Iran claims to down US stealth spy drone

Gee this is a gold mine China do have good relation with Iran military maybe they will allow China a peek at this RQ 170


Iran says it shot down unmanned US spy plane
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI | AP – 1 hr 59 mins ago


TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's armed forces have shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane that violated Iranian airspace along the country's eastern border, the official IRNA news agency reported Sunday.

An unidentified military official quoted in the report warned of a strong and crushing response to any violations of the country's airspace by American drone aircraft.

"An advanced RQ-170 unmanned American spy plane was shot down by Iran's armed forces. It suffered minor damage and is now in possession of Iran's armed forces," IRNA quoted the official as saying.

No further details were published.

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.

The type of aircraft Iran says it downed, an RQ-170 Sentinel, is made by Lockheed Martin and was reportedly used to keep watch on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan as the raid that killed him was taking place earlier this year.

The surveillance aircraft is equipped with stealth technology, but the U.S. Air Force has not made public any specifics about the drone.

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.

The Islamic Republic holds frequent military drills, primarily to assert an ability to defend against a potential U.S. or Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities.

Tehran has focused part of its military strategy on producing drones for reconnaissance and attacking purposes.

Iran announced three years ago it had built an unmanned aircraft with a range of more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers), far enough to reach Israel.

Ahmadinejad unveiled Iran's first domestically built unmanned bomber aircraft in August 2010, calling it an "ambassador of death" to Iran's enemies.

Re: Chinese UAV & UCAV development

It's kinda strange that the Iranian would brag about netting in a RQ-170 in reported "good condition", instead of making no noise about it which'd help in whatever backroom politics that it ensues. The Iranians should be smarter than that...

Unless... whatever technological value this brought have been exploited, now it's time to garner some political points against the so-called "evil West", especially the kind of mess after the British embassy in Tehran was trashed last week by a mob with government affiliations...like it or not, embassy trashing is messy deal...

Re: Chinese UAV & UCAV development

MwRYum said:

It's kinda strange that the Iranian would brag about netting in a RQ-170 in reported "good condition"...

Click to expand...

that will make the US really wants to get it back (instead of being sold to China) and willing to talk to Iran...

Re: Chinese UAV & UCAV development

danielchin said:

that will make the US really wants to get it back (instead of being sold to China) and willing to talk to Iran...

Click to expand...

Hmmm...my understanding was something along the line of "send a 2000lb JDAM to where they hiding the UAV, ideally when they're all hands on deck combing through it"...

Re: Chinese UAV & UCAV development

MwRYum said:

Hmmm...my understanding was something along the line of "send a 2000lb JDAM to where they hiding the UAV, ideally when they're all hands on deck combing through it"...

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that is they want to risk the Iranian to block the hormuz strait by lobbing couple of C701 to oil tanker and blocked the strait resulting in $250 oil price per barrel

You can kiss good bye the recovery and plunge the world to redoux of depression

Re: Chinese UAV & UCAV development

Look... they mentioned SinoDefence. Isn't that nice?





PICTURE: China's Wind Blade UAV revealed



By
Stephen Trimble
on December 6, 2011 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0) |ShareThis

What was the joke around the office almost the instant after Iran announced possession of an RQ-170 Sentinel?

"Look for the RQ-170 copy at the Zhuhai [air show] next year."

If you'll forgive the streak of cynicism, it seemed at the time like a fair swipe at the reverse-engineering skills and loose intellectual property safeguards in both Iran and China.

On the other hand, it may not be an entirely fair assessment of China's need to copy the RQ-170's technology. As this picture posted on the sinodefence forum yesterday reveals, China has been working hard to develop their own stealthy unmanned air vehicles (UAVs).





In addition to this photo, sinodefence forum spotters also found a photo showing a Chinese-language magazine article about the aircraft. We asked Ghim-Lay Yeo, the office's resident Singaporean, to translate the article, which was published recently in a magazine called Construction Technology.

