So what are they going to use it for?

If you want to see something in the USA, just hire a private plane and a photographer. It's only useful in countries that don't allow air photography.

The whole point of drones is they're disposable. It's not hard to build one and crypto codes are changed regularly. Iran doesn't have anything worth bragging about.

They are long-range drones. By removing the sensors and replacing them with explosives they can become virtually undetectable cruise missiles that could, as just one example, sink a US aircraft carrier transiting the Straits of Hormuz. Or spy on secret air bases in Saudi Arabia. And the dirty little secret of primitive nuclear weapons is that they are mostly shielding to protect the people dropping it. Eliminate the shielding and use "suicide" weapons loaders and it a primitive nuke drops to near the weight of conventional explosives and could be carried on a re-fitted stealth drone. No one would see that one coming.

I guess Barry telling them....Give that back right now didn't work

I guess Barry telling them....Give that back right now didn't work

Disposable at about 30 million per? The GSA chief got in such hot water over a 820K conference bill in Las Vegas for 300 people. But 30 million dollar drones are disposable? Seems a bit bizarre.

They'll have to build a undetectable virtual control center to go with it..

I say nay.

I'm sure Ahmadinehandjob will try to get it to fly to the nest and steal some honey too.

They're idiots... Their idea of stealing technology is a joke.

How many Nobel Prizes have the Arabs claimed??? That's right, we're all still laughing..

They are the dumbest and most backwards people in the world. I'm sure they'll bomb themselves eventually.

Don't tell the Iranians that they have to figure out how it works, not just what it looks like. They will likely flip the switch and the drone will just tilt sideways and not move.

Considering it is a piece of electronic equipment, it probably filmed the entire Iranian recovery process, identified every scientist that worked on it AND delivered a new nasty virus into Iranian communication networks. Somewhere there is a U.S. super geek giggling and saying, "gotcha where I want ya....".

Leon: Disposable is a relative term. Compare this drone with an F-22 ($150 million) or what it takes to put up a spy satellite and you see what I mean. Mostly it's disposable in the sense we don't lose anyone if it goes down. Losing a pilot is worse than losing a big RC plane. Letting them see our stealth tech is troubling though, but I'm not sure if they'll be able to exploit much from it.

So what are they going to use it for?

Probably for the stealth technology, which makes such planes difficult to spot on radar would be what they truly want to copy, and that technology has both peaceful and non-peaceful purposes.

There's no getting around it, if the downed surveillance drone is sufficiently intact that it could be copied, then it represents a serious breach of military secrets, not fatal, but certainly regrettable.

I'm surprised such devices do not have a self-destruct mechanism, something which detonates a C4 charge, sufficiently large as to render the plane into fragments.

The good news is that they are replicating a flawed RQ-170 vs one that works properly.

Yeah but these Iranian drones are called "wrong way ayatollahs" They turn around and attack the ayahs.the rev guards, and say "bye bye ayatollahs...bye bye Islamic Revolution !!

I hope they make a bunch of copies, then we can steal them back once they try using them! lol..

Wouldn't that be just the sweetest part of this whole mess,

@Dave

Iranians are Persian, not Arab.

To Iran- go ahead an try to build one. Even if they can, the US will already have exceeded the technology that went into the first one making it obsolete. They're just trying to rub this in our faces but too bad, we're alerady way ahead of them.

sevensevens.....do we really care?

Of course they're making a copy of it... Out of paper mache...

yeah....i don't so. if the chinese and soviets could never copy the f-117 or the b-2 or the sr-71 what makes anyone think iran with its limited resources and people could copy a drone?

@Dave, Iranians are NOT Arabs. They are Persian. They speak Farsi, not Arabic. Just so's ya know.

I doubt there is much the Iranians can glean from this machine, but there is plenty the Russians and especially the Chinese can get from it. This will save many years of research for the Chinese. The Chinese and Russians will pay them back for access to the drone by being a pain in our ass on anything the west attemps with Iran as far as missles and nukes go.

