Iraqi AWACS in Iran

Shiraz, Islamic Republic of Iran (IR)

Airplanes - Military - Parked - Utility
Links: www.aerospaceweb.org
By: kjfitz

Nearby:

F4s Phantoms

Il-76

Su24s

C-27 or C-130 in Iran?

Comments

parikka

@ 2006-07-29 05:37:42

There should not be any Boeing 707-based AWACS planes (E-3 Sentry) in Iran, because Imperial Iran never recieved the Sentrys they ordered due to revolution and only AWACS Iraq had was the Il-76-based one-off prototype (Adnan?).

I didn't find any references to Iran obtaining Sentry from the normal sources. This is really a mystery plane - could it be a mockup perhaps?

BTW. It seems to have all four engines, the engine cover is discolored.

kjfitz

@ 2006-07-29 10:41:32

A Sentry is an E-3. This is not an E-3. This is more likely an AN-50 Mainstay of Russian design, a modified Il-76. The dimensions are the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_A-50_Mainstay

parikka

@ 2006-08-01 07:23:45

You are right - almost. The engines are closer to the body and also closer together. The paint scheme close to the E-3 (the stripe on radome), which confused me along the location of radome, which is farther back (but not as far) as in E-3.

But this is not an actual A-50, but one of the two remaining Iraqi-built Il-76-based variants called "Adnan 1", where the radar technology is provided by Thomson (France).

More info below "Known variants":
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/recon/a50/