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Officials Confirm Authenticity of Iranian TV Images Showing Lost U.S. Drone
Fox News ^ | 8 DEC 11 | Jennifer Griffin-Fox

Posted on 12/09/2011 6:32:13 AM PST by Amigo04

Edited on 12/09/2011 6:59:37 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]

U.S. officials have confirmed to Fox News that images aired by Iranian state television do in fact show the secret U.S. drone that went down last week in eastern Iran.


(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News
KEYWORDS: drone; iran; rq170
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To: whershey
That this could happen just leaves me speechless.

Yep its equivalent to the USSR getting a hold of a fully functual SR-71 in the early 1960s.

41 posted on 12/09/2011 9:18:22 AM PST by usurper (Liberals GET OFF MY LAWN)
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To: Amigo04

China and Russia already bidding for this, no doubt.

Why can’t there be a ‘self-destruct’ mechanism in this ‘high value’ piece of equipment?


42 posted on 12/09/2011 9:31:47 AM PST by LibFreeUSA (Pick Your Poison)
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To: Amigo04

Has anyone wondered if we have some traitors inside the Air Force who “delivered” the drone to the Iranians? Enquiring minds want to know.


43 posted on 12/09/2011 9:33:40 AM PST by A. Patriot (Have we lost our Republic? Do the majority of Americans care?)
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To: Tonytitan

Boy, you can say THAT again!


44 posted on 12/09/2011 10:54:40 AM PST by ichabod1 (Vote for Herman Cain 2012! Stop Letting Them Drive Our Candidates Away!)
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To: bert
“My analysis is that as they said, or i think i read they said, it ran out of fuel loitering over a selected area. Out of fuel it can still fly by gliding to a landing. That can be controlled or uncontrolled, we don’t know which”

Lets assume this is correct, Iran is a huge country, how would they know it was down? Where to find it?

I think per the article above someone hacked the system and we were too stupid to change our system. I think the Russians waited until we put up our best bird up in the air and hi-jacked it to an airport. How in the hell can we have a system this important hacked? Read the whole article linked above.

45 posted on 12/09/2011 12:08:35 PM PST by crosslink (Moderates should play in the middle of a busy street)
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To: bert
“My analysis is that as they said, or i think i read they said, it ran out of fuel loitering over a selected area. Out of fuel it can still fly by gliding to a landing. That can be controlled or uncontrolled, we don’t know which”

Lets assume this is correct, Iran is a huge country, how would they know it was down? Where to find it?

I think per the article above someone hacked the system and we were too stupid to change our system. I think the Russians waited until we put up our best bird up in the air and hi-jacked it to an airport. How in the hell can we have a system this important hacked? Read the whole article linked above.

46 posted on 12/09/2011 12:12:48 PM PST by crosslink (Moderates should play in the middle of a busy street)
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To: crosslink

sorry friday double post.


47 posted on 12/09/2011 12:13:45 PM PST by crosslink (Moderates should play in the middle of a busy street)
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To: xzins

They’re not stupid. Obama’s smart enough to know to lie domestically and tell the truth internationally.


48 posted on 12/09/2011 2:38:25 PM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: crosslink
“When your article came out, it was like, ‘What is this?’”

So we're being defended by the world's deadliest bureaucracy. Great.

49 posted on 12/09/2011 2:41:40 PM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: Amigo04

Perhaps this drone was allowed to be “captured”, lol. Let your imaginations run wild...


50 posted on 12/09/2011 4:19:45 PM PST by khnyny (Our government has become Hal in "2001 A Space Odyssey")
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To: khnyny

Release a f’d up copy and let them waste their time for the next two plus years reverse engineering a piece of sh*t.


51 posted on 12/09/2011 6:14:17 PM PST by khnyny (Our government has become Hal in "2001 A Space Odyssey")
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To: Tonytitan
Here's another possibility: LockMart built this as a Trojan Horse intending it to be landed in hostile territory and captured/analyzed by foreign intel.

It would be highly unwise to deliver any sort of a flying machine to Iranians. It may be not exactly the right thing, but if it flies it's a threat already. In any case Iran loses nothing, and the USA gains nothing.

