Unconfirmed Report: Iran captures US Steath UAV

[Sythen]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/04/world/meast/iran-drone/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

(CNN) -- A U.S. drone was shot down in eastern Iran, state media reported Sunday, citing a military source.

Press TV reported that the drone was "seized" by authorities after "minimum damage."

They claim to have hacked it, took control and landed it. Anyone who knows anything about this stuff able to confirm if this is possible?

 

[aesop081]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/05/us-military-sources-iran-has-missing-us-drone/?test=latestnews

A U.S. super-secret spy plane believed to be in Iranian possession could be a major loss for the U.S. military -- and a major gain for Iran.

According to a senior U.S. military source with intimate knowledge of the Sentinel drone, the aircraft likely "wandered" into Iranian air space after losing contact with its handlers and is presumed to be intact since it is programmed to fly level and find a place to land, rather than crashing.

Could regime use technology against us?

"This is a big prize in terms of technology," a senior U.S. military source told Fox News.

The spy plane uses the same stealth technology as the drone used to monitor the compound during the raid that killed Usama bin Laden, U.S. military sources told Fox News on Monday.

Military sources confirmed that the Iranians have the RQ-170 drone, which is so advanced that the U.S. Air Force has not distributed even a photo of it. However, they did not say that the Iranians shot down the spy plane, as was reported by Iran's official IRNA news agency.

IRNA quoted an unidentified Iranian military official saying Sunday that the spy plane was shot down by Iran's armed forces and suffered minor damage.. The official also warned of strong and crushing response to any violations of the country's airspace by American drone aircraft.

Earlier, the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan issued a statement saying the aircraft may have been a drone that operators lost contact with last week while it was flying a mission over neighboring western Afghanistan.

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the incident, said the U.S. had "absolutely no indication" that the drone was shot down.

Iran is locked in a dispute with the U.S. and its allies over Tehran's disputed nuclear program, which the West believes is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies the accusations, saying its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and that it seeks to generate electricity and produce isotopes to treat medical patients.

Iran said in January that two pilotless spy planes it had shot down over its airspace were operated by the United States and offered to put them on public display. In July, Iranian military officials showed Russian experts several U.S. drones they said were shot down in recent years.

Also in July, Iranian lawmaker Ali Aghazadeh Dafsari said Iran's Revolutionary Guard shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane that was trying to gather information on an underground uranium enrichment site.

The RQ-170 Sentinel is made by Lockheed Martin and is equipped with stealth technology. The $6 million stealth aircraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin has an RQ in its name to indicate it is unarmed.

Neither the Air Force nor manufacturer Lockheed Martin has released much information about the plane, dubbed "The Beast of Kandahar" in 2007 when its existence was finally confirmed.

"The RQ-170 Sentinel, a low observable UAV, was built by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs," Major Cristin L. Marposon, a public affairs officer for the USAF at the Pentagon, finally told FoxNews.com in 2009.

Sources said that the plane was designed for surveillance, not for attack.

Little is known about the plane beyond its intended goals, however, with no official images released or details about its composition. Leaked photographs purportedly of the craft depict a sleek, biwing design, intended to present a stealthier, harder to hit profile that other drones or other aircraft.

"The USAF has not issued any public release photos of the RQ-170," Melissa Dalton of Lockheed Martin told FoxNews.com

Early reports suggested that plane -- which supposedly has a wingspan of about 65 feet and can fly at around 50,000 feet -- would be made almost entirely without metal to help it dodge radar, and special paint provides additional stealth.

Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., told Fox News on Monday that "it's less likely than not" that the Iranians did not shoot down the plane, but it had a mechanical or computer malfunction that caused it to go down. The Iranians then used it "for propaganda purposes."

"In the past, they have claimed these shoot-downs and been unable to produce any pieces of the drone, and currently, they have not exhibited any piece of the RQ-170 yet," he said.

 

[tomahawk6]

No images from Iran that I have found of the RQ-170. The Iranians are claiming that they hacked into the link and guided it into Iran.I doubt they have the capability.But I dont know alot about the technical side of this issue.

 

[a_majoor]

This is very similar in some respects to the U2 downing over the USSR in 1960. While the Soviets claimed they had shot down the U2; the airframe came down in pretty good condition; it seems more probable that the U2 suffered engine of mechanical failure which caused the pilot to loose altitude and crash. (For aviation buffs, the early U2 aircraft were very lightly built and so sensitive that the stall speed was only @ 10 Kts lower than the aircraft max speed at operational altitude. Piots had very narow margins of error).

