US Stealth UAV RQ-170 downed in IRAN

[yahya07]

You mean Fox News and BBC tell the truth? I will trust PressTV any day on those clowns. All western media is either Zionist owned and controlled like Fox or regime owned and controlled like BBC.

Regarding your possibilities:

1/ US intelligence official privy to the matter hand already has confirmed that drone is INTACT. It means it is not in pieces. It means it was not shot down and it was not a mechanical failure which caused it to crash to pieces from a 50,000 ft altitude. This possibility is therefore eliminated.

2/ With regard to hack which is the most probable possibility, as there were reports about virus infection of US air force control systems, We must give credit when due. I know you do not like Iran much but that is ok. You can give credit where it is due.

About pictures, though understandable if Iran does not want to release them on security grounds, but the world still wants to see them nonetheless. I guess someday Iran should release them but the question is when.

The problem with PressTV is they don't even try or pretend to be an objective news source. Their articles lack any depth or originality, they just restate old news in a pro-Iranian, anti-American manner.

 

[longbrained]

US has already admitted that the drone is INTACT and that Iran has full access to all of its technology. This makes the possibility of a crash completely stupid since a crash from 50,000 would destroy a plane like RQ-170 which is largely made of non-metal material.

---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:00 PM ----------

The problem with PressTV is they don't even try or pretend to be an objective news source. Their articles lack any depth or originality, they just restate old news in a pro-Iranian, anti-American manner.

Yeah, the same with all western News agencies. When was BBC or Fox objective? Have you ever heard Fox to come out and say lets not go to war and kill millions of people? Or have you heard BBC say lets return the wealth we have stolen from all over the world? I guess not.

 

[gambit]

GABIT. whether we like it or not Iran has its hand on the technology, usa has confirmed Iran had got it quite undamaged.
[video]http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/05/us-military-sources-iran-has-missing-us-drone/[/video]

Read your source...

...the aircraft likely "wandered" into Iranian air space after losing contact with its handlers and is presumed to be intact since it is programmed to fly level and find a place to land, rather than crashing.

Does that sound like Iran actually did anything to facilitate its capture, and am willing to be that generous that Iran do have possession?

This is what I have been trying to explain to fools all this time. In remote control, in the event that contact and control is lost, the device should have a 'safe' or 'default' position to fall back upon instead of crashing. We do this for robotics all the time. For these aircrafts, the 'safe' or 'default' position would be to either:

- Continue in the current heading.
- Enter an orbit.
- Self destruct.

The last item is the least desirable since as long as fuel exist, both drone and controller will attempt to establish contact with each other. So the self destruct option is preserved for when situations are highly suspected of a non-recoverable possibility. So if this drone was recovered by Iran, it will be because of its programmed instructions, not because Iran did anything to FACILITATE its landing, hard or soft. Is that too difficult to grasp?

 

[longbrained]

Every one read this article from LA Times which basically means Iranians are right. The US official admits, that drone is intact and then shuts his mouth when asked how it went down. If it had been a malfunction his mouth would have been widely open and point out this innocent mechanical failure. But he knows that is not true so he shuts his mouth. What kind of a drone failure could be more important that already admitting that the drone is intact and in Iran? That is right, the possibility that Iran has hacked. Any one who knows even slightly about physics of flying knows a high altitude crash would not some how survive intact specially when it comes crashing into rock mountains. The only possibility is that Iranians hacked into it. Specially since already reports are out that US drone control systems had been infected by a mysterious virus. This Iranian action is actually a revenge for Stuxnet.

 

[yahya07]

US has already admitted that the drone is INTACT and that Iran has full access to all of its technology. This makes the possibility of a crash completely stupid since a crash from 50,000 would destroy a plane like RQ-170 which is largely made of non-metal material.

---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:00 PM ----------



Yeah, the same with all western News agencies. When was BBC or Fox objective? Have you ever heard Fox to come out and say lets not go to war and kill millions of people? Or have you heard BBC say lets return the wealth we have stolen from all over the world? I guess not.

Dude please don't compare BBC to PressTV, just don't.

 

[longbrained]

Wow, so many on this forum are burning with jealousy that Iran has this technology and they do not not less Mr. or Miss gambit. This is really fun.

