1978

So many medals, hanging heavy on the uniforms.

North Korea has modified their military uniforms to accomodate massive medals:

//www.strangemilitary.com/images/content/110512.jpg 

Everything is sacred.

They guarded the skies

Thank You.

If you lived in Iran in the 60's and the 70's, these are the people who kept it safe for you.

God bless'em all.

The Night of the Generals

These are the names that I could figure out to my best of knowledge. The numbers refer to the individual photos on this page and their locations are given in the brackets (from left to right).

008: Nader Jahanbani (first row, 3rd)

006: Amir-Hossein Rabii (first row, 5th)

005: Abdollah Azarbarzin (first row, 6th)

004: Manuchehr Yazdan Bakhsh (first row, 7th)

003: Akbar Kompani (first row, 8th)

002: Shapour Khorrami (first row, 9th)

015: Mohammad-Hossein Mehrmand (second row, 3rd)

014: Ghomghani (second row, 4th)

Names

Would have been nice to have their names under each picture. I could only recognize General Jahanbani.

A great man, God bless his soul.

The Shah's Air Force ?

Iran's Air Force, part of "Artesh Shahanshahi-e Iran", Yes, Shah was instrumental in creating the modern Air Force.

You sound like Western journalists when describing anything Shahanshahi! :)

Nonetheless, they were men to be proud of, a Force to reckon with. Don't think we deserved them though! Bless them all whereever they might be.

p/s even the communist eastern Europe acknowledged their skills, we didn't. that's a shame.

 -F

Sargord, are you in anyway connected to IRIAF?

You seem always interested in the subject and condsider yourself an expert on the field. Have you served in IRIAF of have you in anyway been connected to IRIAF?

I didn't say otherwise- stop twisting

And let's not forget those "real hero mid ranking officers" would not even exist had it not been for these high ranking officers whom you suggest are not real heroes. You don't even know the first thing about heroism.

You asked how many of the people here were brought back into the IRIAF and I correctly responded NONE.

Nothing I have said here is not real, nor dishonest. These gentlemen were patriots, and the mid ranking officers who made up the IRIAF were all brought up and trained and developed under the leadership of these men, and looked up to and respected these men tremendously, many of which were executed by your Islamic fascist system. If you want to separate the mid ranking and high ranking officers, and minimize the leaders of this world class air force in any way, that just shows more your anti Iranian stance, which you have proven over and over again here.

As far as reality, YOU are the one who needs to take his head out of the sand and stop defending rape, torture, and violation of innocent Iranians by the IRGC and the Islamic Fuehrer. Now if you want to talk corruption, there is a place for you with plenty of material.

That is, if you are honest.

You are nobody to talk about heroism. You are a fascist and support oppression and treason. You call students whose only crime is to ask "where is my vote" radicals, and call systematic widespread rape and torture "law enforcement".

-Fair

the real heroes

Fair, let's not forget that it was the mid-ranking officer grades that were brought back into the IRIAF fold, for it is actually they who fought the air war during the hard days of the Imposed War.

And let's also be honest with ourselves here- there was plenty of corruption to go around at the very top of the Imperial Iranian officer corps. So yes, there were patriots (there usually are), but let's keep it real- shall we?

Thank You - We will free Iran and honor you

God bless you and thank you.

I salute these Iranians

The men in this picture, especially the late General Nader Jahanbani, are the fathers of modern aviation in Iran. General Jahanbani built the Golden Grown aerobatic team in 1956, and they were performing with the Blue Angels and other top teams. These men trained and built a world class organization and a generation of military aviation professionals which kept Iran strong and made the Soviets and Arabs think twice about messing with us. They dedicated their lives to building a strong modern Iran from a starting point of nothing (literally). If it were not for them, Khuzestan would be part of Iraq today.

Under the leadership of these men, Iran went in a very short time from a country that rode donkeys to a country that operated the world's most advanced aircraft, aircraft that even many NATO countries and Israel dreamed of having, and the Soviets would have loved to just look at.

It is ironic that these men and their government were accused of buying "iron scraps" and junk from America and being puppets incapable of doing anything without the Americans, whereas every pilot and aircraft technician in Iran today learned what they know from the students and students of students of these men, 30 years after the US was out of Iran. Today, the Russian and Chinese garbage bought by the mullahs is less reliable and crashes more often than the 35-45 year old planes (the "iron scraps") that entered service in the era of this photograph.

I salute you gentlemen, thank you for your service to our country, and I am sorry that we as a country have been occupied by anti Iranian forces. But let there be no misuderstanding- we will be free soon.

Because today, the youth of Iran, the generation that was born after you were executed, are saying in the streets what you and other great Iranians throughout history said all your lives:

Irani Meemeerad

Zellat Nemipazirad

Old habits die hard.

-Fair

p.s. None of these men were spared by the revolution, they were either executed or purged. Those who wanted to fight in the war were not allowed to. Had they been, the war would have been much shorter, and ended much quicker in Iran's favor. Instead, the defense of Iran was given to apes like AN, the current coup leader in Iran, and his other IRGC unqualified cronies like Rezai, Rafiqdoost, Rahim Safavi, etc. The IRIAF command was given to a junior (albeit capable) officer, Colonel Fakouri, who had to take back seat to the IRGC and mullahs when it came to military decisions. Also, these uniforms are formal dress ballroom ceremony uniforms, not the normal ones. IRIAF doesn't have such a category of uniforms, and because of Islamic government does not have ties, unlike the rest of the world.

Larry, Curly and Moe, please slap and pull hair as u do best

It is safer than making assanine and inappropriate comments about a picture, exposing your confused perspectives or lack of any. Specially curly and moe (Emil and Gomashte). It is hard to tell which of you is dumber.

Boy, the second revolution is already in progress to kick this

dictator out, and some folks are still chasing the forgotten days of another dictator.

Mehrdad

Crashed...

By now, they must have all crashed by their late dictator leader Mohammad Reza Pahlavi...

Great photos!

Look at all the fruit salad on those old IIAF uniforms! (ribbon/medals) The photo must have been taken right at the end of the happy days for the IIAF.

I wonder how many were purged or executed for the attempted Nojeh coup. (Very sad.) And I wonder how many- if any at all- were reactivated into the IRIAF to fight the war against Saddam.

Personally, I prefer the new uniforms over these Imperial ones (which are quite gaudy, by comparison). I also prefer the new enamled ribbon bars, and even the IRIAF insignias.