It’s not fully intact it actually shows quite a bit of damage which the Iranians have gone to some lengths to cover up (lots of tape and the nets and banners covering the bottom of the aircraft). The 99.99 percentile likelihood of events is this RQ-170 was over Iran spying for the CIA and suffered a major systems failure on its own accord. Which lead to it crashing. Many aircraft under similar circumstances have crashed in a rather benign manner without a major structural failure and of course fire. The lack of fire implies that it ran out of fuel before crashing. That Iran shot it down or even knew it was there before someone noticed the aircraft on the ground is extremely unlikely. Especially since it took them a week to announce to the world they had it and then another day or two to unveil it. Indicating the timeframe for their discovery: 5-6 days after a loss some Iranian sheep herder tells his local police there is a duck white aircraft in his backyard. One day later they work out what they have and tell the world. Another day or two to recover the wreckage and set it up for display.
Iran claims to have shot down US drone
- Thread starter lucinator
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I think the Americans knew exactly where it crashed but because this was 200+ km inside Iran took some time to work out what to do. And after a week the Iranians had found it before the US had done anything. The RQ-170 is supposedly designed and built without sensitive equipment and technology onboard so the political risk of destroying or recovering it just wasn’t worth denying the aircraft to Iran. Since it is actually very small and with the flying wing presents very little area to radars it would not be hard to make stealthy. Even without any RAM it would have an extremely small RCS.
You are pretty close to what I have been thinking. Why was there such a time delay between the actual crash (NATO time) and Iran time (shoot down/release of pictures)??? My scenario was a bit different but it might be able to add something to yours? I am thinking if it is true that Iran has said that at least 2 drones have been caught/crashed in Iran in the previous months/years, the question has been why hasn't Iran shown those 2 previous drones? Let's assume that's true, maybe they had them but self destruct worked or almost nothing much remained from the crash, just a few panels and some parts. You factor in Iran penchant for grandiose demonstrations, they can't show to world a few scraps, they need the real deal. Now, last week, another RQ170 crashes again, maybe self destruct didn't work or it had another malfunction, maybe Iran took it down thru jamming, anyways, this third drone had a lot more parts recoverable.Iran takes all the parts from ALL 3 drones to assemble one semi intact drone. It would explain why it took so long, why Iran doesn't want to show the crash sites and what's up with the paint job? Why take so much time to show us an assembled drone, why not show us the guts and all the little gizmos?? Isn't that what the Soviets or others would do when they retrieve some US military gear, they would show everything to the whole world. Why piece it back together?
Also I am perplexed at US authorities.
They seem nonchalant, extremely worried or confirm what Iran says, word for word. Am I the only one confused here? I have the feeling at lot more is going on here by BOTH SIDES and we aren't being told the full story. Which isn't surprising after all.I think you are reading too much into the paint job. Its the same colour as the RQ-170s seen in Afghanistan. It is also a colour that can be matched to the particular luminosity of the altitude it flies at. Nothing odd about that colour except many other aircraft aren't painted the same.
Seemed a lot whiter in the pictures taken in Afghanistan,IMO. Maybe you are right, could also be the lighting in the hanger makes it change a bit. I keep looking at the film, seems those 2 guys just look to one wing/side and a little to the back of the wing. We don't (so far) see the other wing or the rear/exhaust. Maybe that side suffered more damage like the landing gear.
Not crazy about the F117 grill inlet. I keep trying to see in the pictures of the Beast taken in Afghanistan if you can spot the grill. Seems a bit odd, I was wondering if maybe an F117 style grill inlet is less secret (due to Russian/Chinese knowledge of F117) compared to an S-curve inlet? Since they know about F117, why not reuse that level of tech? Or maybe LMT couldn't use an S-curve inlet and used a straight inlet and covered it with a grill to create more space for sensors?
Something unusual I noticed in the video is when one of the dudes lifts up a spoileron, when he lets go it just flops back down into place. This control would be driven by either an electric or hydraulic servo, I'd guess electric but in either case it should have stayed up when he let go of it. It's a thing that makes you go hmmmmm. And yes it's odd that it's propped up and there are drapes preventing you from seeing the bottom, like maybe there's no landing gear?
I find it strange that Americans did not simply send in their ground agents in Iran to destroy the downed drone. It's quite obvious that United States has human intelligence assets in Iran, judging from all the "accidents" Iranians are having near their military and nuclear sites. The fact that their nuclear scientists keep dying doesn't help to conceal that fact either. If they used those agents, it would be less low key than sending in a team or strike from outside of Iran.
How much you guys want to bet that Russian or Chinese engineers will have their hands all over the thing by the end of the week?
How much you guys want to bet that Russian or Chinese engineers will have their hands all over the thing by the end of the week?
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #28
As I mentioned earlier they did think about it and decided against it due to risk of a new war.
More likely the landing gear was blown out during landing, or drone landed on its belly without it deployed. Although overall it's still in great shape though. They can probably learn a fair bit from inspecting it.
We all know it's coming.
