Iran Gives Russia Copy Of US ScanEagle Drone As Proof Of Mass Production
Source: Guardian UK
Iran has given Russia a copy of a US spy drone as proof that its elite forces have reverse-engineered and mass produced the American unmanned aerial vehicle they claim to have captured a year ago.
Iranian media reported yesterday that the copy of the ScanEagle drone was provided to Russia on the sidelines of a meeting in Tehran between Farzad Esmayeeli, the air defence commander of Khatam al-Anbia, the Revolutionary Guards' military and industrial base, and Viktor Bondarev, head of the Russian air force.
In December 2012, a guards' commander said his forces had got their hands on a ScanEagle, promising Tehran would mass produce it. The US authorities denied those claims at the time, saying all its drones were fully accounted for.
"The drone built by the Islamic republic's Revolutionary Guards is a symbol of the technical capabilities of the Islamic Iran and today we presented a real model of it as a gift to Russian air force
and the Russian people," Esmayeeli said after meeting with Bondarev, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/21/iran-russia-us-scaneagle-spy-drone-production-capture
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)But did anyone think to ask the CIA?
hack89
(39,171 posts)Scan Eagle is based on SeaScan, which is in widespread use by commercial fishermen so Iran may have simply gotten their hands on a commercial version.
okaawhatever
(9,462 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)penultimate
(1,110 posts)of fish?
hack89
(39,171 posts)they are used to find large schools of fish, especially tuna.
penultimate
(1,110 posts)(on purpose)
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)Until now, drone development had been largely neglected in Russia, said Denis Fedutinov, a Russian expert on unmanned systems.
"Currently, the Ministry of Defense of Russia is working to remedy this situation by initiating and funding a program to create a range of [drones] of different types and class," Fedutinov told Pravda.
The U.S. military uses drones to collect surveillance and to carry out attacks. Recently, U.S. and Japanese officials finalized an agreement to allow American drones to fly out of Japan to spy on North Korea.
http://news.yahoo.com/massive-attack-drone-under-development-russia-175034247.html
coldbeer
(306 posts)We have copywright laws and what is ours
is ours. We would never infinge upon those
laws. Fair play is fair play.
tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Iran captures U.S. drone in its airspace-media
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014325211
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - Iran captured a U.S. drone that was flying in the country's airspace, its media reported on Tuesday.
The ScanEagle drone was gathering information over Gulf waters and had entered Iranian airspace when it was captured by the naval unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the Fars news agency reported, without giving details.
The agency said the drone was captured sometime "in the last few days." It was not clear how it was captured.
>
A U.S. Navy spokesman said they were aware of the reports, and were looking into them.
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/12/04/uk-iran-usa-drone-idUKBRE8B308620121204
....
Iranian TV shows off 'captured US ScanEagle drone'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20591336
The Revolutionary Guards said they had brought down a ScanEagle - one of the smaller, less sophisticated drones employed by the Americans.
Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi told the Fars news agency that the drone had conducted several reconnaissance flights over the Gulf in recent days.
But the US Navy said none of its drones was missing in the Middle East.
~snip~
"We have no record that we have lost any ScanEagles recently."
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)[IMG][/IMG]
The US considered starting a war over it.
Fallen U.S. Drone Nearly Led to Covert Strike in Iran
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/12/fallen-us-drone-nearly-led-covert-strike-iran/45857/
New reports on the CIA drone lost in Iran last week reveal the scope of the stealth plane's mission and just how far the U.S. was willing to go to recover it. The Associated Press reports on Wednesday that despite U.S. military statements Monday suggesting the drone was lost while flying a mission in western Afghanistan, Iranian officials say the RQ-170 drone was detected about 140 miles from the border of Afghanistan, deep inside the country's air space. U.S. officials, speaking on background, confirmed the RQ-170 drone had been spying on Iran for years but did not indicate the extent to which it penetrated Iranian air space. They did say the U.S. air base in Shindad, Afghanistan, was designed to launch "surveillance missions and even special operations missions into Iran if deemed necessary."