Let them make copies. As soon as they put them in the air. we change the way points and fly them to us. Or send them into the nuke plant. A good plan. We spend nothing on building them , no reason to send in a strike force to bomb the nuke with our equipment.

The programing that goes into these is very complicated and I do not think they have the smarts, even with gods help, to change it.

How could our drone pilots not notice that the thing was flying off course and unresponsive to control inputs?

When it continued to fly away, why was there no contingency plan for tracking it or shooting it down before it could be recovered by hostile forces?

Obama should have grown a spine and bombed it once they discovered where it had landed, even going into Iranian airspace to do it.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a high opinion of these camel shaggers, but it can be very dangerous to underestimate an enemy.

@ MJ899, well said. Cheap research and development with an initial investment of 30 mil.

There were many codes and characters. But we deciphered them by the grace of God," Hajizadeh said.

Well now it's God not Allah, I think that Allah just might be pissed about that remark.

killlroy...muslims use the term god loosely to confuse people into thinking we all have the same GOD, therefore, more acceptable. But you are right, allah is not a happy camper when they do that, it only proves their embarrassment of him.

I bet they'll add a self-destruct circuit.

Although they may not be able to duplicate all the drone technology, having an actual aircraft to experiment on would be very valuable in developing measures to counter its stealth technology.

There were reports when they first captured the drone that they mislead it by overriding the signals from GPS satellites with stronger signals which they controlled. By carefully changing the timing of their fake signals they could lead the drone astray by causing it to calculate its position based on the false GPS data. If true that's a pretty clever way to gain control without having to break the encryption of the drone control channels. These guys are not stupid.

Maybe Iran's drone will work as well as the long range missile that they helped North Korea build!

They will probably outfit the aircraft with all the latest Iranian technology. Gaydar absorbing hair on it's belly and back, plenty of gold chains to confuse it's intended target and a hummus stained wife beater shirt camouflage scheme!

Don't under estimate the rug-heads they only leave with one goal in mind and that is to destroy the infidels. that's is why you have to vote out the democrats they have a history of giving out top technology to commies and now to the rug-heads. remember clinton gifted technology to the chinese and obama giving it to the brotherhoods. wake-up people don't become your own destruction.

Hello folks, our country is broke and weary of war. The elite are ratcheting up the rhetoric and the warmonger sheeple are getting sucked in to the propaganda. Let’s take an objective look at the Iran situation. Ask yourself, what would happen if Iran attacked an oil refinery in the US? Of course we would go into Iran and bomb their country. Well, we recently bombed an Iranian oil refinery and they didn’t retaliate. We issued sanctions on their oil and export industries and they didn’t retaliate. Israel is killing their scientists and they didn’t retaliate. Why is that?

While appearing vulnerable they took control of the most sophisticated drone on the planet downloaded and deciphered the encrypted information and have our Military intelligence (I know it’s an oxymoron) people worried that top secret information has been compromised.

Do you believe that the Iranian’s have the capability to bring down a state of the art drone and have it land where they want it to and down load and decipher complex encrypted code? It appears that Iran has been getting help and lots of it from a very sophisticated source or sources. The US already declared war on Iran by issuing sanctions and covertly bombing them but they don’t dare overtly go in because it would jeopardize China’s oil flow, piss off Russia, Turkey and the local Arab countries. This would also force Iraq to support Iran. We got kicked out of Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan is trying to get us to leave their country. The Middle East is kicking us out which means we are running out of staging areas and NATO support for an attack on Iran. The US tried to concoct fraudulent excuses to stir up public support to go into Iran. There was the laughable assassination ruse of the Mexican drug cartel and the more unbelievable law suit stating Iran was part of 9/11. There were also claims that Iran attacked Iraq, etc. The elite are running out of false flags. Iran is out foxing the US because they have the world divided and we can’t command an organized response. The UN Security Council voted against the US a few weeks ago. China and Russia have gone on record that if Iran is attacked they would support Iran. The world is getting fed up and bored with our Imperialism and the elite who orchestrate war.

