[QUOTE=Flicker;33628451]Seems a bit contradictory to say that it's a low tech drone then that it can return home independently. That would require some pretty impressive tech.[/QUOTE]
I wouldn't really say that is the apex of drone technology.
I'm sure you can even get RC hobbyist shit that can do something not too different.
Well with the US budget they can probably class a million $ drone as disposable/ expendable.
Although they do need to answer as to why it was in Iran in the first place. After Pakistan the US needs to reel back in, you can't just break international laws all willy nilly.
[QUOTE=Uber|nooB;33628581]the design contains nothing of value?
for a start, it's going to have pretty advanced control systems both to fly the aircraft (it's tailless, and flying a tailless plane isn't the easiest thing in the world) and allow autonomous or semi-autonomous operation[/QUOTE]
Flying wings have been in the air for nearly a hundred years at this point. Pretty sure the Iranians aren't going to learn anything magical from it. It is not even remotely sensitive tech.
The control system for drones is pretty well understood. The Iranian air force already utilizes a large amount of American tech and aircraft that can be completely flown with autopilot.
Was the American flag with skulls on it really necessary?
[QUOTE=Flicker;33628451]Seems a bit contradictory to say that it's a low tech drone then that it can return home independently. That would require some pretty impressive tech.[/QUOTE]
The vast majority of military aircraft in the air right now can fly completely autonomously. Autopilot is nothing new.
[QUOTE=Uber|nooB;33628424]fyi, just because it's made in america doesn't mean it's automatically impenetrable or impossible to hack
people underestimate iran too much[/QUOTE]
And overestimate America too much. Just because it's the United States doesn't mean everything is ultra high-tech and is a secret military drone.
[QUOTE=GunFox;33628643]Flying wings have been in the air for nearly a hundred years at this point. Pretty sure the Iranians aren't going to learn anything magical from it. It is not even remotely sensitive tech.
The control system for drones is pretty well understood. The Iranian air force already utilizes a large amount of American tech and aircraft that can be completely flown with autopilot.[/QUOTE]
i doubt it's going to be unhelpful to iran to have a look at the implementation of these things in a relatively new drone
[QUOTE=NoDachi;33628595]I wouldn't really say that is the apex of drone technology.
I'm sure you can even get RC hobbyist shit that can do something not too different.[/QUOTE]
I don't remember saying it was the apex of drone technology. I just stated that I don't think it's going to be entirely useless to Iran. I'm also not saying that Iranians don't have the capabilities to develop and autopilot system already. It's a drone, it's more than just a remote controlled plane out of a hobby shop with a camera sellotaped on. There is likely to be some tech valuable to the Iranians on board and assuming that they can't utilise or understand it is stereotyping Iranians as uneducated.
[QUOTE=Edthefirst;33628689]And overestimate America too much. Just because it's the United States doesn't mean everything is ultra high-tech and is a secret military drone.[/QUOTE]
Where did anyone say or imply that? Half the people in this thread are saying it's too high tech to be shot down by Iran because ~they dumbe~ and the other half are saying it's too low tech for Iran to bother with without any sources.
Shit that thing is huge
I always pictured UAVs as tiny RC helicopter sized things
[QUOTE=latin_geek;33629186]Shit that thing is huge
I always pictured UAVs as tiny RC helicopter sized things[/QUOTE]
Those are MAV's.
[QUOTE=Uber|nooB;33628313]and then they pulsed the drone's ports[/QUOTE]
They wrote a gooey in VisualBasic to track its flight pattern.
[QUOTE=Flicker;33629152]I don't remember saying it was the apex of drone technology. I just stated that I don't think it's going to be entirely useless to Iran. I'm also not saying that Iranians don't have the capabilities to develop and autopilot system already. It's a drone, it's more than just a remote controlled plane out of a hobby shop with a camera sellotaped on. There is likely to be some tech valuable to the Iranians on board and assuming that they can't utilise or understand it is stereotyping Iranians as uneducated.
Where did anyone say or imply that? Half the people in this thread are saying it's too high tech to be shot down by Iran because ~they dumbe~ and the other half are saying it's too low tech for Iran to bother with without any sources.[/QUOTE]
defensive much
[QUOTE=GunFox;33628662]The vast majority of military aircraft in the air right now can fly completely autonomously. Autopilot is nothing new.[/QUOTE]
Exactly. Auto-return systems can be made for civilian owned remote craft, its not new tech at all.
If I had to guess (engage conspiracy theorist drives), I'd say they gave it to the Iranians. Gave being a general term here meaning "Ooops, looks like they're haxoring my drone. Oh noes" and didn't give any real resistance. I'll wager its a cheap drone with obvious flaws that is being advertised as "really fucking awesome" in order to see if the Iranians would take the bait, down US property, and then brag about it saying "We can take on the US, What the fuck now?".
This is most certainly NOT the most advanced thing the US has to offer in terms of UAV capabilities, there is no way that they'd show it off. No, this is tech from a decade ago at least.
(Conspiracy theorist drive shutdown confirmed, all systems green)
That's not a UAV that's my RC plane I wondered where it got to, thanks Iran!
