O.K., O.K., so they cost millions of dollars, BUT is it possible to remotely incapacitate a drone, making it totally useless, BEFORE it falls into enemy hands ?

I have no knowledge, but if I were designing one of these, I'd have two fail-safes:

1) On loss of signal from operators, fly back to base of origin.

2) On complete SHTF scenario, program built-in explosives, or at minimum; high-speed dive into terrain or deepest available ocean/lake

Yes, it's very possible, either remotely or autonomously.

Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia)
Dec 6, 2011

"Drone in Iran May Give Away US Secrets"

..."Kevin Gambold, director of operations for Unmanned Experts, a British company that specializes in unmanned aerial vehicles, said the Sentinel (drone), carrying an array of classified survelliance systems, would have a self-destruct mechanism to disable or destroy it if operators lost control."...

Well, let's hope for the best.

It is a stretch to say the forerunners of today's stealth drone may have been the Horton Ho X (10) German WWII jet fighter (or somehow derived from the Horton brother's flying wing concept) ?

Do a screaming nose dive at the ground with armament engaged and that'd do the trick. Don't know why they are worrying about it unless the new platforms are carrying classified items but when we were using Predators in Bosnia/Kosovo, there was nothing on them that you couldn't buy off the shelf. It was purposely designed that way so that it would be "disposable" should anything befall it. But, wouldn't you know it, the first time one went down, the Generals sent out a patrol to retrieve the pieces to figure out why it went down. Sort of defeated the purpose of keeping folks out of harms way, huh?

Certainly it will go to Chinese or Russian interest. Say, to the highest bidder.

Regardless, someone in the Pentagon is gonna get sacked.

What's in a predator that's really all that high tech? It's a giant remote control plane with cameras in it and a radio that shoots images back to a central point.

Obviously that's a simplificiation, but I don't think it could really be that hard for the Russians to come up with something comparable.

Yes.

This appears to be a low observable drone. That's a bigger deal than a predator.

That doesn't appear to be the real thing to me.

Watch the video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16098562

Looks more legit there.

Didn't even know we had drones shaped like that. THe only ones I've seen are the Predator and GLobal Hawk which look nothing like that thing.

Look up RQ-170

Iran scored.

why did they drape things underneath it?? makes me think it has been damaged underneath.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/12/18/us-official-says-iran-will-find-it-difficult-to-exploit-intel-in-drone/

quote:

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A U.S. official says Iran will find it hard to exploit any data and technology aboard the captured CIA stealth drone because of measures taken to limit the intelligence value of drones operating over hostile territory.

The official also said Saturday that despite Iran's latest claims to have hijacked the RQ-170 Sentinel and brought it down near the eastern Iranian city of Kashmar, the U.S. is convinced that the drone malfunctioned.

"The Iranians had nothing to do with it,"

---

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/12/18/us-official-says-iran-will-find-it-difficult-to-exploit-intel-in-drone/#ixzz1gxiLz86A

AAAAAAAAAAg - Air Force Aggie Architect & Administrator from Amarillo, Altus, Austin, Arabia, Arkansas, Africa, Seoul, & now Amman, Jordan '65, '69, '73
"The most potent weapon against basic human decency, in the armamentarium of pure evil, is the self-imposed ignorance and moral decay of the people themselves."

quote:

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I have no knowledge, but if I were designing one of these, I'd have two fail-safes:

1) On loss of signal from operators, fly back to base of origin.

2) On complete SHTF scenario, program built-in explosives, or at minimum; high-speed dive into terrain or deepest available ocean/lake

---

It has both of these, but something malfunctioned and compromised both the flight characteristics of the drone itself and the contingency destruct function. Nothing the operator could do.


Like the CIA said, anything over the skies of Iran should be a bare-bones model, especially the stealth drone whose design is still almost entirely classified.