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Is U.S. Drone Shown on Iran TV Real?
ABC NEWS ^ | December 8, 2011 | MARTHA RADDATZ, LEE FERRAN, LUIS MARTINEZ

Posted on 12/08/2011 3:49:56 PM PST by gandalftb

The aircraft shown on Iranian television today likely was not the American stealth drone that crashed in Iran last week, as the Iranian government claimed, but was likely just a model, U.S. officials told ABC News.

Today U.S. officials said the drone did not land intact.

(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: iran; rq170; uav
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To: arthurus
We allowed the Norks and thus the Russians to capture a code machine they needed that included a back door so that we could read their stuff for a long time after.

So, we gave them the Pueblo and the code machine knowing full well they would start using the code machine for their own purposes without knowing that we were following their every transmission via the "back door".......

Right.....makes sense to me.

41 posted on 12/08/2011 5:12:16 PM PST by Hot Tabasco (Be good, Santa is coming)
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To: Carry_Okie
our contractors are happy, your Taxechusetts

Ouch, a satire hit @ Rayethon if my memory is correct, any others?

42 posted on 12/08/2011 5:19:27 PM PST by taildragger (( Palin / Mulally 2012 ))
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To: Paladin2

Our UAVs have gimballed thrust nozzle on their engines and obtain attitude control from that too.

However, at low speed such as landing and takeoff you need wing surface control.


43 posted on 12/08/2011 5:24:35 PM PST by gandalftb (11th MEU, 2/4 Echo, TRAP Force)
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To: gandalftb

Is that a giant reading a newspaper at the planes 1:00o’clock position?


44 posted on 12/08/2011 5:41:59 PM PST by FreeAtlanta (Coffee for your TEA party (www.dougsmugs.com))
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To: Jeff Head
The color looks like the type of resin used in model kits.Here is a photo of a 1/144 RQ-170 Sentinel from HobbyLink Japan

The model can be purchased on line for about $30.78. It would be a simple matter to scale it up from there.

45 posted on 12/08/2011 5:55:34 PM PST by jmcenanly (Things will be better in 2013)
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To: jmcenanly

Maybe they downloaded the paper version you can build and upscaled it!
http://myhobbycraft.blogspot.com/search/label/aircraft?updated-max=2011-11-18T17:58:00-08:00&max-results=20


46 posted on 12/08/2011 6:06:22 PM PST by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: gandalftb

"If it was shot down or crashed, where's the damage?"

What do you make of this?:

"John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a consulting firm, said he would have expected far more damage if the aircraft had hit the ground in an uncontrolled crash. But Richard F. Healing, an aviation consultant and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said many unmanned vehicles were “basically gliders,” with large wings relative to their weight. If it ran out of fuel, he said, a drone “might come down gently” and be damaged only lightly if it did not hit a tree or building."

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

47 posted on 12/08/2011 6:09:33 PM PST by Qbert ("The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry" - William F. Buckley, Jr.)
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To: taildragger
Ouch, a satire hit @ Rayethon if my memory is correct, any others?

Between Taxechusetts and California, you've got Raytheon, Loral, General Death, Northrop, Turkeys Running Wild, Teledyne, Huge Air Crash... Yeah, I know, a lot of those companies are gone but a lot of the operations are still intact. It's been a while, and I'm glad of it. :-)

I don't miss military electronic components manufacturing one bit. Gad what a wasteful cesspool of corruption that was! It's absolutely amazing anything we made actually worked in the field. Every one of those companies makes more money in selling paperwork than they do in selling hardware. Not a page of it does more than assure that the part meets spec. It does NOT mean that it will work when installed. Hell, I knew one guy who reportedly shipped empty components with fraudulent data knowing that they would fail incoming inspection at the customer end. He did it because the penalties for being late were worse than the warranty replacement plus the cost of making fakes! I almost got fired for explaining to a customer why we he was having problems with one of our parts because of the last lead bending operation. Our sales guys were trying to get them to do it and lying through their teeth in the process. One cracked lead was $3,600 bucks down the tubes and they'd do so unless you babied them. So then the customer puts them in a missile?

