Iran releases video of Shahed 171 UAV in flight

 

Above: video still of what appears to be a Shahed 171 scale prototype in test flight 

Iran today released a composite of video clips on television news programming claiming to depict its Shahed 171 UAV in flight.

The Shaded-171 is based on an example of a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel captured by Iran 04DEC11 near the city of Kashmar in northeastern Iran.

In comments published today at Fars News Agency, IRGC-ASF Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh stated Iran plans to have four production-type Shahed 171 UAVs operational by the end of the Persian year. He also claimed the role of the Shahed 171 would include the capability of a bomber aircraft.

Whatever the claims, it's apparent Iran continues to devote resources into their reverse-designed RQ-170 type UAV program; whether for promotional usage or actual operational applications is yet to be discerned from this observer's standpoint.

 VIDEO:

Iran Copies U.S. Drone

Iran said today it has successfully copied a U.S. drone it captured in December 2011. In a ceremony in Tehran, attended by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the IRGC Aerospace Force showed the captured American RQ-170 Sentinel next to its copy built in Iran. IRGC-ASF announced that its drone will be flight tested soon.

“This drone is very important for reconnaissance missions,” Khamenei said, standing in front of the Iranian copy of the American drone. (IRIB/AFP, 11 May)

Iran has developed a robust drone program, and has built 4-5 different models for reconnaissance and operations use. An Iranian TV documentary aired today showed an Iranian drone above a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. It was possible to see American personnel working on planes and helicopters aboard the carrier.

Photo credit: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sitting next to the captured U.S. drone and its copy, at an IRGC Aerospace Force exhibition. Tehran, Sunday 11 May 2014 (khamenei.ir/AFP)  

Iran TV documentary on capture of RQ-170 Sentinel (Persian) - Video

 

To see the Iranian TV documentary on the capture of a U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel UAV (in Persian) click the above image or click HERE.

Television documentary was originally broadcast on Iranian TV roughly two weeks ago.

Iran shows extracted video from captured RQ-170 UAV

Short documentary shown by Iran media detailing capture of RQ-170, including extracted video from UAV. Click HERE for Iran media source, Masregh News.

Iran Building Copy of Captured US Drone

Iran said today that it had reverse-engineered the U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel captured by IRGC last December and has begun building a copy of the top-secret surveillance drone.

“There is almost no part hidden to us in this aircraft. We recovered part of the data that had been erased. There were many codes and characters. But we deciphered them by the grace of God,” said Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of IRGC aerospace division during a national TV appearance [IRIB, 22 April].

Gen. Hajizadeh said all operations carried out by the drone had been recorded in the memory of the aircraft, including maintenance and testing. He said the drone flew over Osama Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan two weeks before U.S. Navy SEALs killed the al-Qaida leader there in May 2011.

“This drone was in California on 16 October, 2010, for maintenance and was taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan on 18 November, 2010. It conducted flights there but apparently faced problems and (U.S. experts) were unable to fix it,” Hajizadeh said. “The drone was taken to Los Angeles in December 2010 where sensors of the aircraft underwent testing at an aerospace factory.”

"If we had not achieved access to software and hardware of this aircraft, we would be unable to get these details. Our experts are fully dominant over sections and programs of this plane," Hajizadeh said. "It's not that we can bring down a drone but cannot recover the data."

Source: IRIB (Farsi)/AP (English translation)

Iran's scale model replica of the RQ-170: for Obama and hobbyists

According to ABC News:

[T]he Islamic Republic said Tuesday that it will send President Obama a tiny toy replica of the [RQ-170]. Iranian state radio said that the toy model will be 1/80th the size of the real thing. Iranian citizens can also buy their own toy copies of the drone, which will be available in stores for the equivalent of $4.

Those of us old enough will remember back in 1976 when an American model maker (Mongram or Revell) did the same immediately following the West's acquisition of defecting pilot Viktor Belenko's MiG-25 Foxbat. The American model maker was able to provide a scale replica based on studies of the captured Foxbat. It's unfortunate, however, the Iranians will be releasing a 1/80 scale replica, as a more conventional scale for hobbyists would have been 1/72 or 1/48.

US Will Continue Using Drones

US Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz said today the Air Force now understands what caused the crash of one of its unmanned spy drones over Iran in December and continues to use that type of drone to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data to military commanders [Reuters, 13 January].

Gen. Schwartz did not disclose the cause of the drone crash over Iran. The plane lost in Iran was on a mission for the CIA.

Iran to Hunt Down US Drones – Military Official

In a direct response to the comments made by the US Secretary of Defense last Wednesday, Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani, Iran's former defense minister and the director of the Iranian military’s strategic studies center, said today that Iran will hunt down more US spy drones if they continue to violate the country’s air space.

“If U.S. spy planes continue their aggression, we won't be idle,” Adm. Shamkhani said. “We will continue to hunt down their spy planes.” [IRNA, 16 December].

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had said on Wednesday during a visit to Afghanistan — from where the drone flew out — that the US will continue to conduct intelligence operations such as the one that led to the loss of its RQ-170 Sentinel over Iran.

Iran has already demanded that Afghanistan stop allowing the US to use bases in the country to launch drone flights over Iran.

Droning On...

By Paul Iddon

Washington downplays, Tehran overplays.

