Originally Posted by
tdracer
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
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Unless they did a huge inventory of spares, I doubt any fast jet would remain serviceable very long if the supply chain was cut.
Afaik, there were a handful that remained viable for the Khomeini regime, serving as a mini AWACS for the Gulf hot spots.
Iran initially bought 80, so they could cannibalize for quite a while.