Yeah, the IRIAF comes up with a whole ton of stuff. They have been doing this since the 80's. One of the latest they were trying was called "Project Sky Hawk" with made it able to carry the HAWK sam missle. Here is some information of what Iran has been up to in the past.
TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian air force F14s succeeded in carrying and launching Hawk missiles during the third stage of the country's extensive war games codenamed 'Blow of Zolfaqar'.
Now, how did they do that...?
Basically, to a missile, it doesn't matter if it's fired from a flying aircraft, or some kind of a launcher on the ground. Or, if it does, then only in so far, that when air-launched, it flies further, then it already has some speed and level (that of the launching aircraft) - so there's no need for it to spend fuel to gain either.
What matters is the method of guidance.
In the case of their Project "Sky Hawk", from back in 1986, the Iranians attempted to make the homing head of MIM-23B I-HAWK compatible with CW-illuminator on AWG-9. It didn't quite work. One of the problems they encountered (so I was said), was with the data-link required for communication between the AWG-9 and the MIM-23.
What we've learned then was that they dropped the idea around 1987 or so.
Anyway, few years back, the "AIM-23C Sejil" re-surfaced again on a defence show in Tehran. This time as an official designation of an Iranian-made air-launched version of MIM-23B.
Back in the 1970s, namely, the Iranians have built whole works required for licence production of MIM-23s at home. They only did not manage to get these operational in time to be useful for the original Project Sky Hawk.
The AIM-23C is now in series production and in service on IRIAF F-14s.
The question remains, of course, "how did they manage that"?
Well, given that over 60% of AWG-9's elements on IRIAF F-14s today are not what they used to be back in the 1970s (not even the cooling system is the same, not to talk about ADC), as well as that Iran meanwhile has well-developed IT-industry, they have certainly not had any major problems to accomplish this task. At least they've had much less of a problem to do this then back in the mid-1980s.
I have heard that the Iranian aircraft industry were currently upgrading Iranian F-14A(I)s to zero-flight hour status. It is also said that they are making the PW-30 engine, as well as the AIM-54 Phoenix, which the IRIAF used to great effect in the Iran-Iraq War.
Didn't the Israelis try a similar thing with their Hawk missiles and the F-4E Phantom II? I believe they got it to mount on the airplane but they never test fired it.
Yep. As a matter of fact, the Iranian "Project Sky Hawk" was very much based on Israeli projects "Distant Reach/Distant Thunder", from 1970s. These have seen attempts to fit MIM-23s on IDF/AF F-4Es.
Project Sky Hawk was even launched with help of an Israeli team...
The IRIAF has a new Commander, Brig.Gen. Ahmad Miqani.
Miqani is a former F-14-pilot, trained in the USA, with plenty of experience from the war with Iraq. As a young 1st Lieutenant, he clocked several dozens of combat sorties on F-5s (based at Vahdati), before in 1983 qualifying on F-14s. He should have flown something like 1.500 hours on CAPs for the rest of the war. Majority of these from TFB.8 (Esfahan), where he served for most of the 1990s as well.
Back in the 1980's, Iran sold 2 F-14's to Russia. I can try and find the picture I saw of them both flying with Russian emblems.