Fix Your Fighters with Ebay

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10:16 AM, Apr 18, 2008 • By JOHN NOONAN

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Iranian F-14.jpg

F-14 Tomcat interceptor aircraft antenna, military specification night-vision goggles and body armour were among the "sensitive and stolen defence related items" that the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) found for sale on internet trading sites such as Ebay and Craigslist.

Compounding the problem? The only nation on earth that still flies the F-14 Tomcat is... the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Tehran can only fly approximately 20 of the 79 airframes delivered in the late 70s, as the remaining 59 are subjected to a complex cannibalization process that keeps the single squadron of operational jets in the air. So the numbers used to dictate that Iran needed 3 inert fighters to keep 1 flying. Now, it seems, all they need is an Ebay account.

Last summer Reuben F. Johnson reported in this magazine on the Navy's poor history of securing spare parts for the F-14.

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