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Israel shoots down Iran’s counterfeit drone

by Jonn Lilyea••41

The Washington Post reports that the Iranian drone that Israel shot down this weekend was actually an Iranian copy of a US CIA RQ-170 Sentinel . The Iranians reverse-engineered the copy from a US drone that they recovered from a 2011 crash.

Experts who examined footage of the drone being shot down and images of its wreckage released by the Israeli military agreed that the shape strongly resembled that of Iran’s Saeqeh, or “Thunderbolt,” drone, which was based on a CIA-operated RQ-170 captured by Iran.

[Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for Israel’s military] said that he could not specifically confirm that the drone was a Saeqeh and that the debris is still being examined. Iran has developed several other models based on the RQ-170.

“It was an Iranian copy of a U.S. drone that they got hold of a few years ago and they duplicated,” [Yuval Steinitz, a minister in Israel’s security cabinet] told Israeli radio. Israel said the drone, operated by Iran from a base inside Syria, traveled three or four miles into its territory Saturday morning before being shot down.

Iran has described the Israeli claim as “ridiculous.”

Iran claims that their version of the stealth drone is armed with four laser-guided bombs, despite experts’ claims that it won’t remain stealthy with armaments. I guess it wasn’t stealthy enough to evade Israel’s detection.

“It would be a new development if they were flying these around,” Zwijnenburg said. The RQ-170 is designed to evade radar, made of materials that absorb, rather than bounce, the radar signal, but it is possible Iran has not been able to replicate that capability, Zwijnenburg said.

“They could have been testing air defenses or trying it out,” he said. “If it was trying to evade radar it would have to be flying low, and from the video it looks to be flying low.”

Iran is believed to have a dozen of these drones, but that number may be reduced by the Israelis in the coming weeks.

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41 thoughts on “Israel shoots down Iran’s counterfeit drone”

    1. Should have put a JDAM on the crash site, but that may have angered the Iranians right when Barry was busy giving away the farm on the nuke deal.

      1. JDAM? How about 2-3 cruise missiles?

        I know, I know, but a guy can dream can’t he?

        Wait … does that make me a DREAMER!!??

    2. Give it about six months and a brand new Israeli version of the Saeqeh will be taking to the skies.

  2. You can buy a lot of drone parts for $2,000,000,000. Or build the infrastructure to make your own parts.

    It wouldn’t take much to fit one of these with a dirty bomb (or the nukes they aren’t making). Clearly has the range to hit Israel.

    1. The Iranian UAV was launched from Syria, which has a common boarder with Israel. Range wasn’t an issue. This most likely was a test of Israel’s detection capabilities, and I think Iran got an answer.

      1. What about the C-130. Me, I was happy riding the C-47’s and left the C-119’s to those misguided individuals who jumped out of perfectly good airplanes

        1. Us zoomies know, There are never any perfectly good airplanes. If it aint broke, it aint flying.

          Cheers,
          MrFace

          1. One of my favorites was the Post Maintenance Check Flight, which is pretty much what it sounds like. You ground pounders did put the safety wire on, right?

            Trust but verify.

              1. Love you guys- every time I strapped in I put my life in your hands. Always came home, so trust was well placed.

                1. Shack!

                  Well said.

                  The number of takeoffs equals the number of landings in my log books, primarily because of the outstanding USN/USMC Naval Aviation maintenance personnel out in the Fleet.

                  1. Late in 68 well after the siege of Khe Sahn an A-4 landed on the strip and spent the nite being repaired. Probably shot up on a mission north of the DMZ or over Laos. The next day it took off with a roar and all of us motioning for him to do a barrel roll. He took off straight and level and disappeared around the hills. We were disappointed and soon forget about it when a trmendous roar was heard and we went diving for the ground . It was that A-4 about 50′ above the runway . It blasted skyward and did several rolls much to our extream enjoyment! Guess he had to be certain that thing would actually fly before doing aerobatics.

                2. It is always a good thing when the number of take-offs minus the number of landings equals zero. Anything else…not so good. Luckily, mine were equal.

                  1. While my landings equaled my takeoffs, on several occasions I landed in a different aircraft than I took off in.

        2. Ahhh. C119. Awesome jump because you were damned glad to get out of it even if you might bump the chap going out the other door.

          1. We had to jump those at jump school. Noisiest rattle trap I ever jumped from. Even the C-47 was quieter.

  4. Someone decided to kick the anthill, and got bit.

    Obama added the Iranians, Trump is backing Israel.

    The writing is on the wall for those who can read it.

  5. I’ve always believed that Iran is a lot smarter than we give the country credit for. Again, -what happened- to all those former Soviet aerospace engineers whose labor was no longer needed when the USSR folded (and thousands of our own American engineers were given the boot.) What happens when your country has no jobs to support your advanced technical skills? I’d not be surprised if many migrated–to Iran–and have helped them build up their forces in the decades since.

    1. Then you haven’t been paying attention to Iran’s weapons programs. They’ve been lucky to keep even a few F-14 Tomcats flying, and their much-touted home-made fighter is based on the F-5 airframe.

      Same thing for their missile programs. Lots of smoke & mirrors, not much in the way of actual hardware.

  6. We won’t be around to see it, but at some point the ME will fold like yesterday’s newspaper when its oil and natural gas resources dwindle sufficiently or they are no longer in great demand. Whoever corners the camel market will make a killing.

    1. We may be around, 2/17 Air Cav…it might happen sooner rather than later. Gosh, if we continue to drill and use our native talents to exploit our own resources…we won’t need those darn sheiks and their sick regimes. At least that’s my hope.

        1. We outpaced Saudi Arabia in 2014.

          We are now a net exporter of gas and oil, and still ramping up. Even if we skip all the coastal drilling options, we still are ramping up.

          If we built a couple of refineries for our own shale-crude we would be totally independent of foreign energy.

          And it looks like some of the folks elsewhere have finally started to deal with that reality.

          Heh. Heh. Heh. …. BWAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

    2. IMHO we’re closer than many think, we’re already well on our way to being the World’s number one oil producer yet again, wonder what it’ll be like once we’re done drilling and tapping ANWR?

    1. And the Soviets before them. I always liked their copy of the B-29 that was so perfect they copied all the flaws.

  8. Is this drone based on the one that crashed during the raid on bin Laden’s house?

    If so, then it’s high time ours had that Cylon scanning thing going on, noise and all. And a voice response part that says ‘Exterminate!’ like the Daleks.

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