Assuming the drone really is down in Iran, it would be very interestig to see pictures and use the data to determine what really happened...

 

[Fishbone Jones]

They may or may not have it. Given the way they normally act, I'm thinking if they did have it, they'd be parading it through the streets. Or at least releasing pictures, just to belittle and piss in the eye of the great satan.

 

[tomahawk6]

This would be a real coup for the Iranians and an opportunity to show us up - if they have a photo op with either an intact drone or pieces.From what I have read the sensors are already a bit outdated.I have to say that while this drone was operating as a sensor platform,it was a design for the future USAF fighter bomber with internal bomb bay.

The UK's Taranis

 

[a_majoor]

The next drone the Iranians might see:

 

[2010newbie]

They may or may not have it. Given the way they normally act, I'm thinking if they did have it, they'd be parading it through the streets. Or at least releasing pictures, just to belittle and piss in the eye of the great satan.

Looks like they were just waiting to finish building the pedestal for it and for the school kids to finish painting anti-American posters.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/world/middleeast/iran-shows-us-drone-on-tv-and-lodges-a-protest.html

The 2.5-minute video clip of the remote-control surveillance aircraft was the first visual evidence to emerge that Iran had possession of the drone since Sunday, when Iran claimed that its military had downed the aircraft. American officials have since confirmed that controllers of a pilotless drone aircraft, based in neighboring Afghanistan, had lost contact with it.

The drone shown on Iran television appeared to be in remarkably good condition inconsistent with an uncontrolled landing. It was displayed on a platform clearly constructed for propaganda purposes, with photos of Iran’s revolutionary ayatollahs on the wall behind it and a desecrated version of the American flag, with what appeared to be skulls instead of stars, underneath its left wing.

More at article link (including link to video)

 

[jollyjacktar]

Daily mail has the story as well.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2071741/Is-downed-U-S-stealth-drone-Iranian-TV-airs-footage-military-officials-inspecting-craft.html

 

[tomahawk6]

The experts are saying the UAV being shown by the Iranians is a fake.It does seem to have a nice new paint job and looks in good shape for being "shot down".

 

[2010newbie]

I thought that was odd too, plus that the entire undercarriage isn't visible because of the curtain.

 

[Duckie]

So, a drone that is designed to fly over enemy territory is programed to land perfectly if experiencing problems, and not self-destruct? At least it isn't carying potentially sensitive information  :facepalm:

On another note, "Obama decides not to retrieve drone to avoid 'act of war'". Given the probability of some form or another of military action against Iran in the near future, wouldn't it be better to get this over with quick and with as little pain as possible, before they hand it over to the Chinese?

 

[GAP]

A Three Part Invention
December 21, 2011
Article Link

On December 8th Iran displayed what appeared to be an American RQ-170 jet powered UAV, which they claimed had landed intact in Iran two weeks earlier. Iran claimed they had hijacked the control signals for the RQ-170 and landed it themselves. This seemed highly unlikely, but not impossible. Experts on Iranian military technology immediately suspected something else. First, the Iranians are constantly lying about their military exploits, especially when it comes to developing new weapons and technology. This is apparently done mainly for domestic propaganda, as satellite photos never show more than a few prototypes of these wonder-weapons. Then many Americans familiar with the RQ-170 carefully studied the pictures of the "captured" RQ-170 and immediately suspected something was off. For one thing, the RQ-170 shown was the right size and shape, but the wrong color. Not just a different color from that seen on many photos of the RQ-170s in Afghanistan, but also a color unknown in American military service. A closer examination of the Iranian RQ-170 photos indicated that the Iranians had reassembled an RQ-170 that had crashed, and broken into three or more pieces. Then the Iranians apparently gave the UAV a new paint job (which was obvious to anyone seeing those photos.)
More on link

 

[GAP]

RQ-170s Still Flying
January 22, 2012
Article Link

The U.S. Air Force recently announced that it knew what had caused one of its RQ-170 UAVs to crash in Iran two months ago. But the air force would not reveal details, except to say that Iran had nothing to do with the UAV crash landing. The air force did say that, because they had figured out what brought the RQ-170 down, they were continuing to fly RQ-170s on reconnaissance missions. The air force also revealed that the RQ-170 lost in Iran was being operated by the CIA.

