Lost RQ-170 Sentinel Drone!!!!

[billt]

A "Self Destruct" is really unnecessary. All they have to do is nose it over into the ground. If it can accept a self destruct command, it can do that. NASA had a self destruct on all of the boosters because it would allow the bulk of the fuel to burn up before it ever made it to the ground. These things carry nothing compared to that.

 

[tombogan03884]

You have to remember Bill, NASA launched out over the relatively empty ocean, where as an RPV will probably be over some place much more populated, like the one JNevis mentioned over the Washington Metro area.
I say "add an on board nuke and blow it up real good" , but I'm not the one who would deal with the diplomatic incident or law suits.

[Magoo541]

They don't need to send a command to self-destruct.  They could employ a dead man's switch, basically a signal to NOT self destruct, absent the signal it destructs.  In this case it goes into orbit until its out of fuel, finds the closest runway in its memory, lands verifys friendly/Foe locaiton and then sizzle-sizzle and POW anything any opposing force could use could be rendered useless with an incindiary device followed by a small explosive charge.

No airborne detonation and the resulting cascade of parts and pieces.  Just a shell that can be displayed without any useable materials.

Not bad for a lowly machinist 

[Solus]

I have my doubts about the Iranians being able to take control and landing the drone.

No doubt we don't use the RC transceivers you can buy at a local hobby shop in these drones.

Likely the signal is encrypted or contains embedded code structures that would change very often during the flight and the drone would be able to detect a counterfeit signal.

If Iran has the capability of cracking the encryption/code, we might have bigger problems than the loss of the drone.

Don't know if our boys do it this way, but I would and I hope the pros are thinking ahead of me at least.

And I don't know what the default action is should a phony signal be received.  Tom's take might be correct in screwed up ROE world.

Instead of a Nuke hiding in there, it might roll out a wet bar for it's capctors.

[AE3007H1]

Yes, I agree.  To think of the massive undertaking this had to have been to "capture" this drone.  If so they would have had to been planning this which would indicate we have been flying these missions for some time now.  Also,  another biggie is they would have had to be able to TRACK our stealth technology.  As you stated, there are many larger underlying problems that the capture of this drone indicates above and beyond the actual loss of the drone.  If this is all true they had to have had help from either a defector, spy, or some inside type information of the communications/technical type.

One more thing.  If this drone was on emergency auto pilot mode and had simply searched out its database for the closest runway to land on, don't you think that the Iranians would have fired on it once it landed?  They might not have even known it was there "due to stealth" until it was on the ground.  If this had happened like this you can bet your ass that they would have fired upon a US marked aircraft that just "landed" there.

[Sponsor]

[jnevis]

A "Self Destruct" is really unnecessary. All they have to do is nose it over into the ground. If it can accept a self destruct command, it can do that. NASA had a self destruct on all of the boosters because it would allow the bulk of the fuel to burn up before it ever made it to the ground. These things carry nothing compared to that.

NASA's self destruct commands are just that, active commands to the booster.  Doesn't work if there isn't any contact with the control device, which is typically when RPAs do something stupid, like crash.

[Tyler Durden]

a while back there was big stink about the video data from the Predators being sent down from the satellite to Nellis in an un-encrypted state.
 

so I gotta wonder if the commands are sent from Nellis to the satellite are encrypted, and hopefully, again from the satellite to the drone encrypted, how does the drone get so buggy or lose a signal from a satellite that it starts accepting commands from Tehran?
 

Occam's razor and all that....

If you look at videos of the captured drone, it appears to be in some gymansium, not an aircraft hangar....not at some base.

so I think that goes to my theory that some engineering students at UT made the mockup.

UT = University of Tehran

I looked a little bit closer at the videos and I could swear it looks like there is a pile of dust on the floor that just so happens to be the same color as the drone's body....which leads me to believe it is made out of foam....that was rasp'ed, cut, and shaped to resemble the real thing.

way back when, I tried to spray paint foam once....the spray paint ate the foam....which again might explain why the captured drone is some color that does not match any of the real pictures of the real drone.

[Tyler Durden]

AE3007hi wrote:

If this drone was on emergency auto pilot mode and had simply searched out its database for the closest runway to land on, don't you think that the Iranians would have fired on it once it landed?

If it had landed on its own, then the landing gear would still be intact, right?

And if they were, then why hide them behind banners taped to the leading edges of the wings?

my theory on that....triangles make geometry/trig easy, even from video or still pics captured from the video.

whichever contractor makes the drone knows exactly the placement of the wheels when they are on the ground, the size of the tires, the shape of the doors etc....even the tread pattern on the tires.

there haven't been enough pictures of the real drone published to the web that show some sort of scale or relationship of each landing gear to each other.  hence the banners...it is sitting on top of some sawhorses.

[fightingquaker13]

To further Tyler's comments: Remember that all of this is for domestic consumption. The average Iranian is more than a little nervous about getting the crap bombed out of them by us or Israel. The regime knows this. Showing that the suposedly invincible US technology isn't is good for morale. It doesn't matter if we buy it or not, its for the locals.
FQ13

[Rastus]

So...what am I missing here.

Obama asked for the drone back.
Cheney & Liberman both say Obama should have bombed/otherwise destroyed it.
News reports indicate a programming "flaw" involving GPS signals reception (as jammed) and programming to "protect the craft" by autolanding.

Seems possible that Iran may have gotten something we didn't want them (or the Chinese & Russians) to have.  

Of course, the real story line here is that because Liberals & Obama say the world is safe we have nothing to worry about.  You know, peace, love, joy and kumbaya all rolled into one....