We have been fighting urban wars of attrition for over 10 years now and we are broke, our allies are broke. We have spent close to 3 Trillion dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We can’t afford another expensive protracted war a half a world away and the US citizens are sick of war. There is 85% support for Ron Paul amongst our troops because they are sick of war and he’s promised to end the wars. The lengthy wars have depleted our manpower, equipment, and our political capital.

Recently the Census Department of the Federal Government reported that “50% of the nation’s population were living below the poverty line”. Our nation’s wealth has been exhausted by war so that we could secure profits for the banking, oil, and Military/Industrial cartels. We never saw a dime of it and never will because the 1% elite feel they have a Divine Right at our expense. You know their motto, privatize profits and socialize losses. They truly can’t squeeze much more from the peasantry but they will try.

Our government has been trying to get Iran to do something stupid so that we can attack them but they won’t do it. Iran isn’t Iraq or Afghanistan. They haven’t done anything, aren’t weak and they aren’t bluffing. They are asserting their right as a sovereign nation and have the support of some very powerful countries. If we attack Iran, the war will be at our doorstep and then we will see how brave you who espouse war respond. When you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

P.S. The real drones are those that still play the Democrat Republican blame game. The political parties are the same for those that are paying attention. They are a two headed one party system serving their masters, the Banksters/Federal Reserve and Wall Street. Once they have you falling for the blame game BS they have you in fear, divided and distracted to the theft of your civil liberties and money. Look up the Act of 1871, the U.S. is a corporation not a country!

Copying a "Downed" US spy plane isn't so smart. The toys they use in Iran against an outdated model spy plane, will only result in Iran producing more outdated spy planes that get downed easily.

The responsibility level of our military and intel community sucks.

To LouK2k12,

porn?.....No, it was there to show the Ayatollahs? what their 72 virgins could not do,combined.

AG99...You are 100% correct.

Chris 749391.....It is 1980s technology with 1980s limitations. Time did not stand still for our technical developments.

Second, if it was such a big deal, it would not have been in that neighborhood and if it absolutely had to be, it would not have been out in daylight.

**For the others blaming the Admin/Military/CIA ,you are barking at the wrong tree.

** The $30 million reflects the 1980s project development costs.

@ Rich, that is what they do man and they are really good at it.

Dante - Don't confuse the Sheeple with facts. They are nice and snuggly warm wrapped up in their ignorance!

I read somewhere else that there was also some questionable porn on there.

Is that what the "Expertsextracted" was referring to? Gotta admit the first thing I read was "Expert Sex" before splitting up the words.

(MSN, you really need to hire better editors, just earlier the same day I read "Frech" in a HEADLINE on the HOMEPAGE instead of French. Really? The headline was only like 4 words long and you didn't catch that before posting it for thousands to see?)

Jack-1522032 SAID

Gotta doubt that any muslim is smart enough to build a drone, or even copy one. These hate filled backward, corrupt people only know how to use thier own young people to kill non-believers, not a helluva lot more.

With racist rants like that you wonder why we are not trusted or liked in the Middle East?

You grouped all Muslims into one big package, you sir are the one who is hate-filled and backwards. Some Muslims may be hate filled, but certainly not all or even a majority.

If they want one so badly, why don't we pack one full of explosives, fly it intentionally to get hijacked and set it off with all of their heads of state standing around it?

It's just Karma. The golden rule: Treat others as you would like others to treat you.

We deserve everything that we get from them. We have call them everything in the book, and their beef is with the Israelis, not with us.

UAV's are data uplink, not on board storage. they dont have the control center where all the real data is stored. on a UAV you might have records of locations sure, but thats about it. this is complete BS. sure, they got our sensors but they have no idea how it all works. its only 1/2 the puzzle, and really the sensors are pointless to have without the software to back it up. iran's will not be stealth, irans will have their horrible UAV sensors on it (since they only have the workstations to support that crap). irans will have a matter of 2 hours of flight time, if it even takes off which is highly unlikely for the next decade... which if iran keeps on its nuclear way they will not have a standing military. this is the main reason we dont even give a damn about it. do you really think it would be hard for us to destroy it? please... everyone knows the war will happen, its just a matter of when. btw, this is all coming from someone that deals with these platforms every day and use them against iran, so i do know what i am talking about.

