Jalil Zandi
Jalil Zandi ( Persian [ d͡ʒælil ɛ zændi ] جلیل زندی; * May 2, 1951 in Garmsar ; † April 1, 2001 in Tehran ) was a Brigadier General of the Iranian Air Force (IRIAF) , the most successful fighter pilot during the First Gulf War and the most successful F-14 pilot worldwide.
Training and courses
Zandi's father, Ezatollah Zandi, was a railroad technician and his mother, Gohartaj Fouladi, was a housewife. Jalil Zandi lived in Garmsar until the end of summer 1965 and then moved with his family to Tehran because his father had been transferred there. He finished high school in Tehran and graduated from high school in 1968. Then he passed the entrance exam at the Pahlawi University in Shiraz in the field of agricultural engineering. For financial reasons he did not start this course. He was very interested in aviation, so he joined the Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) and was sent to the United States after a few months as a student pilot . His course in the United States lasted 14 months, after which he returned to Iran.
After his return he completed a course on the F-4E under his flight instructor Shahram Rostami and continued his service as a pilot of an F-4E in Hamedan . He was later transferred to Isfahan to be retrained on the F-14. He finished this course on November 17, 1978.
Military career
After the revolution , Jalil Zandi continued his service with the Air Force of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRIAF).
On the first day of the first Gulf War , when Iraqi aircraft to Mehrabad airport bombed, he was returned to visit his relatives in Tehran and after it had reached the news of the bombing, immediately after Isfahan back.
While holding the rank of major , he had arguments with Lt. Col. Abbas Babaei, his superior, a low-skilled F-14 pilot and commander of the Isfahan military airfield who had close ties with the mullahs during the Islamic revolution . Zandi was arrested and threatened with execution. He was released from custody after six months.
Zandi became known as the fighter pilot of F-14 Tomcat fighter jets. During the Iraqi-Iran war, he scored 11 kills (8 confirmed kills by examining documents by the DNI published according to the FOIA and 3 suspected kills) of Iraqi fighter jets. These include four MiG-23s , two Su-22s , two MiG-21s and three Dassault Mirage F1s . Measured by the number of kills, Zandi is the most successful F-14 fighter pilot. His last official post was that of Deputy Head of Air Force Command for Projects and Planning.
He and his wife Zahra Mohebschahedin died in a car accident near Tehran in 2001 . He was buried in the Behescht-e Zahra cemetery in the south of Tehran.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Tom Cooper , Farzad Bishop : Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Combat, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2004, p. 79, ISBN 1-84176-787-5
- ^ Fire in the Hills: Iranian and Iraqi Battles of Autumn 1982, by Tom Cooper & Farzad Bishop, Sept. 9, 2003
- ^ Imperial Iranian Air Force: Samurai in the skies
- ↑ Stephen Bridgewater: Persian Cats . In: Jets . , P. 35.
- ^ Cooper, Bishop: Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Combat , 2004, p. 24
- ↑ http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_210.shtml
- ↑ http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_211.shtml
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Cooper, Bishop: Iranian F-14 Tomcat Units in Combat , 2004, pp. 85-88
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zandi, Jalil |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Iranian Air Force Brigadier General |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 2, 1951 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Garmsar |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 1, 2001 |
| Place of death | Tehran |