RQ-170 iran uav TEHRAN (Tasnim)

So-called Iranian version of the RQ-170. Iran claims it was able to reverse engineer the stealthy unmanned aerial vehicle. FARS News Service Photo

Iran’s purported reverse-engineered copies of the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned aircraft are nothing but cheap mockups, industry sources told USNI News.

The Iranian state-owned Fars News Agency reported that the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) showed off a modified version of the stealthy RQ-170 at an aerospace exhibition in Tehran on Sunday.

However, unlike the original U.S. version of the aircraft, the Iranians claim their version of the Sentinel is armed—and designed to engage U.S. Navy warships at sea. Sources with knowledge of the RQ-170 design dismissed the Iranian copy as a crude mockup.

“It seems their fiberglass work has improved a lot. It also seems that if it were a functional copy, versus a detailed replica, it wouldn’t necessarily have the exact same landing gear, tires, etc,” said one source with familiar with the RQ-170.
“They would probably just use whatever extra F-5 parts or general aviation parts they had lying around.”

The Iranians based their mockup on an RQ-170 that had crashed inside that country on Dec. 4, 2011, during a Central Intelligence Agency intelligence-gathering mission. Shortly after the crash, U.S. President Barack Obama asked the Iranians to return the stricken aircraft. “We’ve asked for it back. We’ll see how the Iranians respond,” Obama said at the time.

Source: Farsnews

RQ-170 Sentinel

Publicado el 11/05/2014

RQ-170 iran uav TEHRAN (Tasnim) — Iranian version of the US advanced RQ-170 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was unveiled in a special ceremony on Sunday morning.

The drone was unveiled in a ceremony attended by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei and Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari this morning.

Experts at the IRGC Aerospace Force manufactured the stealth drone through reverse engineering.

On December 10, 2013, Lieutenant Commander of the IRGC Brigadier General Hossein Salami had told reporters that Iran has managed to reverse engineer most parts of its version of the US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone.

“Most of the works regarding the manufacturing of Iranian (version) of RQ-170 drone have been done,” Salami said at the time.

On December 4, 2011, an American Lockheed Martin RQ-170 sentinel unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was captured by Iranian forces near the city of Kashmar in northeastern Iran.

The drone was brought down by the Iranian Armed Forces’ electronic warfare unit which commandeered the aircraft and safely landed it.
Earlier Iran announced it had completed decoding the surveillance data and software extracted from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) drone.

After capturing the aircraft, Iran announced that it intended to carry out reverse engineering on the captured RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft, which is similar in design to a US Air Force B-2 stealth bomber.