---------- Post added at 05:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:13 PM ----------

Dude please don't compare BBC to PressTV, just don't.

Why not? Both are TV channels.

 

[IranZamin]

Wow, so many on this forum are burning with jealous that Iran has this technology and they do not not less Mr. or Miss gambit. This is really fun.

Actually Iran has every right to posses this drone and reverse engineer it. In the 70's we paid the US to ship more then 250 F16's to us. They never honoured their contract. so it is a payback

 

[Cyrus the Great]

First they claim they shot it down with a missile now they claiming it was electronic warfare. Why are we getting different views from Iran? They don't even know how they got it down? Unless it crashed into Afghanistan and the Iranians cross over and took it as the military has claimed it crashed last week in western Afghanistan.

Iran never claim they shot it dowm, all Iran sources say "down"

 

[Black Widow]

I guess Indian Muslim support Iran while non muslim post in favor of US, it is only a guess i am not sure

Sorry Bro, There is nothing like that.... Indian policy not based on religion...

 

[longbrained]

Actually Iran has every right to posses this drone and reverse engineer it. In the 70's we paid the US to ship more then 250 F16's to us. They never honoured their contract. so it is a payback

It was not only F-16's. The list of equipment that was never delivered is long. Six kidd class frigates one of which US later on used to shoot down an Iranian air liner. US basically had deployed Iranian owned Frigates in Persian Gulf waters in support of Saddam shooting at Iranian in order to break the will and morale of Iranians. Several submarines which were never delivered to Iran. Also Iran had financed FA-18 program. These are just some examples. The rest you can google and find.

 

[longbrained]

Iran should trade this hack technology and the technology of RQ-170 with Russians for technology of anti-ship missiles, S-400 SAM and nuclear power reactor technology. Do not sell this technology cheap or give it away just for "friendship". Do not be fooled you Iranians. There is no such thing as friendship in this world. This should remain strictly business. Give this technology and get another. Simple. Remember do not fall for future promises. Ever remember Eurodif, Bushehr nuclear plant, Chieftain tanks, S-300? Do not sign any contract. Just tell Russians to bring in their engineers and work in team with Iranian engineers to dissect the drone so both can learn from it at the same time. Also demand before this can begin Russia should give S-400 and anti-ship supersonic anti ship missile technology to Iran, plus blue prints and technology for new VVER type nuclear reactors. Do not sell it for cheap.

 

[Hussein]

i value your knowledges gambit. with respect i give my opinion. i wish you could give some info on "hacking"...

So what? We have lost these aircrafts before, in both training and actual deployments, from human to technical errors. The word 'lost' does not automatically imply only from combat actions. Conclusion: Leap of faith.

sure. right now who is able to say "i know what happened"

The US have conducted many intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions looking across the border into Iran. For all the world know, we could have violated Iranian airspace in the past and those cynical enough will believe we have. So why was Iran unable to 'detect' these aircrafts back then? Conclusion: Leap of faith.

I know someone very near friend who is working in radar station. He already said me many times: we know US send drones and planes . We can see it. The fact you should know as a military man: there is some info the country will not release... because why they should release something that is kind of obvious

There are many causes of losing contact and control of these aircrafts. Any conclusion drawn from such a simple statement constitute a leap of faith. Conclusion: Leap of faith.

This is why we need experts to know what they think about.
Anyway i don't see my country "forced" to give some pics... why they should?

 

[Hussein]

You mean Fox News and BBC tell the truth? I will trust PressTV any day on those clowns. All western media is either Zionist owned and controlled like Fox or regime owned and controlled like BBC.

Hey guy i was just speaking about PressTV not about FoxNews and i didn't need to say all everyone knows FoxNews is bullshit news channel. BBC? well it depends. Their work is very irregular in quality.
In the same time i prefer NYT in the American media. And in France LeMonde . For Iranian news i didn't need to say sources you cannot know as a non Iranian.

Regarding your possibilities:

they are not "MY" possibilities. I have more questions than answers.

1/ US intelligence official privy to the matter hand already has confirmed that drone is INTACT. It means it is not in pieces. It means it was not shot down and it was not a mechanical failure which caused it to crash to pieces from a 50,000 ft altitude. This possibility is therefore eliminated.

ok can you quote the source which says US intelligence is syign this. then it is very interesting to know you're right.

