

FBI officials told investigators that the Gulfstream Vs and the Citation were used because they have “secure communications, larger passenger capacity and the long-distance range that is necessary for their required use travel.”

The report also points out that the government should be reimbursed for any personal travel at the full coach fare between cities. The reimbursement amount, or equivalent commercial fare, usually ends up being less than the cost of operating a government aircraft.

In November 2010, a personal trip taken by the attorney general to New York on the Gulfstream V had an estimated flight cost of $15,894, but the reimbursement at the equivalent commercial fare was $420.80.

The report said that for 88 of the trips, the attorney general reimbursed for a total amount of $47,000. The FBI director reimbursed roughly $4,500 for a total of 10 trips. 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/28/government-report-shows-attorney-general-fbi-used-luxury-jets-for-personal/#ixzz2MDDFFbBl

China's new super cargo jet takes to the skies

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Russian nuclear bombers intercepted near Guam

worldnews

By Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube, NBC News

U.S. military officials tell NBC News that two Russian bombers, capable of carrying nuclear cruise missiles, circled the U.S. island of Guam in the Western Pacific this week. U.S. Air Force F-15 jets scrambled from Andersen Air Force Base on Guam to intercept the bombers.

According to one military official, the Russian Bear bombers remained in international airspace, the encounter between the U.S. and Russian aircraft “stayed professional” and there was no incident. The official said it’s impossible to determine whether the Russian bombers carried any nuclear weapons.

U.S. long-range radars and satellites tracked the two bombers as they took off from northeastern Russia and headed south on a long-range flight that required “multiple refueling.” Japan also scrambled fighter jets as the bombers passed near but did not enter Japanese airspace.

U.S. military officials say “it’s highly unusual but not unprecedented” that Russian bombers would fly training missions in the vicinity of Guam. According to one official, “It wasn’t provocative but it certainly got our attention.” U.S. long-range B-52 bombers, also capable of carrying nuclear weapons, are based at Guam.

Since Vladimir Putin reclaimed the Russian presidency, U.S. officials said the number of such flights in the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska have increased, but encounters with U.S. aircraft have remained “generally very professional.”

The two Russian Bear bombers flew near Guam at about the same time President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union message. Military officials refused to speculate about the timing.

The interception was first reported in the Washington Free Beacon.

Iran gives stealth drone secrets to Russia

WND/ By Reza Kahlili

Russia has helped decode an American stealth drone that was captured by Iran 14 months ago in exchange for its secrets, a source has told WND.

Last week, Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards air and space division, announced the decoding of the drone, while Islamic regime media aired aerial footage below from the drone showing some of its operational capabilities.

“Some (Guards officers) believed that America would send its commando unit to destroy (the drone) while others were of the opinion that the U.S. would not risk having its forces get caught by us, creating a bigger problem for themselves, and that they might just do an air raid to destroy it,” Hajizadeh said. “We gave it a 10 to 15 percent chance on the air raid, and because of that we ordered an alert at all our missile bases to be ready to launch against all U.S. bases (in the region) if they did take any action.”

When the drone was captured, President Obama said, “We’ve asked for it back. We’ll see how the Iranians respond.”

According to Hamidreza Zakeri, a former intelligence officer of the regime who has defected to Europe, Iran and Russia had long been working on trapping a U.S. drone.

A Russian military team from its air and space division had secretly entered Iran days after a strategic agreement between the two countries in 2007 and was stationed at Revolutionary Guard bases to help the Guards with its weapons program and access to modern U.S. technology.

Get the inside story in Reza Kahlili’s “A Time To Betray” and learn how the Islamic regime “bought the bomb” in “Atomic Iran.”

After studying the stealth drone’s travel routes and its surveillance of Iran’s skies, the Russians successfully hacked into the system of one of the RQ170s and forced it to land in Iran Dec. 4, 2011.

With this collaboration, all the information of the stealth drone is now in the hands of the Russians, and much has been given to Iran’s Defense Ministry. Russia in turn provided Iran with the information on its anti-air defense system S300. Russia, because of international sanctions against Iran, could not deliver the actual S300 system.