[QUOTE=NoDachi;33629475]defensive much[/QUOTE]
Because stating I disagree with someone's opinion doesn't instantly mean I agree with the opposite extreme.
[QUOTE=Mr. Bleak;33628147]Wasn't there some sort of provision passed recently that said acts deemed "cyberwarfare" constituted declaring war?[/QUOTE]
There's this other little thing where if you fly through another country's airspace, they don't really like it, and they can shoot down whatever they want. I believe its called sovereignty.
Having it return to base might not be a good choice.
The point is as a designer I'd assume the enemy has achieved control of the drone, the enemy is now flying it. A 'return to base' command can be countered by enemy control. The enemy can force it down, and recover it.
A self destruct has the advantage turning the drone into to a bunch of little pieces that will be of much less intelligence value to the enemy than if they recovered large intact portions.
A dead man switch would be much harder to hack, since the signal itself would be encrypted. Then the contents of the signal would be encrypted. Then the timing of the signal would be buried in noise. Even if you knew what the drone needed to recieve and in what form, you wouldn't know exactly when.
You could even have an altimeter based switch. If the drone tries to land without being in range of home base, it explodes automatically. So Iran would have to figure out what the 'home base' signal is in order to keep that from happening.
All this assumes the military cares if the enemy gets the drone or not. It may be that this particular class of drone is already known to various intelligence services, friend and foe. So it could be nothing new has been learned by the Iranians, that this is just a very nice public relations score for them and an embarrassment to the US.
Iran isn't fucking around.
[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;33630276]Having it return to base might not be a good choice.
The point is as a designer I'd assume the enemy has achieved control of the drone, the enemy is now flying it. A 'return to base' command can be countered by enemy control. The enemy can force it down, and recover it.
A self destruct has the advantage turning the drone into to a bunch of little pieces that will be of much less intelligence value to the enemy than if they recovered large intact portions.
A dead man switch would be much harder to hack, since the signal itself would be encrypted. Then the contents of the signal would be encrypted. Then the timing of the signal would be buried in noise. Even if you knew what the drone needed to recieve and in what form, you wouldn't know exactly when.
You could even have an altimeter based switch. If the drone tries to land without being in range of home base, it explodes automatically. So Iran would have to figure out what the 'home base' signal is in order to keep that from happening.
All this assumes the military cares if the enemy gets the drone or not. It may be that this particular class of drone is already known to various intelligence services, friend and foe. So it could be nothing new has been learned by the Iranians, that this is just a very nice public relations score for them and an embarrassment to the US.[/QUOTE]
I'm sure they can rig it to explode, but part of the point is likely that the 170 is unarmed.
Once you have a UAV with explosives inside, no matter how small or for what purpose, the target nation can make the claim that it is basically an expensive cruise missile.
Silly, of course, but it is pretty easy to see how another country would use it as fuel for military support against the US.
Based on the design of the 170, it would seem that the US military came to a similar conclusion and elected to design the aircraft with nothing of value on board. Much safer to have nothing of value than run the risk of a self destruct mechanism failing.
[quote]self-destructs and deadman switches[/quote]
Except drone controllers also have to account for routine signal disruption, the kind that isn't caused by 'haxxoring'. Something along the lines of a holding pattern while they wait for the operator to reconnect, since a dropped call is far more likely than a cyberattack.
I have heard a number of theories on how this could have been downed, and why it is in such good condition.
The first is that it is a fake and Iran doesn't have anything. I do not believe this with the number of rumors going around, and the comment of anonymous/known officials do not back this up.
Number two is that the one they are showing is fake, but they possess the downed one which is in worse condition. This could potentially be true, but they would have had to construct a model very quickly, and officials in the US have said that this appears to be more or less identical to the RQ-170 from what they can tell. The reason for the faking would be to fool other countries that they can bring down UAV's electronically.
The third one is that they brought it down with electronic warfare, gained control of it, or performed an action that caused it to seek a landing site. The possibilities range from jamming to hacking. One news site questioned whether the virus that hit the US drones a while back featured a keylogger which Iran used to gain more information.
[QUOTE=Ogopogo;33630542]I have heard a number of theories on how this could have been downed, and why it is in such good condition.
The first is that it is a fake and Iran doesn't have anything. I do not believe this with the number of rumors going around, and the comment of anonymous/known officials do not back this up.
Number two is that the one they are showing is fake, but they possess the downed one which is in worse condition. This could potentially be true, but they would have had to construct a model very quickly, and officials in the US have said that this appears to be more or less identical to the RQ-170 from what they can tell. The reason for the faking would be to fool other countries that they can bring down UAV's electronically.
The third one is that they brought it down with electronic warfare, gained control of it, or performed an action that caused it to seek a landing site. The possibilities range from jamming to hacking. One news site questioned whether the virus that hit the US drones a while back featured a keylogger which Iran used to gain more information.[/QUOTE]
I know next to nothing about UAVs but something just doesn't seem right about the one they are showing off. To me it looks like a model.
Maybe I am just thinking this because I have not even seen pictures of the real thing so have nothing to really base it on.
[QUOTE=Jsm;33631045]I know next to nothing about UAVs but something just doesn't seem right about the one they are showing off. To me it looks like a model.