2/ With regard to hack which is the most probable possibility, as there were reports about virus infection of US air force control systems, We must give credit when due. I know you do not like Iran much but that is ok. You can give credit where it is due.

It is good to have some expert advice about it. i am not. i try to understand how it could be.
gambit says he is in the field so i was curious he gives his opinion.
And anyway there is an article here saying the experts say they would be surprised Iran can do it... but as they say they are not sure Iran is not able to do it.

About pictures, though understandable if Iran does not want to release them on security grounds, but the world still wants to see them nonetheless. I guess someday Iran should release them but the question is when.

I agree.
I think that US intelligence can guess about it is when the tech is used in another country , like China.

Why not? Both are TV channels.

like Disney Channel. (it was a joke)

 

[gambit]

i value your knowledges gambit. with respect i give my opinion. i wish you could give some info on "hacking"...

Let me put it to you, and the others here, this way: Avionics cannot be 'hacked', especially flight controls. The system is designed to be independent of external influences. Pilot inputs are integral to any FLCS so they are considered internal factors. In effect, in order to 'hack' the FLCS of any manned aircraft, it would be like holding a gun to a hostage and compel the pilot to do as command. However, what can be 'hacked', or more precisely 'altered', for these drones are the instructions sets that contains specific flight parameters, such as on so-and-so day you will fly to a certain location, loiter at so-and-so altitude with so-and-so speed, for so-and-so duration. These drones are not under 100% control all the time, in fact, the more sophisticated ones can take off and land by themselves. It is only when a drone reach an area of interests that may contain activities that are unpredictable is where ground controllers take over, operate the sensors, and redirect flight paths if necessary to maintain sensor contact. Most of the time, these 'pilots' just set the drone's autopilot and let the avionics do the rest. So in order to 'hack' these instruction sets, many things must be known beforehand and that require human activities, read: spies, who must obtain a copy of the standard flight parameters, a 'template' if you will, and somehow transmit that information back to home country where they can be altered.

sure. right now who is able to say "i know what happened"

We do. But for genuine security reasons, we will not say how. Even if it is from a technical cause, disclosure of that vulnerability can still give adversaries some knowledge that they can infer as to what level is our technology. Some vulnerabilities are already obvious, such as over-the-air (OTA) data links that can be affected by weather or by stray signals. This vulnerability is not a secret and that is why we have 'safe' or 'default' conditions for these robots.

I know someone very near friend who is working in radar station. He already said me many times: we know US send drones and planes . We can see it. The fact you should know as a military man: there is some info the country will not release... because why they should release something that is kind of obvious

I highly doubt that. In radar detection, NOTHING is invisible but the question is distance of detection. For our 'stealth' aircrafts, and they include these drones, for every one that your friend can see, there are at least two his system missed.

This is why we need experts to know what they think about.

Some of them already gave their opinions but because the contents of those opinions do not conform to desired notions, they are dismissed.

Anyway i don't see my country "forced" to give some pics... why they should?

No one can 'forced' Iran to give photographic evidences of possession. But think about this for a moment...Assume that Iran successfully cracked the real time control links and effectively take over flight commands, if Iran does nothing and we believe (falsely) that we are safe, then Iran have given US continued freedom to conduct ISR flights against Iran, and in order to control what we see, Iran would have to conduct a massive countrywide technical counter-espionage program to hide everything because Iran has not give away the knowledge that US drones conducting ISR flights have been compromised. How much of this is going to cost Iran in terms of money and time?

If Iran allowed US a few more ISR flights before commandeering another drone, then at least we have gotten a few more bits of useful intelligence before we have to shut down the drones.

But if Iran show the world beyond reasonable doubts that US drones are technically compromised, the entire US unmanned ISR program will come to a halt WORLDWIDE.

 

[Broccoli]

An American drone that crashed in Iran last Thursday was on a mission for the CIA, and is now in the hands of Iran’s military, NBC News has learned.

U.S. officials tell NBC that CIA operators were flying the unmanned drone when it veered out of control and headed deep into Iran. The drone eventually ran out of fuel and crashed in Iran's remote mountains.

The nature of the drone’s mission was secret and sources say it's still not clear whether the drone was operating in Iran or Afghanistan.

World News - Drone that crashed in Iran risks secret U.S. technology