IRIAF has built a dozen F5 variants . The point was not to build third generation aircraft, but to gain access and experience in building aircraft .show me one country that has built an aircraft from scratch by reverse engineering and no TOT.
We’re decades ahead of Pakistan and most of the world in maintaining and over hauling a large fleet of aircraft with absolutely no TOT or outside help.
The correct decision was made to invest in the indigenous missile industry. Who in the region or in the world has gone to to swinging with the US and NATO other than Russia and fought a 12 day war to a draw?
Iranian engineers built the Shahed drones and now NATO countries are copying the suicide drone and building their own versions. That one drone by itself has laid to waste much of Ukraine and has depleted treasure of AD.
By comparison, the Turkish Bayraktar which is nothing more than an assembled drone from off-the-shelf parts from NATO countries was completely inconsequential.
I don’t give a shit how many shiny prototypes the Turkish propaganda machine flies around. It has practically zero combat effectiveness
against third rate warlords.
Russia's Aeroflot sends aircraft for repair to Iran