According to Yeo, the article describes two variants of the same UAV. The first variant, which is named "Crossbow", appears to be the same stealthy-looking UAV spotted at the "Grand Prix" in Beijing two months ago. The second variant is called "Wind Blade", and adds the extended wingspan and winglets you see above. Both variants have been designed by students at Shenyang University, which happens to be the home of one of China's three largest manufacturers of combat aircraft.

The photo suggest China has at least reached the scale-model stage of stealth UAV development. That's roughly where US industry stood in the mid-to-late 1990s. Depending on the age of these projects, it may only be a few years before the first full-scale model appears over Shenyang or Chengdu -- and that's with or without the RQ-170.

Re: Chinese UAV & UCAV development

Hi AssassinsMace - These are all good points and you're correct to assume that various universities and companies within China will have ongoing and long standing R&D programs to develop various UAV platforms.

However, "if" China were to gain access to the RQ 170 for analysis and "if" the downed RQ 170 is still in reasonable working order, China will be able to rapidly assess and assimilate cutting edge American ISR, LO materials, shaping and propulsion technology, thereby allowing them to potential leap frog several generations of UAV and/or substantially enhance existing prototype designs currently in the developmental pipeline.

It also provides them with privileged access to cutting edge US LO / stealth technology, allowing them to enhance counter LO / stealth, further blunting the effectiveness of these types of platforms moving forward... that's my take on it away!

Kyuryu

Re: Chinese UAV & UCAV development

kyuryu said:

Hi AssassinsMace - These are all good points and you're correct to assume that various universities and companies within China will have ongoing and long standing R&D programs to develop various UAV platforms.

However, "if" China were to gain access to the RQ 170 for analysis and "if" the downed RQ 170 is still in reasonable working order, China will be able to rapidly assess and assimilate cutting edge American ISR, LO materials, shaping and propulsion technology, thereby allowing them to potential leap frog several generations of UAV and/or substantially enhance existing prototype designs currently in the developmental pipeline.

It also provides them with privileged access to cutting edge US LO / stealth technology, allowing them to enhance counter LO / stealth, further blunting the effectiveness of these types of platforms moving forward... that's my take on it away!

Kyuryu

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Wow been here since 2006, congrats on first post.

On your point -- RQ-170 was purposefully designed with low end VLO techniques knowing it could be lost, so even if China got a mostly undamaged plane, it will not reveal that much which Chinese aerospace institutes shouldn't already know. Given the pace of chinese uav developments I expect an RQ-170 like plane very soon (or already likely exists), and a X-47B like ucav not long after.

So maybe they'll learn something about the role of RQ-170 and some ISR but nothing much in propulsion, VLO tech, or even structure given its relatively small size. This uav downing, even if it gets into chinese hands would be much ado about nothing.

Re: Chinese UAV & UCAV development

Bltizo said:

Wow been here since 2006, congrats on first post.

On your point -- RQ-170 was purposefully designed with low end VLO techniques knowing it could be lost, so even if China got a mostly undamaged plane, it will not reveal that much which Chinese aerospace institutes shouldn't already know. Given the pace of chinese uav developments I expect an RQ-170 like plane very soon (or already likely exists), and a X-47B like ucav not long after.

So maybe they'll learn something about the role of RQ-170 and some ISR but nothing much in propulsion, VLO tech, or even structure given its relatively small size. This uav downing, even if it gets into chinese hands would be much ado about nothing.

Click to expand...