Other information passed to Iran included technology on the American fighters F35 and X36, which eventually resulted in the Defense Ministry publicly unveiling its new jet fighter, the Qaher 313, with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasting of the advanced features of this super stealth fighter.

However, according to the source, the fighter shown by Iranian media was merely a shell model and not operational and that the regime has only tested the smaller size. The project originally was scheduled to be completed in 2016, but due to the sanctions and economic problems, the regime has had problems following through with the timetable.

Russian-Iranian collaboration goes back many years. After the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and the formation of the new republics, oil reserves in the Caspian Sea became an issue among the neighboring countries, resulting in disputes with Iran, which claimed half of the reserves.

Russia worried about the impact of the increased importance of this new market and the possible decrease in value of its Siberian oil fields, where over 40 percent of its income is based on its export of gas and oil. Vladimir Putin made a special trip to Iran in 2007 over the issue.

Because the Caspian-Caucasus region could play a significant role in the world economy and world policy, Putin in his meeting with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was able to significantly expand Russia’s collaboration with the Islamic regime. He also got an agreement on the division of Caspian oil reserves and a bigger Russian role in transporting the oil out of that area.

The 10-year agreement called for the expansion of commerce between the two countries of up to $200 billion and military and secret projects totaling $350 billion.

It was the first time a Kremlin chief visited Iran since Josef Stalin’s trip in 1943.

Russian collaboration extends to the regime’s missile, nuclear and even bio-weapons programs. Sources in the Islamic regime previously have revealed exclusively to WND the existence of secret bio-weapons site in Iran, where, with the help of Russia, Iran has mastered production of eight microbial agents, arming its missiles with biological warheads, and a nuclear site at which, with Russian help, laser technology is enriching uranium.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/iran-gives-stealth-drone-secrets-to-russia/#UyJLOG7EKGeIEv1m.99

Iran's New Qaher 313 Stealth Fighter Would Be Perfect For Attacking The US Navy

businessinsider 
Robert Johnson and David Cenciotti, The Aviationist 

Iran yesterday revealed its most recent indigenous fighter jet — the “Qaher 313″. The prototype Q-313 was presented to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as a ceremonial gift during the country's Ten-Day Dawn celebration. The festivities commemorate the 1979 revolution when the U.S. embassy in Tehran taken by force. 

In the previous days, the Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi had said, “The aircraft will be different from the other fighter jets Iran has already made.”

Indeed, based on the first photographs released by the FARS News Agency, the new stealthy jet has a peculiar design. It features hard edges and those distinctive edges and angle of the U.S. F-22 and the twin tail shape much similar to that of the F-35 Lightning II.

The Q-313 has large, seemingly fixed canards, and little wings whose external section is canted downward, while the canopy material is at least odd (based on its transparency, it looks like Plexiglas or something like that).

The cockpit seems basic (a bit too much for a modern plane – note the lack of wiring behind the front panel).

The air intakes are extremely small whereas the engine section lacks any kind of nozzle — above all — the aircraft is way too small. Click here for more pictures at the Aviationist >

Putting aside the Qaher's implausible aerodynamics and Hollywood sheen, last week's announcement of a coming new domestic fighter was not insignificant given the Iranian air force has no more than a few dozen strike aircraft.

Most of those it inherited from the prior regime during the 1979 revolution. That regime change, involving a huge U.S. hostage situation, made it far more difficult to maintain the country's then-new fleet of American F-14s.

Tehran has a domestically built fighter already. At least a handful have been sighted during air shows and displays, but this new model is a drastic change in design and ability.

Of course, Iran is famous for building models and systems it never intends to fly, but if this is an actual prototype it may be designed to fill a uniquely Iranian requirement.

Wikimedia Commons

Air dominance against the nearly 200 aircraft of the U.S. Fifth Fleet out of Bahrain isn't a realistic goal for Tehran. What it would look to do in any open engagement with the U.S. would be to overwhelm American surface ships with small, high-speed boats, and missiles of its own. 