It's also trivial to check the effective reflecting surface of this stealth drone. Just mount it on a tower and try to see it with a couple of radars, ground- and air-based. If they see it, it's a fake. If they don't you know that you got the real thing.

When they try to apply what they reverse engineer out of it into home grown copies and they start feeding intel to the US

That simply won't happen. Besides, what intel would you get if an Iranian drone flies over Israel? Compare to the level of intel Iranians get out of the same imagery, out of the same mission.

Who knows what little malware goodies have been planted into the thing

The code will be reverse engineered and sanitized. More likely it will be rewritten using the reverse engineered code as a loose guidance. If they are smart they will use two teams to prevent inadvertent copying of malware into the final product. Besides, the algorithms of control are not that complicated; it's largely a well developed math that you solve in real time. An autopilot is a common thing today. If Iran can launch rockets they know what it is because a rocket is unstable by definition and must be actively controlled all the time. An airplane is generally stable (outside of a few stealth models, perhaps like this one.)

If the drone is real, though, if I were Iran I would build it as a manned airplane, somewhat larger. As long as the reflectivity remains low (which is super-easy to check) Iran immediately gets a new line of stealth airplanes using Iranian engines and controls. They don't really need a stealthy robot plane. They'd be happy with a manned stealthy plane. Drones often require complex communications, satellites, ground-based relays, air-based relays, whatever. The USA has them; Iran doesn't. A drone of this type would be of limited use to Iran anyway. But they could find plenty of pilots.

52 posted on 12/09/2011 8:39:06 PM PST by Greysard
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To: Amigo04

So we do not have self destruct mechanism built in? Or we can not program a cruise missle to find and destroy this before they can reverse engineer it?

Interesting development.


53 posted on 12/10/2011 3:30:12 AM PST by Evergolightly (Ones conclusions are founded in the path traveled.)
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To: Greysard
Its not just the code...its the entire aerodynamic package...starting with the airfoil cross sections.

Easy to scale up the drone to full size.

54 posted on 12/10/2011 3:48:38 AM PST by spokeshave
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To: sam_paine

Okay, so how then, Einstein?


55 posted on 12/10/2011 7:02:30 AM PST by KosmicKitty (WARNING: Hormonally crazed woman ahead!!)
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To: Evergolightly
So we do not have self destruct mechanism built in?

Perhaps the drone had small self-destruct mechanisms for most secret pieces. But it clearly had no self-destruct for the entire airplane, for whatever reason. I can think of safety of maintenance and operation as one such reason; it becoming a bomb as another reason. It's one thing to fly an unarmed drone over Iran, and a somewhat different thing to fly a drone with explosives. Casus Belli and all that...

Or we can not program a cruise missle to find and destroy this before they can reverse engineer it?

Cruise missiles are not hounds. They don't fly around and find things. They need to be told in no uncertain terms where to go and what to hit. In this case nobody knows where the drone is stored. Perhaps by now it's even hard to tell because one wing is in Bejing, another is in Moscow, and the rest is being carefully taken apart, with seven video cameras taping everything, on lower floors of one of Iranian subterranean nuclear installations that can't be taken out with a megaton nuke.

56 posted on 12/10/2011 9:27:32 AM PST by Greysard
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To: Greysard

I realize we are quite as adept as Hollywood reality but surely we have better contingency plans than this?

As for cruise missle, I realize they need programed and have vivid mapping to follow terrain, but we know where they will reverse engineer this thing, time to take it out as we follow it to its location, our spy satellites can certain provide that information.

I read on a military channel they think it ran out of fuel!


57 posted on 12/11/2011 3:03:37 AM PST by Evergolightly (Ones conclusions are founded in the path traveled.)
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To: A. Patriot

Please would you possible believe that an American Muslim Air Force member would commit such a traitorous act?

That’s like saying the Fort Hood Massacre was not workplace violence.

How dare you malign American Muslims sir!!!

SARC ALERT OFF NOW!


58 posted on 12/11/2011 3:12:12 AM PST by Evergolightly (Ones conclusions are founded in the path traveled.)
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