U.S. Special Ops Planes Destroyed in Iran Cost More Than $100 Million
And the opposition has to say:
“If the United States gets three more victories like this it will be utterly ruined,” Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament,
* note the incredible disconnect between the two parties. The US thinks of it is a total victory. And the Iranians think it’s pyrrhic.
The USA has thousands of manned aircraft on active duty. Losing one rescue aircraft per mission in a non permissive environment sounds about right. Zero is better but just one is not bad (no crew hurt, which is the important part)
Most countries had only double digit numbers of aircraft so losing three is significant.
This is where you can see the race for drones.. countries that have no real. Air Force can now afford them one with unmanned aircraft. Even if the performance is generally low, you can just keep printing them out.
UPDATE:
The Iranians are quite proud that they destroyed at least three US aircraft and published this photo
It very cleat that the two MD little birds were on one way missions and were destroyed IN PLACE along with a fixed wing aircraft prior to the US Leaving.
You do not have time to either shut down and pull blades then load under fire, nor is flying out a ~100 mph with the aircraft drogue shooting them fuel in hostile airspace. Diing that can just produce multiple downed aviator or worse casualties.
Just one WP per helicopter and the problems are taken care of. Everyone leaves at…well we leave fast, with fighter escort. The USA can throw aircraft at Iran forevery and not run out.
Again we see why the shift to drones. Its not just the cost of the drones, its the cost of a one in whatever ratio of mission to needing to police up crew at a DPP (down pilot pickup)
Anyways its a fascinating look at how each side thinks they have a treamdous victory.