Those boats would immediately be set upon by a fleet of U.S. helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. Most naval experts are quick to point out that a fight between a helo' and a boat generally isn't much of a fight at all. Un-distracted helicopters have immense advantages, but once they start taking fire or need to react to other airborne attacks, that changes.

Perhaps Iran isn't imagining a fleet of stealthy fighter/bombers, based on some design similar to this new display, but a few dozen single seat craft with an array of missiles, a couple guns, and the ability to fly low and slow over the Gulf.

A string of planes to compliment the one military project they've been working hardest over the last decade, but rarely ever mention. That plane would be a handy addition to cover the Bradstone based speed boat, they believe can take on the Fifth Fleet and bring down the U.S. Navy.

While Iran does have a few HESA Shahed light attack/recon helicopters, they're

Lorne Campbell Design Bradstone Challenger

 modestly armed and have a limited range of a couple hundred miles.

Iran's other domestically produced jet, the Saeqeh fighter is designed to engage other fighters in mid-air combat also not a practical choice against the might of the U.S. Fleet.

A Qaher variation against the Bradstone would fill a niche, but is obviously pure speculation. But speculating has some value when examining Iran's military projects because like most countries, the weapons Tehran speaks of the least seem to mean the most. 

This couldn't be more true than in the case of the ill-gotten Bradstone and Iran's blossoming missile inventory that's about as extensive and diverse as it is deadly and proven.

We'll be sure to follow with any additional Qaher updates.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/irans-new-indigenous-fighter-qaher-313-david-cenciotti-2013-2#ixzz2JxJ8N2xM

Iran Unveils 'Radar-Evading' Jet

foxnews

TEHRAN, Iran –  Iran unveiled on Saturday its newest combat jet, a domestically manufactured fighter-bomber that military officials claim can evade radar.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony broadcast on state TV that building the Qaher-313, or Dominant-313, shows Iran's will to "conquer scientific peaks."
The Qaher is one of several aircraft designs rolled out by the Iranian military since 2007. Tehran has repeatedly claimed to have developed advanced military technologies in recent years but its claims cannot be independently verified because the country does not release technical details of its arsenals.
The Islamic republic launched a self-sufficiency military program in the 1980s to compensate for a Western weapons embargo that banned export of military technology and equipment to Iran. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles, torpedoes, drones and fighter planes.
"Qaher-313 is a fully indigenous aircraft designed and built by our aerospace experts. This is a radar-evading plane that can fly at low altitude, carry weapons, engage enemy aircrafts and land at short airstrips," Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said.
Some reports however suggest Iran's program relies on equipment supplied by major international defense contractors -- incorporating parts made abroad or reverse-engineered technologies into its domestic designs.
Still photos of the Qaher released by the official IRNA news agency and pictures on state TV show a single-seat jet. They described it as a fighter-bomber that can combat both other aircraft and ground targets.
Iran's English-language state Press TV said Qaher was similar to the American-made F/A-18, an advanced fighter capable of dogfighting as well as penetrating enemy air defenses to strike ground targets.
Physically, Press TV said, the aircraft resembles the F-5E/F Tiger II, a much older American design that Iran has had in its arsenal since it was supplied to the U.S.-allied regime of the Shah before Iran's 1979 revolution.
"Development depends on our will. If we don't have a will, no one can take us there," Ahmadinejad told the inauguration ceremony in Tehran. "Once we imported cars and assembled them here. Now, we are at a point where we can design, build and get planes in the air."
Iran unveiled what it said was its first domestically manufactured fighter jet, called Azarakhsh or Lightning, in 2007. In the same year, it claimed that Azarakhsh had reached industrial production stage.
Saeqeh, or Thunder, was a follow-up aircraft derived from Azarakhsh. Iran unveiled its first squadron of Saeqeh fighter bombers in an air show in September 2010.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/02/ahmadinejad-unveils-iran-newest-fighter-jet-dominant-described-as-evading/#ixzz2JleeyveB