海角大神

Iran has unveiled its own copy of an American stealth drone it captured in late 2011, claiming to have cracked the 鈥渟ecrets鈥� of the bat-wing craft and added weapons capabilities.

Today, Fars News Agency reported that while Iran鈥檚 duplicate of the US RQ-170 Sentinel drone聽was smaller, it also had a 鈥渂ombing capability to attack the US warships in any possible battle.鈥� The story in Persian was headlined: 鈥淎merica鈥檚 nightmare has become reality.鈥� 聽State television showed footage聽on Sunday聽it said was of a US aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf聽filmed by an Iranian drone.

The drone replica was unveiled at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) exhibition聽on Sunday, where聽Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was聽briefed on how聽the drone, its systems, and structure had been reverse-engineered. He called it a 鈥渟weet day.鈥澛�

The stealth replica would 鈥渟oon take a test flight,鈥澛燼n IRGC officer said聽on Sunday. Aerospace chief聽Amir Ali Hajizadeh聽said today that they are working on two more models of the replica drone.

Proving its prowess

Engineers with the IRGC 聽were ordered to reverse engineer the captured US drone, which was on a CIA mission to spy on nuclear and military sites in Iran when it was brought down in Iran largely intact.聽Iran reacted with euphoria, trumpeting the capture in an 鈥渆lectronic ambush鈥� showed Iran鈥檚 technical prowess.

鈥淎nd thus the Iranian-RQ [project] was designated,鈥� said聽an IRGC聽aerospace officer, according to Fars News. 鈥淭o achieve this, considering the difficulties and flight dynamics, we designed a bird with a smaller size that would be cheaper and simpler, and that we have done now. We have done ground tests already, and after this fair, we will do air tests too.鈥澛�

鈥淗ere we didn鈥檛 know what type of information we were looking for. There was an issue of encoding and passwords, which thanks to God鈥檚 help we have overcome,鈥� said the officer. He said data included video and聽advanced imaging聽and was 鈥渃ompletely recovered.鈥�

US officials聽said Iran was incapable of聽replicating聽the drone鈥檚 sophisticated radar-evading skin and shape, its aerodynamics, and top-of-the-line surveillance聽equipment, though it might be able to do so with the help of Russia or China.聽Iran has often made claims of cutting-edge military advances that later did not prove accurate, and it is not clear today what capabilities the replica has.聽

Khamenei said the lesson of the exhibition 鈥撀爓hich included unveiling a new cruise missile called 鈥淵a Ali鈥� with a 700 km range, among other new military hardware 鈥撀爓as to show that Iranian engineers are capable.

鈥淸It] gives the message of our internal power and capabilities 鈥� and declares that: 鈥榃e can',鈥� said Khamenei.

Different stories聽

An Iranian engineer tasked with decoding the drone鈥檚 memory聽told 海角大神 in December 2011 that Iran had incrementally 鈥渟poofed鈥� the drone鈥檚 GPS system, causing it to land in Iran instead of its home base in western Afghanistan. Just months before, the US military had approved聽two $47 million contracts to find ways to replace聽vulnerable聽military GPS systems.

The US government and intelligence community claim that the RQ-170 drone was not electronically 鈥渉ijacked鈥� by Iran, and say it crash-landed instead. The stealth drone鈥檚 existence was never officially acknowledged until Iran exhibited it on television, largely intact. 聽聽

Iranian engineers had decoded two hard drives and determined that the US drone had made 13 missions over Pakistan and Afghanistan. They did not mention any visual or other data that might have pertained to Iran. Iran has previously聽made public聽video footage it said was taken from the drone鈥檚 memory, of a landing at Kandahar airport in Afghanistan.

Official images released聽Sunday聽showed the undercarriage of the American drone for the first time, with little apparent damage to the housing of the sensors and camera section, or the landing gear. When the drone was first shown on television 2-1/2 years ago, those elements were hidden by anti-American banners and camouflage material.