Captured RQ-170 in Iran.

Last July a rumour suggested that Iran had shot down an unmanned US drone over the Fordo uranium enrichment facility near Qom. I quipped at the time that given the fact it may indeed have been an unmanned drone that the Iranians would be unable to produce 'a Gary Powers' so to speak which would in turn ultimately serve to refute the US claim that they were not violating Iranian air space with such drones.

However earlier this month the Iranians were able to produce such irrefutable evidence that a US drone had indeed violated Iranian air space. The recent capture of the RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone has given the regime in Tehran a propaganda coup with their claim of having been able to 'electronically' bring down the drone with minimal damage over the embarrassing US claim of the drone having 'malfunctioned' and subsequently been lost whilst operating near Afghanistan's western frontier with the Islamic Republic.

Scorn was poured on the Obama Administration after they sent a formal request for the drones return. Secretary of State Clinton had previously stated that “given Iran's behaviour to date” – the regimes odious behaviour to its own citizens in recent weeks includes threatening actress Marzieh Vafamehr with 90 lashes for violating the countries brutally enforced dress code, the actual lashing of an Iranian student for merely “insulting” the President and on top of that offering death as the only alternative to conversion to Islam for the Iranian Evangelical pastor Youcef Nadarkhani – she didn't expect they would even reply and despite “provocations” asserted that the US would pursue a “diplomatic approach.”

Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi whom has stated that the drone is now Iran's property responded to the American request for its return by stating bluntly of the US has "instead of apologizing to the Iranian nation,” opted to “brazenly asking for the drone back.”

In a previous column entitled 'A Time to Apologize' which I wrote a few days after the 23rd anniversary of the horrific downing of Iran Air Flight 655 by the US Navy I argued that the US should make a formal heartfelt and thoroughly sincere apology to the people of Iran. As at the end of the day the attack was against them, as nearly any Iranian could have been on that plane on that fateful day. However I also added that such an apology could not given in an effective and meaningful manner with the present leadership as it forcibly imposes its will on the Iranian people and therefore cannot act as their legitimate representative on the international stage.

There is no doubt that the United States has violated Iranian sovereignty by traversing this piece of military hardware through Iran's air space. The regime however has undermined Iran's claim to its right of sovereignty. As it not only harbours but – as in the case of Vahidi – has actually given a ministerial position to a man who is wanted by the Argentinian authorities and Interpol for planning the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires which killed 85 people and injured several hundred more. Not only was this incident a terrorist act executed on foreign soil it is also the most significant and heinous acts of violence on Argentinian soil since the homicide bombing of Israels Argentine embassy in 1992 of which Hezbollah is suspected of organizing and executing.

So in conclusion, whilst the United States has blatantly disregarded Iran's sovereign integrity the ruling regime in Tehran has consistently and self-consciously been degrading and undermining it

Iran to Keep the Sentinel

Iran will not return the US RQ-170 Sentinel surveillance drone captured by its armed forces last week.

“No one returns the symbol of aggression to the party that sought secret and vital intelligence related to the national security of a country,” said Maj. Gen. Salami, IRGC deputy commander [IRNA, 11 December].

Meanwhile, Iran has summoned the Afghan ambassador to protest the violation of its airspace by the US drone that took off from neighboring Afghanistan.

The drone was brought down some 225 kilometers (140 miles) inside the Iranian territory near the eastern town of Kashmar. It was reportedly operated by the CIA on an intelligence mission related to Iran’s nuclear program. It was not known, however, if the agency was flying other drones over Iran and for how long it has maintained such program. The CIA also has not revealed the types of information these surveillance drones have produced in the past.

These Sentinels use rare stealth technology for its fuselage and coating and hi-tech radar and electronics, making the incident a strategic loss for the US. The IRGC claims that it has tracked this particular drone and brought it down almost intact.

“This aircraft fell into the trap of our armed forces and was downed,” said IRGC Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh. “Military experts are well aware how precious the technological information of this drone is,” he added.

It is reported that Iran recently received from Russia an advanced mobile jamming and intelligence system called “Avtobaza” that could have detected the drone and perhaps jammed its communications links.

“There is no reason why [Avtobaza] system could not have detected the Sentinel's electronic trail and either jammed it and/or have alerted fighter aircraft and SAM installations as to its whereabouts," [AviationIntel, 10 December].

AviationIntel reports that the drone could have been actively transmitting live video, detailed radar maps, or electronic intelligence, in real-time, making detection easier by the Russian-made system.

Iran Seeks US Apology Over Drone Incident

The Deputy Director of Armed Forces General Command Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri told reporters in Tehran today the US needs to apologize to Iran for using unmanned drones to spy on the country. Gen. Jazayeri termed the US behavior “unacceptable” and added that such behavior will be “costly” for the US, and the Iranian “defensive reaction” would not be limited within its own borders [IRNA, 10 December].

The chairman of national security committee of the Iranian Majlis has said that the US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone was captured some 250 kilometers inside the Iranian territory, near the Kashmar-Tabas road in eastern Iran, on Sunday 4 December.

Captured RQ-170 shown on Iran TV - Video

IRGC/ASF Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh and a colonel on Iran TV provide a tour of the captured RQ-170 stealth drone.

YouTube video by Revayat88