[citation needed] Iran's first attempt to procure aircraft from the United States in the 1920s failed due to Washington's refusal to supply equipment because of a World War I [which?]

[citation needed] A roughly 1946 order of battle for the Air Force can be found in Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II.

After World War II, the IIAF began to slowly rebuild its inventory, with aircraft mainly supplied by the United States and Great Britain.

After the 1979 Iranian revolution, some of the IIAF's F-14s were not in working order due to a lack of necessary spare parts, because of an American arms embargo and damage sustained by the aircraft during the 1980 Iraqi invasion.

However, it lost most of its leading officers in the course of post-revolutionary chaos, as well as due to the prosecution of those considered as loyal to the Shah, pro-U.S. or elsewhere by the new government in Tehran.

Nevertheless, the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force retaliated, flying strikes involving up to 146 fighter-bombers against Iraqi airfields, oil industry installations, and communications sites.

Following a one-week-long counter-air campaign, and due to a critical situation on the ground in Khuzestan Province, the IRIAF was thrown into the land-battle, mainly in the areas of Khorramshahr, Ahvaz, and Dezful.

Although the readiness rates of the IRIAF significantly increased in the following months, its overall role and influence declined, as the clerical government searched to put the emphasis in fighting on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) militias, but also attempted to develop a separate air arm for this service.

Simultaneously, the IRIAF had to learn to maintain and keep operational its large fleet of U.S.-built aircraft and helicopters without outside help, due to American sanctions.

Reaching back on equipment purchased from the U.S.A. in the 1970s, the Iranians began establishing their own aerospace industry; their efforts in this remained largely unrecognized until recently.

From 1984 and 1985, the IRIAF found itself confronted by an ever-better organized and equipped opponent, as the Iraqi Air force—reinforced by deliveries of advanced fighter-bombers from France and the Soviet Union—launched numerous offensives against Iranian population centres, industrial infrastructures, powerplants, and oil-export hubs.

Confronted with the fact that it could not obtain replacements for equipment lost in what became a war of attrition against Iraq, for the rest of the conflict, the IRIAF remained defence-orientated, conserving its surviving assets as a "force in being".

A number of confrontations that occurred between July 1987 and August 1988, stretched available IRIAF assets to the limit, exhausting its capability to defend Iranian airspace against Iraqi air strikes.

While a welcome reinforcement, these types never replaced the older, U.S.-built F-4 Phantoms or F-14 Tomcats (now the only air arm in the world to continue using the fighter), or even Northrop F-5 Tiger IIs.

Instead, the IRIAF continued efforts to maintain these types in service, and began a number of projects with the intention to refurbish and upgrade them.

Following an alleged agreement (no proof exists for it) between the regimes in Baghdad and Tehran, in February 1991 a significant number of Iraqi Air Force (IrAF) aircraft were evacuated to Iranian airfields, to avoid destruction in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

[7] This makes him an ace and the most successful F-5 fighter pilot, but his greatest claim to fame happened on August 6, 1983 when he shot down an Iraqi MiG-25.