Originally Posted by
Asturias56
No-one has mentioned all those shiny Tomcats sold to the Shah.................... but it's all politics - a few aircraft aren't going to suddenly make the UAE a major force in anyway
I seem to remember stories after the Shah fell that - after the US support personnel left - the Iranian AF suddenly discovered none of their fancy F-14s were flight worthy. Apparently there was some critical component that mysteriously went missing from all the aircraft
.
Unless they did a huge inventory of spares, I doubt any fast jet would remain serviceable very long if the supply chain was cut.