It's a mock up. Do you seriously think that early tech prototypes designed to showcase potential cockpits are made of production hardware and materials anywhere?
Some questions/thoughts that to me show it is a mock/fake/whatever:
1. Where are the rudder pedals? In the BBC video the pilot's legs were clearly bent with his knees pointing up in the air. That means his feet were pretty much flat on the cockpit floor and I didn't see rudder pedals there. Maybe the edge of one in the cockpit photo here.
2. Again back to the knees- with his knees up in the air like that his legs are clearly blocking access to the two front panels on the left and right. The pilot couldn't even SEE those panels. I dunno, but I'm guessing there's stuff a pilot might need there at some point.
3. A last thought on the knees. I'm not a doctor, but I think that to pull heavy G's that may not be the most optimal body position.
4. Finally, that thing is SMALL. Like, tiny. What is this aircraft for anyways? It sure can't carry any ordinance.
5. The vids of the thing flying? Looks, behaves and sounds a lot like this RC F-16
So I totally agree this thing is a mock up, or prototype, or fake or whatever. What make's them look like idiots is it appears they are trying to pass it off as the real deal, and certainly implying it is functional and 'defending Iran'.
There's only one thing to do! We need the Rebel Alliance!
Nice! Someone was thinking about humanity. I mean really! Build the evil death star??
Paywise, it's actually more of a 15% increase, with options (it's a startup). So there could be a financial windfall. I haven't asked my company to match that because it feels a bit like blackmail to me.
I don't know what my backup plan would be though if I left for the new gig and didn't like it. It would be hard to go back, and I'm not sure that I would want to, without feeling like it was a step forward and not back. But I also don't know what else I would want to be doing... so I need to think on that one some more
Thanks!
Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to work.