I say it is goldmine of information. Information about RQ 170 is still classified

U.S. military officials have confirmed with NBC News and The Washington Post that the American drone recovered by Iran last Thursday was an advanced RQ-170 drone flying on a secret CIA mission. The U.S. military had previously suggested the drone was on a routine patrol "flying a mission over western Afghanistan." With the knowledge of the drone's model and which agency it was operating under, U.S. officials and military experts have begun weighing in on the national security secrets Iran may gain from the drone. (A U.S. official confirms with The Los Angeles Times that the downed drone was "largely intact.") Here are the major ones:

Knowledge of its stealth design This was no run-of-the-mill Predator or Reaper drone. The RQ-170 is one of the most advanced spy crafts in the U.S. fleet, partially because of its exterior design. "The RQ-170 has special coatings and a batwing shape designed to help it penetrate other nations’ air defenses undetected," reports Greg Miller at The Washington Post. Those coatings reportedly allow the drone to absorb radar waves when they come into contact with it and came in handy during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in May when an RQ-170 drone hovered above the complex providing an aerial view of the mission.

Sensory technology The value of the drone's camera and sensor technology is subject to debate. Jim Miklaszewski at NBC News says sharing knowledge of the sensors is a "major concern" for military officials worried that Iran could develop the technology for themselves. Giving credence to the sophistication of the technology, The Los Angeles Times' W.J. Hennigan, David Cloud and Ken Dilanian say the drone's "capabilities remain largely classified, it is believed to carry the latest in cutting-edge cameras and sensors that can 'listen in' on cellphone conversations as it soars miles above the ground or 'smell' the air and sniff out chemical plumes emanating from a potential underground nuclear laboratory."

However, Bill Sweetman and Dave Dulghum at Aviation Week say the drone's sensors are over-rated. “Systems now moving into an operational role are scores of times more effective than the Sentinel’s full-motion video (FMV), assuming that technology has not been significantly upgraded or replaced covertly," they said. “Now, the single-sensor capability is being multiplied by 65 times, resulting in an exponential increase in data.”

How to shoot down future drones On Monday, Greg Jaffe and Thomas Erdbrink at The Washington Post reported that if an RQ-170 was recovered, it could help them locate and shoot down other U.S. drones. "The aircraft could help the Iranians better understand the vulnerabilities of U.S. stealth technology and provide them with clues on how to spot other aircraft," a U.S. officials told them.

Sharing the technology with China and Russia Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, robotic warfare expert Peter W. Singer says the drone "carries a variety of systems that wouldn't be much of a benefit to Iran, but to its allies such as China and Russia, it's a potential gold mine." Forecasting the liklihood that Iran would share the information with America's rivals, A U.S. official tells the Times, "It's bad — they'll have everything" referring to the military technology. "And the Chinese or the Russians will have it too."

For good measure both Russia and China have express interest in having a peek at it

TEHRAN - An informed source in the Iranian military has said that Russian and Chinese officials have asked for permission to inspect the U.S. spy drone that was recently downed by the Iranian Armed Forces, Nasimonline.ir reported on Wednesday.

On Sunday, an unidentified Iranian military source said that the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic had downed an advanced RQ-170 unmanned U.S. spy plane, which had violated the country’s airspace along the eastern border.

There are unconfirmed reports that Iran may put the drone on public display.

According to the Washington Post, the RQ-170 drone has been used by the CIA for highly sensitive missions into other nations’ airspace, including months of surveillance of the compound in Pakistan in which Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was allegedly hiding before he was killed in an attack by Special Operations forces on May 1, 2011.

On Monday, U.S. military officials said that they are concerned that Tehran may now have an opportunity to acquire information about the classified surveillance drone program, AP reported.

U.S. officials considered conducting a covert mission inside Iran to retrieve or destroy the stealth drone but ultimately concluded such a secret operation wasn’t worth the risk of provoking a more explosive clash with Tehran, a U.S. official said, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Re: Chinese UAV & UCAV development

Downed UAV Technology Already Dated
Dec. 5, 2011
By David A. Fulghum, Bill Sweetman

Even if Iran has, as it claims, shot down
a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 unmanned
aerial system (UAS), the single-
channel, full-motion video capability
that made the stealthy flying wing so
invaluable when it debuted in Afghanistan about two years ago is
considered outdated, potentially
limiting the intelligence fallout.