Inspired at Fürstenfeldbruck

The Golden Crown grew out of a group of Imperial Iranian Air Force pilots sent to Fürstenfeldbruck in West Germany for jet training. One of them, Nader Jahanbani, watched the USAFE Skyblazers practise there and flew in the back seat on several sessions. With the Shah’s approval he formed a team with Amir Hossein Rabii, Siamak Jahanbini, Abdolhossein Minusepehr and Mohammad Amir Khatami. After 72 training sessions they flew a private display in mid-1958, and the first public display followed at Mehrabad on 30 October 1958 with four Republic F-84G Thunderjets.

Thunderjets to Tiger IIs

The team flew the F-84G until 1960, then the North American F-86 Sabre in four- to six-ship formations through most of the 1960s, the Northrop F-5A Freedom Fighter in 1968 and from 1971, and finally the F-5E Tiger II from 1976, when the line-up grew to seven and then eight aircraft. It shared displays with the Skyblazers, the Italian Lanceri Neri, the Patrouille de France, an RAF Hunter team and, in June 1973, the US Navy Blue Angels at Kooshk Nosrat. The veterans’ record lists fatal crashes in practice in 1963 and 1974.

The end of the Imperial air force

Following the 1979 revolution the Imperial Iranian Air Force was dissolved and the team with it; its pilots passed into the new Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. Yadollah Javadpour, later known for his air combat record in the Iran–Iraq War, flew with the team from 1975 to 1978. In February 2020 the air force commander Aziz Nasirzadeh announced that the team would be revived.