WORLD AIR WAR HISTORY


 
  Iran   Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) • یروی هوایی ارتش جمهوری اسلامی ایران
Islamic Republic of Iran (Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān)

Iranian Air Force  •  Naval Aviation  •  Army Aviation  •  Deployment  •  Revolutionary Air Force  •  Paramilitary Aviation  •  Police Aviation  •  Other Aviation
F-14A--MiG-29-UB-- Su-24MK--F-4E-D-RF--Mirage F-1--Saeqeh--MiG-21- F-7M-FT-7-- Shafaq --Su-25K-UBK-- F-5A-B-E-F--A-50--P-3F--KC-707--Boeing 747-707--C-130--An-140- An-74TK--JT2-2--T-33A--F-27--SEABIRD--XPLANE--AH-1J--PC-7--RH-53D-3D--CH-47C--Mi-17-8--Bell 214B-A--AB-205A-206A-212- Shahed 274-278--Dorna
AF NEWS  •  AF HISTORY

Iran Says It Is Building Copy Of Captured RQ-170

Iran Says It Is Building Copy Of Captured RQ-170

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the aerospace division of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, related what he said were details of the aircraft's operational history to prove his claim that Tehran's military experts had extracted data from the U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel captured in December in eastern Iran, state television reported.

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the aerospace division of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, related what he said were details of the aircraft's operational history to prove his claim that Tehran's military experts had extracted data from the U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel captured in December in eastern Iran, state television reported.

Among the drone's past missions, he said, was surveillance of the compound in northwest Pakistan in which Osama Bin Laden lived and was killed.

Tehran has flaunted the capture of the Sentinel, a top-secret surveillance drone with stealth technology, as a victory for Iran and a defeat for the United States in a complicated intelligence and technological battle.

U.S. officials have acknowledged losing the drone. They have said Iran will find it hard to exploit any data and technology aboard it because of measures taken to limit the intelligence value of drones operating over hostile territory.

Hajizadeh told state television that the captured surveillance drone is a "national asset" for Iran and that he could not reveal full technical details. But he did provide some samples of the data that he claimed Iranian experts had recovered.

"There is almost no part hidden to us in this aircraft. We recovered part of the data that had been erased. There were many codes and characters. But we deciphered them by the grace of God," Hajizadeh said.

He said all operations carried out by the drone had been recorded in the memory of the aircraft, including maintenance and testing.

Hajizadeh claimed that the drone flew over Osama Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan two weeks before the al-Qaeda leader was killed there in May 2011 by U.S. Navy SEALs. He did not say how the Iranian experts knew this.

Before that, he said, "this drone was in California on Oct. 16, 2010, for some technical work and was taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan on Nov. 18, 2010. It conducted flights there but apparently faced problems and (U.S. experts) were unable to fix it," he said.

Hajizadeh said the drone was taken to Los Angeles in December 2010 where sensors of the aircraft underwent testing at an aerospace factory.

"If we had not achieved access to software and hardware of this aircraft, we would be unable to get these details. Our experts are fully dominant over sections and programs of this plane," he said. "It's not that we can bring down a drone but cannot recover the data."

There are concerns in the U.S. that Iran or other states may be able to reverse-engineer the chemical composition of the drone's radar-deflecting paint or the aircraft's sophisticated optics technology that allows operators to positively identify terror suspects from tens of thousands of feet in the air.

There are also worries that adversaries may be able to hack into the drone's database, as Iran claimed to have done. Some surveillance technologies allow video to stream through to operators on the ground but do not store much collected data. If they do, it is encrypted.

Media reports claimed this week that Russia and China have asked Tehran to provide them with information on the drone but Iran's Defense Ministry denied this.


Source: 21 April 2011 - The Associated Press News

Photo: Iran Captured U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel (Photo by havredailynews.com)

(21.04.2012)


 
F-4E (IRIAF)
IRIAF F-14A Tomcat
IRIAF MiG-29 Fulcrum
IRIAF Su-24MK Fencer-D
IRIAF MDD F-4E Phantom II
IRIAF Mirage F-1EQ / BQ
Iran AF
Scheme
IRIAF F-14A TOMCAT
 

 
  CONTINENTAL NEWS:

American Air Force News
African Air Force News
Asian Air Force News
European Air Force News
Middle Eastern AF News
Ocean Air Force News


• First flight for Iran’s Kowsar-88 Yasin

(25.12.2019)
Iran has flown a prototype of the Iran Aviation Industries Organization’s (IAIO’s) Kowsar-88 advanced jet trainer, now renamed the Yasin. ...>>

• Iranian Air Force conduct test flight of Yasin trainer jet

(1.11.2019)
The Iranian Air Force has conducted a test-flight of the Yasin jet trainer, a locally-produced aircraft....>>

• Iran's Guards commander says U.S. military presence in Gulf is 'an opportunity': ISNA

(12.05.2019)
The United States’ military presence in the Gulf used to be a serious threat but now it is an opportunity, a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday, accordi...>>

• Iran admits to being hit by potent cyber attack

(3.11.2018)
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweets 'Incredible series of coincidences. Or, a simple chronology of a Mossad program to kill the 2015 nuclear deal'; Israel remains silent on...>>

• IRGC Navy Warns of Dire Consequences of US Warships' Amateur Behavior in Persian Gulf

(10.03.2017)
A commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Navy blasted the recent change of course by a US warship towards the IRGC vessels in the Persian Gulf, and warned of the dire rep...>>

• Iranian Navy Sends Fleet of Warships to Russia

(9.03.2017)
The Iranian Navy on Tuesday dispatched a flotilla of warships to Russia's Makhachkala, the capital city of the Republic of Dagestan....>>

 




       info@xairforces.net Webmaster: REFLX DESIGN - © 2011 xairforces / Aviation Society,