I hated those people. Whether the stuff works is a life and death matter and they treated it like a meaningless game. I've worked in MIL-Spec houses that weren't like that, but it seemed that the bigger they got the worse it was.

48 posted on 12/08/2011 6:10:48 PM PST by Carry_Okie (The Democrats are and always have been the Party of the Extremely Rich, the Party of Slavery.)
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To: Hot Tabasco

My AF job 40+ years ago was the AF version(C-47s, C-135s) of what those sailors were doing on Pueblo. One of the older guys in the unit made some suggestions.


49 posted on 12/08/2011 6:18:33 PM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's "Economics In One Lesson.")
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To: gandalftb
We can believe everything the Iranians say.


50 posted on 12/08/2011 6:49:41 PM PST by FReepaholic (Stupidity is not a crime, so you're free to go.)
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To: Qbert

“might come down gently” Your’re right, flying wings are very hard to stall and will autorotate to the ground like a boomerang.

However, Iran is very mountainous, almost continuously steep in the eastern half. The chances of it landing on flat ground, wheels down are not rational.

If it did land on flat ground with so little damage, it had to have its landing gear down, a belly landing would have cause a lot of damage, coasting over brush and rocks. Whom could have ordered the landing gear down?

The only way an RQ-170 lands uncontrolled with so little damage would be to glide down over water, wheels up. There is little of that in Iran and how would they have recovered it so fast if at all.


51 posted on 12/08/2011 7:30:59 PM PST by gandalftb (11th MEU, 2/4 Echo, TRAP Force)
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To: gandalftb

Cheesy or not, the propaganda worked.

We should have immediately responded with a self-destruct precision-guided munition. “So sorry you guys messed with our stuff!”


52 posted on 12/08/2011 10:46:55 PM PST by brityank (The more I learn about the Constitution, the more I realise this Government is UNconstitutional !!)
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To: BigSkyFreeper
Even if this drone is real, it’s not going be flight-worthy because they don’t have the software and hardware to start it up and get it in to the air.

And keep in mind that it's already outdated at this point.
53 posted on 12/08/2011 11:32:50 PM PST by af_vet_rr
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To: gandalftb
Higher resolution images have appeared.

From

Link

54 posted on 12/09/2011 3:15:49 AM PST by Tommyjo
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To: justlurking

I’m of the mind that it’s fake and a planted fake. They will spend months....maybe several years...trying to develop their technology around this....and find that nothing really works.

I’ll even bet that a hard drive was onboard, and that the Iranians quickly rushed up to plug this into their network....releasing another stupid virus onto their military grid.


55 posted on 12/09/2011 3:24:17 AM PST by pepsionice
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To: Tommyjo; All
Did anyone notice in the 2nd photo the line on the access panel on the top of the nacelle as if someone cut into the fiberglass/composite with a die grinder and went to far?

Lockeed doesn't have QC like that....

56 posted on 12/09/2011 5:58:07 AM PST by taildragger (( Palin / Mulally 2012 ))
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To: taildragger; Tommyjo; All

Confirmed, we have satellite photos of the crash site, it was cratered.

Also, the RQ-170 doesn’t have an intake grill.

The latest Iranian photos do indeed show the wing seam taped on.

My question is why produce a fake and such a comical fake? They had to know that western eyes would quickly spot the fake.

As we did here first on FR, in the western media.


57 posted on 12/09/2011 8:35:32 AM PST by gandalftb (11th MEU, 2/4 Echo, TRAP Force)
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To: gandalftb; Paladin2
I don't know, all this sprechen ze Duestch makes me want to watch a certain segment of Blazing Saddles.
58 posted on 12/09/2011 8:47:39 AM PST by exit82 (Democrats are the enemies of freedom. We have ideas-the Dems only have ideology.)
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To: exit82
Where da white women?

Ich kann nicht Deutsch.

59 posted on 12/09/2011 8:56:03 AM PST by Paladin2
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To: taildragger

What up with the vanity skirt?


60 posted on 12/09/2011 8:56:58 AM PST by Paladin2
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