In a sign of how badly the U.S. wanted the stealth drone back, The Wall Street Journal reports that it contemplated three different operations to recover the fallen drone. One plan involved sending commandos in Afghanistan assisted by U.S. agents in Iran to track down and recover the drone. "Another option would have had a team sneak in to blow up the remaining pieces of the drone," reports the Journal. "A third option would have been to destroy the wreckage with an airstrike."
In the end, officials decided not to carry out the mission for two reasons: a) they feared the strike could be considered an "act of war" and b) it crashed in such a remote area of Iran that officials hoped it wouldn't be found "therefore, leaving the remains where they were could be the safest option."
So what went wrong? While Iran maintains that it shot down the plane using anti-aircraft weaponry, sources inside and outside the military explain to Reuters that most signs indicate a technical malfunction because of the way the RQ-170 is programmed. "The aircraft is flown remotely by pilots based in the United States, but is also programmed to autonomously fly back to the base it departed from if its data link with U.S.-based pilots is lost," a defense analyst who consults for Lockheed told the news agency. "The fact that the plane did not return to its base suggests a 'catastrophic' technical malfunction," another industry insider familiar with drone technology attested. Additionally, "several current and former defense officials" said shooting down the drone was unlikely because of the aircraft's anti-radar coating and ability to fly at high altitudes.
U.S. Made Covert Plan to Retrieve Iran Drone
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204770404577082822643123332.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
U.S. officials considered conducting a covert mission inside Iran to retrieve or destroy a stealth drone that crashed late last week, but ultimately concluded such a secret operation wasn't worth the risk of provoking a more explosive clash with Tehran, a U.S. official said.
~snip~
But the U.S. official said the drone developed mechanical difficulties and remote pilots lost control of the aircraft, and said officials knew immediately it had crashed in eastern Iran.
~snip~
Under one plan, a team would be sent to retrieve the aircraft. U.S. officials considered both sending in a team of American commandos based in Afghanistan as well as using allied agents inside Iran to hunt down the downed aircraft.
Another option would have had a team sneak in to blow up the remaining pieces of the drone. A third option would have been to destroy the wreckage with an airstrike.
Iran says it's recovered data from captured U.S. spy drone
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-04-22/middleeast/world_meast_iran-us-plane_1_spy-drone-tehran-aerospace-forces?_s=PM:MIDDLEEAST
"This plane is seen as a national capital for us and our words should not disclose all the information that we have very easily," Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars News Agency.
"Yet, I provide four cues in here to let the Americans know how deep we could penetrate into the intelligence systems and devices of this drone."
Some data from the drone's memory device revealed it had flown over the Pakistani hideout of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden two weeks before his death in May, according to Hajizadeh.
"Had we not accessed the plane's softwares and hard discs, we wouldn't have been able to achieve these facts," he said.
Iran claims to be cloning American spy drone
http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/04/iran-claims-to-be-cloning-american-spy-drone-75172.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iran claimed Sunday that it had reverse-engineered an American spy drone captured by its armed forces last year and has begun building a copy.
~snip~
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.
~snip~
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.
...
Venezuela says building drones with Iran's help
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014143862
Source: Reuters
Venezuela is building unmanned drone aircraft as part of military cooperation with Iran and other allies, President Hugo Chavez said, in a move likely to heighten U.S. anxiety over his socialist government's role in the region.
Referring to a Spanish media report that U.S. prosecutors are investigating drone production in Venezuela, Chavez said late on Wednesday: "Of course we're doing it, and we have the right to. We are a free and independent country."
In a televised speech to military officers at Venezuela's Defense Ministry, Chavez said the aircraft only has a camera and was exclusively for defensive purposes. "We don't have any plans to harm anyone," he said.
"We are doing this with the help of different countries including China, Russia, Iran, and other allied countries," he added, apparently referring both to drone construction and to other projects including a munitions and weapons factory.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-says-building-drones-irans-help-160436916.html