According to the magazine, General Shah Safi also noted that the Iranian Air Force can fully defend the national airspace and that the country has made significant efforts to produce spare parts needed to modernize its aircraft. The commander of the 2nd tactical air base in Tabriz, where the MiG-29s are undergoing repairs, said that Air Force technicians spent 14,000 man-hours to bring the aircraft into flight condition.
Since 1991, the Iranian Air Force has received 18 MiG-29A fighters and seven MiG-29UB "twin" aircraft. They were ordered as part of a contract with the USSR in June 1990. The Iranian MiG-29s became the first and only interceptors acquired by Iran after the Iran-Iraq war, and were intended to replace the F-14A Tomcat, which were lost during the war or were decommissioned due to lack of spare parts. The MiGs were ordered as part of a plan to rebuild Iranian fighter aircraft proposed by Air Force Commander Mansur Sattari. It was originally planned to purchase 48 MiG-29s to protect the main Iranian cities: Shiraz, Tehran and Tabriz, but the order was reduced due to financial constraints.
MiGami manned 11 and 1 tactical squadrons based at Tehran-Mehrabad airport, as well as 23 and 2 tactical squadrons in Tabriz. Under the terms of the contract, 400 Russian advisers, technicians and instructors were to assist in the operation of fighters for seven years. Russia was also required to provide them with spare parts throughout their entire life cycle - 25 years or 25,000 [so in the original text - AF] flight hours.
However, the delivered MiG-29s turned out to be from the presence of the Russian Air Force, and more than half of them should have exhausted their resource by about 2007-2009. By this time, it was known about at least two Iranian MiG-29A and four MiG-29UB, transferred to storage due to the exhaustion of the resource. The aircraft manufacturer was reportedly unable to provide maintenance and repair manuals, making it impossible for Iranian specialists to carry out repairs on their own. Nevertheless, the leadership of the Iranian Air Force made efforts to acquire the necessary documentation from other countries, and presumably by the mid-1990s. Iran could independently conduct periodic inspections of aircraft with the help of its engineers without the participation of Russian specialists.
Iran has also managed to obtain some equipment for these aircraft from other countries - after Russia allegedly refused to supply it. For example, two Iranian MiG-29s were equipped with refueling rods, and hanging tanks with a volume of 1520 liters were received from Belarus.
As mentioned above, due to the depletion of the resource, the aircraft began to be decommissioned. The first MiG-29UB from the 23rd squadron was transferred to the storage base in 2006, followed in 2007 by the second "spark" and the combat MiG-29A. In the summer of 2008, the MiG-29UB from the 11th squadron in Mehrabad was also transferred for storage pending repair, the second MiG-29UB of the same squadron was decommissioned in the spring of 2009.
As a result, the leadership of the Iranian Air Force decided that it was necessary to initiate its own program for the repair of this type of aircraft and turned to the aircraft repair enterprises in Tabriz and Tehran, engaged in servicing the MiG-29, as well as to Iran Aircraft Industries (IACI) with a proposal to repair the aircraft located in storage in Mehrabad.
In the course of V. Putin's visit to Tehran in October 2007, an agreement was concluded worth $ 150 million for the supply to Iran of 50 RD-33 turbojet engines produced by the MMP im. V. Chernyshev. Iran has stated that these engines will be used in the Azarakh national fighter project. It appears that these engines were never actually intended to be used on an Iranian fighter, which is an example of reverse engineering of the American Northrop F-5E Tiger II. It became obvious that this was nothing more than a cover for their real purpose, which was to replace the exhausted Iranian MiG-29 engines. Deliveries started in 2008.
As part of the repair program, the Mehrabad aircraft repair plant in 2007 assumed responsibility for the repair of the first MiG-29UB fighters of the 23rd squadron, which were stored in Tabriz. This was followed by work on two former Iraqi MiG-29As, which had been in storage for nearly 18 years after they flew to Iran during the 1991 Gulf War. For this reason, they were in very poor condition when they were transported to Mehrabad for return. in flight condition. In the end, the first self-repair of the Iranian MiG-29A was completed, and in September 2008 the fighter completed a successful 30-minute test flight.
In the spring of 2010, additional MiG-29A were repaired in Mehrabad, at the same time the first MiG-29UB repaired in Tabriz also returned to service. The repair of the second MiG-29 in Tabriz was completed in June 2010. This aircraft was damaged in 2001, but its repair was postponed for eight years due to lack of necessary parts.
Currently, the IACI company continues the program of repairing Iranian MiG-29s at the ARZ in Tabriz and Tehran.
There is unconfirmed information that the Russian side may again be ready to assist in the repair work carried out by IACI in Mehrabad. Despite the shortage of spare parts, since 2008, the Iranian Air Force has managed to return to service five MiG-29s that were in storage, and in the next five years it is planned to increase this number only through the efforts of the Air Force and IACI personnel.
