Posted on 12/06/2011 3:23:15 PM PST by ColdOne
The U.S. drone that apparently fell into Iran's hands was part of a joint CIA-military reconnaissance operation, Fox News has learned.
A senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that the spy plane was being used for the CIA-military operation along the Afghan-Iranian border when it lost connectivity and disappeared.
Officials had earlier confirmed the Iranians have the RQ-170 drone, but it was previously unclear what the drone was doing or which agency was operating it.
After Iran's military made the questionable claim Sunday that it had shot down the drone, the CIA at first referred questions to the Pentagon.
The NATO-led military coalition then issued a brief statement, appearing to describe the mission as part of the routine military operation in Afghanistan.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
What? No self destruct mechanism? I would think that such an Intel platform would surely have a means of self destruction to preclude just this, falling into enemy hands.
Like Windows Vista???
Rumor has it that this drone was shot down with nothing more than a Russian supplied jammer.
So much for the “last manned fighter” crap.
“No self destruct mechanism?
Like Windows Vista???”
LOL! That was funny.
Maybe we should just “let” one of our latest “designs” get shot-down (wink/wink) and advertise the fact to the world so that our enemies can reverse engineer it (wink/wink) with back doors built in.
think there was much left to the design? If this thing fell un controlled out of the sky from 20,000 feet into your back yard, what do you think you could gain from it? I don’t know myself, just asking.
Previous post:
If the Iranians captured it intact, they would already be posing around it and posting photos to embarrass us.
That UAV has so many stealth features the Iranians couldnt acquire the target. Why havent the Iranians said how they shot it down, their air force would be braying like a pack of mules if they had done it.
It also has a self destruct feature. It also can not be jammed and redirected, yup, we thought of that.
What if the Iranians were, say, doing a lot of strange digging and we needed a closer look that satellites couldnt deliver. What if that UAV went OOPS! out of control and just happened to stray over that area until it ran out of fuel.
OK, weve learned a bit since Frances Gary Powers...........
24 posted on Tue Dec 06 2011 09:47:39 GMT-0800 (Pacific Standard Time)
Previous post:
If the Iranians captured it intact, they would already be posing around it and posting photos to embarrass us.
That UAV has so many stealth features the Iranians couldnt acquire the target. Why havent the Iranians said how they shot it down, their air force would be braying like a pack of mules if they had done it.
It also has a self destruct feature. It also can not be jammed and redirected, yup, we thought of that.
What if the Iranians were, say, doing a lot of strange digging and we needed a closer look that satellites couldnt deliver. What if that UAV went OOPS! out of control and just happened to stray over that area until it ran out of fuel.
OK, weve learned a bit since Frances Gary Powers...........
24 posted on Tue Dec 06 2011 09:47:39 GMT-0800 (Pacific Standard Time)
We’re telling as much of the truth as we can. Iran is getting the message that they are being watched by us and just like bin Laden, we can reach out and touch them anywhere, anytime.
The RQ-170 has a flying wing design containing a single (as yet unknown) engine and is estimated by Aviation Week as being approximately 66 feet in wingspan.[10] Its takeoff weight is estimated as being greater than the RQ-3 DarkStar's, which was 8,500 pounds. The design lacks several elements common to stealth engineering, namely notched landing gear doors and sharp leading edges. It has a curved wing planform, and the exhaust is not shielded by the wing.[10] Aviation Week postulates that these elements suggest the designers have avoided 'highly sensitive technologies' due to the near certainty of eventual operational loss inherent with a single engine design and a desire to avoid the risk of compromising leading edge technology.
Seriously, it is a great failure in the design that this aircraft did not have a self destruct mechanism set to engage when connectivity is lost for a pre determined period of time.
H/T: twitter.com/#!/El_Grillo1/status/144532561723531264
#
“Iran says downed US drone was deep in its airspace”
WEDNESDAY, 07 DECEMBER 2011
The Associated Press
By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran (AP)
“Iranian state radio said Wednesday the stealth-version of the RQ-170 unmanned aircraft was detected over the eastern town of Kashmar, some 140 miles (225 kilometers) from the border with Afghanistan.”
Thanks for the ping.
You’re welcome Jet Jaguar.
Thanks ColdOne.
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