The RQ-170 first showed up in Afghanistan and South Korea two years ago. The U.S. Air Force then admitted that this was a high altitude reconnaissance UAV developed in secret by Lockheed-Martin during the previous decade. It has a 12 meter (40 foot) wingspan. The RQ-170 is believed to be a replacement for some of the U-2s and a supplemental aircraft for the larger Global Hawk (which has a 42 meter wingspan.) RQ-170s have been operating over Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran for at least a year.

There are many mysteries surrounding the loss of the RQ-170 in Iran. For example, on December 8th Iran displayed what appeared to be an American RQ-170, which they claimed had landed intact in Iran two weeks earlier. Iran claimed they had hijacked the control signals for the RQ-170 and landed it themselves. This seemed highly unlikely but not impossible. Experts on Iranian military technology immediately suspected something else. First, the Iranians are constantly lying about their military exploits, especially when it comes to developing new weapons and technology. This is apparently done mainly for domestic propaganda as satellite photos never show more than a few prototypes of these wonder-weapons.

Then many Americans familiar with the RQ-170 carefully studied the pictures of the "captured" RQ-170 and immediately suspected something was off. For one thing, the RQ-170 shown was the right size and shape but the wrong color. Not just a different color from that seen on many photos of the RQ-170s in Afghanistan but also a color unknown in American military service. A closer examination of the Iranian RQ-170 photos indicated that the Iranians had reassembled an RQ-170 that had crashed and broken into three or more pieces. Then the Iranians apparently gave the UAV a new paint job (which was obvious to anyone seeing those photos.)

At the moment, the only things one can be sure of is that the American operators of the UAV lost the satellite signal connection with the RQ-170 and the aircraft eventually crashed. There was no indication of Iranians jamming the satellite signal. Iran has jammed satellite signals before, but only with wide area entertainment programming, not encrypted UAV control signals. Thus many mysteries remain but some have been cleared up because the Iranians could not resist creating a photo opportunity.

Exactly why this UAV came down, and how damaging the loss of aircraft and sensor technology is, won't be known for years. Losses like this have occurred for decades and do have an impact. For example, U.S. cruise missiles that crashed in Pakistan (on their way to Afghanistan) in the 1990s clearly influenced the design of a Pakistani cruise missile. American warplanes that crashed in North Vietnam during the 1960s provided some tech for China and Russia, but nothing decisive.
end

 

[old medic]

Iran claims to have reverse-engineered US spy drone

General says Tehran has extracted data and figured out workings of Sentinel craft captured last year

Associated Press in Tehran
22 April 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/22/iran-reverse-engineer-spy-drone

Iran claims it has reverse-engineered a US spy drone captured by its armed forces last year and has begun building a copy.

General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the aerospace division of the Revolutionary Guards, related what he said were details of the aircraft's operational history to prove his claim that Tehran's military experts had extracted data from the US RQ-170 Sentinel captured in December in eastern Iran, state television reported .

Tehran has flaunted the capture of the Sentinel, a top-secret surveillance drone with stealth technology, as a victory for Iran and a defeat for the US in a complicated intelligence and technological battle.

US officials have acknowledged losing the drone. They have said Iran will find it hard to exploit any data and technology aboard it because of measures taken to limit the intelligence value of drones operating over hostile territory.

Hajizadeh told state television that the captured surveillance drone was a "national asset" for Iran and said he could not reveal full technical details. But he did provide some samples of the data that he claimed Iranian experts had recovered.

"This drone was in California in October 2010 for some technical work and was taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan in November 2010. It conducted flights there but apparently faced problems and [US experts] were unable to fix it," he said.

Hajizadeh said the drone was taken to Los Angeles in December 2010 where sensors of the aircraft underwent testing. He claimed that the drone was in use in Pakistan two weeks before Osama bin Laden was killed by US navy Seals in the country's north-west.

"If we had not achieved access to software and hardware of this aircraft, we would be unable to get these details. Our experts are fully dominant over sections and programs of this plane," he said.

There are concerns in the US that Iran or other states may be able to reverse-engineer the chemical composition of the drone's radar-deflecting paint or the aircraft's sophisticated optics technology that allows operators to positively identify terror suspects from tens of thousands of feet in the air.

There are also worries that adversaries may be able to hack into the drone's database, as Iran claimed to have done. Some surveillance technologies allow video to stream through to operators on the ground but do not store much collected data. If they do, it is encrypted.

Media reports claimed this week that Russia and China had asked Tehran to provide them with information on the drone, but Iran's defence ministry denied this.