Report: Syria Converted Combat Aircraft to Drones with WMDs

inn ^ | 12/25/12 | Elad Benari

[Nachum]

A MiG-21 combat aircraft flown by a Syrian pilot who defected to Jordan in June was found to have been upgraded back in Syria to carry chemical weapons and to fly without a pilot, the Yisrael Hayom daily reported on Tuesday.

According to the report, U.S. experts who examined the plane believe Russian engineers helped convert the plane and that Syria has more of them in its air force.

On June 21, Syrian pilot Hassan Hamada, who holds a rank equivalent to colonel, took off in his MiG-21 from al-Dumair military airport northeast of Damascus and flew to King Hussein Airbase just across Syria's southern border with Jordan. Upon landing in Jordan, Hamada removed his rank and requested political asylum.

Syria immediately admitted the pilot had defected

[Nachum]

It's 3am and nobody's there

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Makes sense. You already have the platform. You just need to develop an RC interface to the autopilot.

[nascarnation]

Most any sharp college grad with mechatronics experience could do it, so no surprise. Our US universities with engineering departments enroll significant numbers from the (well funded) middle east.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Not sure those old Soviet era fighters have an autopilot.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Retrofitting with an autopilot would be piece of cake with today’s computers.

[Chode]

it's not the computer, it's retrofitting all the stuff to actuate the control surfaces that will be the hard part...

[Seizethecarp]

I would expect the Israelis to be able to down anything suspicious that approached their airspace, so that could mean that perhaps that a swarm of drones could take off on short notice, fly towards Israel, then let loose chem-warhead-armed air-to-ground missiles right before the drones would be expected to be shot down by the Israelis. The missiles could penetrate further into Israel to strike preset military targets or population centers.

The mission could even be designed to be partly flown with human pilots who could handle the take-off and then could eject right before crossing the Golan or into Jorday. The drone Mig-21s (obsolete planes) could continue into the “suicide zone” of protected Israeli airspace.

I think the tally was 95-0 during the last tangle between the Syrian and Israeli air forces, so using pilotless planes on WMD missions would mean that Kamikaze one-way missions wouldn’t be needed that would kill valuable (secular non-Islamist) Syrian pilots. Talk about inviting further defections!

[muawiyah]

There goes Walter Mondale's final argument about why Star Wars wouldn't work ~ these things aren't in outer space!

But they exist and must be targeted and destroyed quickly.

I think the Democrats have left this nation vulnerable without an effective space based defense system.

Time to get out the tar.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Didn’t people say that this sort of thing was going to be used by Iraq when we invaded? A one way trip—radio or pre-programmed flight could be used against the US Fleet, or Israel or Turkey? Fly low to avoid radar—go into afterburner at border and crash with cem-wepons or crude nukes ??? Take out a US carrier and the Americans might fold up and go home. (possible with Obama). Syria could claim it was a rebel who made the flight to get the USA involved—or a nut-pilot. They issue a so sorry letter at the UN. Possible.

[justa-hairyape]

The article linked below has an image of the actual plane.

Syria converts combat aircraft to WMD-armed drones

[Seizethecarp]

If the Russians helped rig up the Syrian drone Mig-21, they could have done the same for an Iraqi drone WMD-MiG-21, I would imagine. They might want to check the serial number on that rigged “Syrian” MIG! Maybe it came to Syria from Iraq pre-rigged! Wouldn’t that be a kicker...