Cloned Drone Phones Home - Readers Groan - Granite Grok

Cloned Drone Phones Home – Readers Groan

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei listens to description of the cloned drone. (AP - supposedly from the office of the Ayatollah)
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei listens to description of the cloned drone. (Photo: AP – supposedly from the office of the Ayatollah)
Christian Science Monitor has a story about the unveiling of a purportedly cloned copy of the US RQ170 Stealth Drone, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

For those who have forgotten, the US military “lost” an RQ170 over Iran in late 2011, claiming that it had crashed, and that Iran could not possibly have brought it down……. Until Iran displayed the almost undamaged drone which they claimed to have spoofed into landing. See “Iran Wins RC Model Competition and Takes Home the Prize” for details of how it could have been accomplished, or watch this demonstration by students at the University of Texas.

From the CSM:

Today, Fars News Agency reported that while Iran’s duplicate of the US RQ-170 Sentinel drone was smaller, it also had a “bombing capability to attack the US warships in any possible battle.” The story in Persian was headlined: “America’s nightmare has become reality.” State television showed footage on Sunday it said was of a US aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf filmed by an Iranian drone.

The drone replica was unveiled at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) exhibition on Sunday, where Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was briefed on how the drone, its systems, and structure had been reverse-engineered. He called it a “sweet day.” ……

An Iranian engineer tasked with decoding the drone’s memory told The Christian Science Monitor in December 2011 that Iran had incrementally “spoofed” the drone’s GPS system,, causing it to land in Iran instead of its home base in western Afghanistan……

The US government and intelligence community claim that the RQ-170 drone was not electronically “hijacked” by Iran, and say it crash-landed instead. The stealth drone’s existence was never officially acknowledged until Iran exhibited it on television, largely intact.

Of course, it could just be an elaborate fake, as Steve Opined, and as this article at Ars Technica suggests – some quotes:

The Iranian military claims to have successfully duplicated the RQ-170 Sentinel drone that was captured in Iran in 2011, and it has put the drone on display alongside the original. The home-built version, Islamic Revolutionary Guard officers claimed, could be used to attack US Navy ships in the Persian Gulf. But outside observers believe the copy is about as capable of that as the mock-up of a US aircraft carrier Iran built, allegedly for a movie set…….

Just what sort of “secrets” the RQ-170 surrendered to the Iranians is not clear. But aviation industry analysts who saw the footage of the Iranian clone of the RQ-170 have said it appears to be a fake—nothing more than a cheap fiberglass mockup put together for propaganda purposes, similar to the mockup of a stealth fighter the Iranians displayed last year. (Footage of that plane “flying” appeared to actually be of a small radio-controlled model.)

It seems their fiberglass work has improved a lot,” an industry source familiar with the RQ-170 told US Naval Institute News. “It also seems that if it were a functional copy, versus a detailed replica, it wouldn’t necessarily have the exact same landing gear, tires, etc. They would probably just use whatever extra F-5 parts or general aviation parts they had lying around.”

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