Maybe I am just thinking this because I have not even seen pictures of the real thing so have nothing to really base it on.[/QUOTE]
Here are a few pictures of the thing
[img]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/rq170-525-1.jpg[/img]
[img]http://olive-drab.com/images/id_uav_rq170_01_700.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getasset.aspx?itemid=31958[/img]
This next picture is labelled as a RQ-170 (which is commonly used in RQ-170 stories) [url=http://www.dassault-aviation.com/en/aviation/press/press-kits/2008/first-fully-autonomous-flight-for-ave-drone.html?L=1]but is actually a French drone[/url]
[img]http://www.dassault-aviation.com/uploads/tx_templavoila/AVEC_3163r_200_01.jpg[/img]
What I am curious about is the camera.
Where is it? Our UAV's almost universally have a bubble that houses a camera, but I haven't seen anything of the sort on the 170.
Predator:
[img]http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/5013/800px081131f7734q001.jpg[/img]
Fire scout:
[img]http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/1484/800pxmq8bfirescout.jpg[/img]
Reaper:
[img]http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/9010/mq9reaperinflight282007.jpg[/img]
Shadow:
[img]http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/4527/shadow200uav28229.jpg[/img]
Heron (Israeli):
[img]http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/5811/iaiheron1inflight2.jpg[/img]
Like every decent sized UAV has that observation bubble, but I haven't seen one on any images of the 170. I guess it might conflict with stealth design, but then taking pictures has to be really awkward.
It looks damn cool. Like some spaceship from a scifi movie.
[QUOTE=GunFox;33630434]I'm sure they can rig it to explode, but part of the point is likely that the 170 is unarmed.
Once you have a UAV with explosives inside, no matter how small or for what purpose, the target nation can make the claim that it is basically an expensive cruise missile.
Silly, of course, but it is pretty easy to see how another country would use it as fuel for military support against the US.
Based on the design of the 170, it would seem that the US military came to a similar conclusion and elected to design the aircraft with nothing of value on board. Much safer to have nothing of value than run the risk of a self destruct mechanism failing.[/QUOTE]
Well, if you're worried what the target country is going to say you wouldn't be flying a drone over it.
The self destruct idea only makes sense if the military does not want the drone recovered, I acknowledge that. The U2 pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union had a suicide pill(which he did not take). That's how much they did not want him falling into enemy hands, they gave him a suicide pill. You think they wouldn't put explosives on a drone to keep it out of enemy hands?
So it's likely they don't care, besides being publically embarrassed, that Iran has it.
Is it just me or does this bear little to no resemblance to the other images of the rq-170? the size isn't even the same.
[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;33631548]Well, if you're worried what the target country is going to say you wouldn't be flying a drone over it.
The self destruct idea only makes sense if the military does not want the drone recovered, I acknowledge that. The U2 pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union had a suicide pill(which he did not take). That's how much they did not want him falling into enemy hands, they gave him a suicide pill. You think they wouldn't put explosives on a drone to keep it out of enemy hands?
So it's likely they don't care, besides being publically embarrassed, that Iran has it.[/QUOTE]
It would take a fair amount of explosives to render a such a thing unrecoverable. Look at the F117 that was shot down by Serbia in 1999. The wreckage is extensive, yet they still recovered plenty of information and parts of the planes.
To quote a few comments to various news articles.
[quote]To my knowledge, very few military systems have a dedicated self destruct. If they did, soldiers would be blowing them up left and right. If sensitive information or equipment will likely fall into enemy hands, you are instructed to destroy it by whatever means necessary: ax, incendiary grenade, burning, shooting it, whatever. I don't know if the military still uses them, but we had these pads, about a meter square, that you were supposed to pile everything on. The pad was full of incendiary material, and would burn anything placed on top. Some of our computers had a quick-wipe function, but nothing was physically able to self destruct - even our UAVs.[/quote]
[quote](In response to the first one) Spot on. I've worked with TS systems for over 20 years and not a single one had an explosive self-destruct system. Some had a button you could push to zero out the crypto, some had a card you could remove and smash, but explosives? No.
The US military doesn't use explosive self-destruct systems in any platform I know of for one simple reason: they're not operationally useful. More dangerous than they are worth, and would be used so infrequently that the expense (and extra weight) aren't justifiable.[/quote]
Basically, if there was a self-destruct system, chances are it was only for things like the memory, and computer systems.
[QUOTE=asteroidrules;33631986]Is it just me or does this bear little to no resemblance to the other images of the rq-170? the size isn't even the same.[/QUOTE]
The images I have seen look very much similar. There are not many pictures of the RQ-170 on display, and even fewer that have a good visual reference to compare it to. The size the Iran claims it to be fall within the dimensions I have heard of this.
If it were truly of value, they'd have either detonated it on impact, or sent one of our plethora of armed UAV's to destroy it.
If I recall properly, that one is supposed to be unarmed and for radar or something of the like.
I bet the Russians or Chinese are going to be happy their DroneHijacker 4000 is working well.
Too bad it was only a cheapo drone from my understanding (which why there wasn't any kind of recovery).
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