SouthernSky
Member
I'd have to agree. I can think of some positives out of the situation the US finds itself in, although I'm sure the Iranians would have been careful of where they took it to for analysis.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #32
yes, but we want to start it on our terms not theirs. If we attack it will be a coordinated air assault not a rescue type mission. Also I think a few still remember Operation Eagle Claw
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw"]Operation Eagle Claw - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
the road runner
Active Member
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A lot of people are arguing if the drone is real or not, was it shot down or just landed due to a malfunction, or this is replica or not,
Probably some time will pass till we will know for sure what happened, but this incident reminded me of an event in WW2.
A US Army bomber took of from Benghazi in Libya in 1942 and had to return to base due to navigational problems but got lost on the way back so the crew bailed out. In 1958 a British Oil Explorer group found the airplane, landed on its belly and almost fully intact. So the plane just drifted for a while after its crew jumped and then made a soft landing at desert ( or crash since no one was inside the aircraft)
The name of the airplane is Lady Be Good, it is still in Tobruk, Libya at an Air base there,
I shared this story with you because, there are some analysts who say it is very difficult for an aircraft to survive a crash from high altitude, but in my humble opinion, a drone just drifting to a flat land could survive intact.
Also, that drone looks like a prop or home-made but I havent seen the real thing so I can't speculate on that,
if you want to read more about Lady Be Good
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Be_Good_(aircraft)
Probably some time will pass till we will know for sure what happened, but this incident reminded me of an event in WW2.
A US Army bomber took of from Benghazi in Libya in 1942 and had to return to base due to navigational problems but got lost on the way back so the crew bailed out. In 1958 a British Oil Explorer group found the airplane, landed on its belly and almost fully intact. So the plane just drifted for a while after its crew jumped and then made a soft landing at desert ( or crash since no one was inside the aircraft)
The name of the airplane is Lady Be Good, it is still in Tobruk, Libya at an Air base there,
I shared this story with you because, there are some analysts who say it is very difficult for an aircraft to survive a crash from high altitude, but in my humble opinion, a drone just drifting to a flat land could survive intact.
Also, that drone looks like a prop or home-made but I havent seen the real thing so I can't speculate on that,
if you want to read more about Lady Be Good
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Be_Good_(aircraft)
Besides I would be very surprised if the fail-safe attitude of a drone was anything other than maintaining level flight for as long as possible, and then simply adjusting attitude to maintain minimum airspeed.
How would we resolve said bet? It's not like Russia or China will announce, "Hey, btw, we just checked out that US drone in Iran. Looks cool."
Perhaps the US have some new technology like a polygraph test installed into a chair so the next time the Russian or Chinese leaders go to visit Obama can just b like YO U LOOK MAH DRONE? and the test will give all the answers.
Hasn't the stealth drone just been shown on TV today ? I can swear I saw the drone in Iranian state TV. It was on CNBC nightly news.
This wasn't the Predator. It was the Beast Of Kandahar with an Iranian technician explaining a reporter about it. So much for stealth...
Edit : whoops. that's already covered in this post. Now THIS is what I call a crisis. Experimental, highly classified & secret technology falling into the wrong hands.
If there's a good time for only one airstrike on Iran, it's now. The hangar where they have the Stealth Drone parked makes a very good target...
This wasn't the Predator. It was the Beast Of Kandahar with an Iranian technician explaining a reporter about it. So much for stealth...
Edit : whoops. that's already covered in this post. Now THIS is what I call a crisis. Experimental, highly classified & secret technology falling into the wrong hands.
If there's a good time for only one airstrike on Iran, it's now. The hangar where they have the Stealth Drone parked makes a very good target...
I wouldn't get too worked up over all the secrets being revealed. To begin with, the airframe itself is only a small fraction of the system it represents. They can reverse engineer all they want, they are missing the really big parts of this program the likes of which a country like Iran will never even be capable of producing, like a dedicated secure sat com infrastructure and so forth.
For example there are highly classified system programs that are nothing more than software being run on computers in a military nerd lab. Look at MRI (medical use) imaging, do you reallize that those produce terra gigs of data per use and it's actually the software that sorts the wheat from the chaff? Without that, doctors would be trying to view tens of thousands of raw images just for something like a blown out knee. Now imagine something far more complex. Whatever data the sensors collect, it's the receiving end that does all the magic. And that's the beauty behind a UAV.
Just having one, or convincing the world they have one is all the mileage they will and would hope to get, the US is not the invincible giant the world paints it to be. I'll leave it at that, that's a whole different topic.
For example there are highly classified system programs that are nothing more than software being run on computers in a military nerd lab. Look at MRI (medical use) imaging, do you reallize that those produce terra gigs of data per use and it's actually the software that sorts the wheat from the chaff? Without that, doctors would be trying to view tens of thousands of raw images just for something like a blown out knee. Now imagine something far more complex. Whatever data the sensors collect, it's the receiving end that does all the magic. And that's the beauty behind a UAV.
Just having one, or convincing the world they have one is all the mileage they will and would hope to get, the US is not the invincible giant the world paints it to be. I'll leave it at that, that's a whole different topic.
They don't show the underside, & there's what looks like tape covering two strips, one right across the base of one wing. I don't see anything inconsistent with a belly landing after it ran out of fuel. I reckon they'd show it standing on its undercarriage if it was intact.
There have been cases of jets (e.g. an Su-7) more or less landing themselves after the pilot ejected, like that 1942 bomber, & ending up in better condition than this appears to be.