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Looking at the photograph with the two men standing in front of the “supposed” drone, don’t you think it’s strange that the area beneath the drone is blocked from view? Why would they want to keep you from seeing the underside or landing gear? Strange.........

Is that a “real” drone or perhaps a model copy?

“Looking at the photograph with the two men standing in front of the “supposed” drone, don’t you think it’s strange that the area beneath the drone is blocked from view? Why would they want to keep you from seeing the underside or landing gear? Strange.........

Is that a “real” drone or perhaps a model copy?”

If it truly “crash-landed” then the underside would be damaged. But then, why would they want to hide damage? Unless there is no damage and it had a soft controlled landing. Early in the article it mentions that it is a high altitude drone. If it was high altitude then it couldn’t be “seen” with the naked eye to be taken down by an AK47. It sure looks anti-radar-stealth capable so it probably didn’t show up on radar and taken down by a SAM.

You do bring up an interesting possibility; it’s only a model! Why would we acknowledge it as our lost drone when we know it to be fake?
Did Obama actually give the order not to self-destruct? Or is this just a huge misdirection story?

I’m beginning to feel that we’ve been had. Gloriously deceived in every way.
We are living in Alice in Wonderland. Nothing is as it is portrayed.

don’t you think it’s strange that the area beneath the drone is blocked from view? Why would they want to keep you from seeing the underside or landing gear? Strange.........

If you look at pictures of other RQ-170s, you'll see a large optics package on the underside, right behind the nose gear.

My belief is that the truly "sensitive" technologies of the -170 are there, and were either destroyed in the "soft" landing, or by a small self-destruct pyrotechnics package. The Iranians clearly don't want to us to see that area, and therefore what they really got from the aircraft. If there weren't damage, they'd surely be showing that area.

People should keep in mind that the airframe-based stealth technologies seen in the -170 look pretty dated, if not non-existent (like the complete lack of faceting on gear and panel doors). Composite airframe components (assuming that's what the -170 is made of. It could be made of laminated wood for all we know) are nothing new - the Iranians could get that from Russia and China. Neither is RAM - the Iranians could get samples from the Serbs from that F-117 that was shot down.

It is a bad copy, very bad copy. Nobody has yet pointed out the BBQ grill on the air inlet that does not show on the Kandahar picture in addition to the very crappy leading edge of the wing and front body. The wing junction is not symmetrical. The opening for the air inlet is not correct either. I could make a far better copy out of Styrofoam from the one picture.

Something very screwy about the whole story