Iran boasts reverse-engineering a U.S. spy drone to create a fake-looking clone

 
In a recent Iranian television broadcast, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force revealed the RQ-170 Sentinel drone captured in 2011 alongside what appeared to be a duplicate copy. Aviation experts are calling the boast a bluff, similar to the mock-up U.S. aircraft carrier built for an Iranian television set. 

The Iranian military states that the original RQ-170 was captured using a data-link hack that enabled operators to override control of the UAV and land it safely and intact. The supposed-cloned copy was created from secrets the military obtained by “breaking in and copying data,” as one officer puts i. The Iranian military also boasts that the cloned copy can attack U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf. 

The RQ-170 UAV in question is a turbofan-powered device constructed by Lockheed Martin to fly in the 30th Reconnaissance Squadron of the U.S. Air Force’s 432nd Wing and gained infamy as the “Beast of Kandahar” in 2007 during operations in Afghanistan. The exact number of units acquired by the Air Force as well as their operational role can only be hypothesized, but the sleek, wing-like frame dominating the chassis suggests that the UAVs played a role in surveillance and reconnaissance missions. It is believed that the captured Sentinel was performing nuclear facility surveillance. 

Aviation industry analysts remain skeptical over the validity of the RQ-170 clone flight footage, stating it is merely a fiberglass replica put together for propaganda purpose, just like the propaganda footage  shown a year earlier that depicted a stealth fighter resembling a small radio-control model airplane. An industry source told the U.S. Naval Institute News that if the RQ-170 were a functional copy, instead of a replica, then Iranian engineers could have retrofitted the landing gear with spare F-5 parts or any other aviation parts versus the exact same landing equipment matching the original.

The U.S. government seconds these sentiments, stating the replica could not have possibly been made from the recovered RA-170. The standard protocol dictates that the software running the drone’s surveillance automatically wipes classified data and crypto keys once a certain descent threshold has been passed.

Regardless of the truth of the matter, fabricating homegrown drones is not a difficult feat to accomplish. After all, North Korea has managed to do it with significantly less technology.

Via Arstechnica