Whoopie. I'll be impressed when the Iranians can build 1 Boomer Sub like the 5 that are parked off their shores with all the coordinates locked in......

I sure wish the Americans could shoot down the drones flying over the USA.

If they have the talent to copy it, they have the talent to develop one themselves. All it does is save them a lot of research. Unless we deliberately wanted it to fall into their hands, we messed up, but I'm not so sure it is quite as significant as people may be thinking. It seems fairly clear that we weren't using it in Iran, but in Iraq. Whether it strayed off course or it was deliberately interfered with is the question. GPS signals are relatively low power and they could fairly easily be jammed. That vulnerability isn't something we didn't know about and most likely had anticipated. Likewise it is possible that the communications link could be jammed also, but more unlikely is that it could be easily cracked.

These drones are usefull against an undeveloped enemy, but I don't think we really thought of using these to spy on more technologically advanced enemies. Anytime you send your latest technology into harms way, there is always the possibility that it will be compromised. We apparently lost this one and they stumbled onto it. However, the amount that they can copy is still somewhat limited. They would have to build the extensive infrastructure needed to support its use globally. It is debatable too that they could accessany detailed data, maybe some idea of files on it, but I have doubts about how much they could actually get from that. It is unlikely that the structure is something easily decrypted and it is also unlikely that huge amounts of real data from previous missions were still on board. It seems unlikely that if it were flying on a mission inside Iran, that precautions wouldn't have been taken to keep it safe, at least from a data perspective. If you are going to use this type of leading edge technology, you have to anticipate that it could fall into the wrong hands. Spy aircraft are ultimately going to have some vulnerabilities whether it's manned or unmanned. There is a calculated risk involved in using these.

Still, it was unfortunate that they have it and there are probably some aspects that they can take advantage of. Right now their biggest advantage may be rubbing our noses in it, which they are obviously trying to do.

The Iranians quite a while back reverse engineered the US F-5 which is an very low-cost highly reliable design. This aircraft had been supplied to the Shah before he was deposed. The Iranian variant is called the HESA Saeqeh. They have already produced several updates and a second generation since then. But it has been rumored in Jane's that the Iranians have been working on a stealth variant of the Saeqeh. A stealth variant would make a great deal of sense because of the aircraft's tail configuration and the design of key areas such as the wing root.

Capture of the American drone could easily feed the design if a stealthy F-5 homegrown fighter by providing information about stealthy coatings and the precise angles necessary to disberse, versus reflect, radar energy.

While ignorant people will always see the Iranians as ignorant, nothing could be further from the truth. They are a country with a well-educated youth, especially in key areas such as compute science, hard sciences, and math. Their technological achievements have been impressive record including the launching of four satellites into orbit. The US Space Agency has already been notified of two pending launches for this year and more will probably be added later.

Especially impressive has been the Iranian development of solid-fueled rockets. While being much more suited to military applications than liquid-fueld rockets, the development of efficient solid-fueled rockets has been much more rapid that expected. Right now Iran is thought to possess an unlimited (any orbit) capability to put a 1500-lb payload into any orbit from LEO to geosynchronous.

Under the Shah, Bell, Litton, and Northrop all set up defense factories in Iran and trained workers. Later these same factories were used to produce reverse-engineered copies of Russian SAM-7, BM-21, and RPG-7 rockets as well as FROG, Styx and SCUD missiles. By 1992, it also has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, radar systems, guided missiles, submarines, military vessels and fighter planes. The Iranians have been negotiating, with unknown success, for years with the Russians to buy their S-400 advanced air defense system which is state-of-the-art. The Russians are hesitant because the Iranians have proved so adept at reverse-engineering that they figure the Iranians will buy a few then start making copies by the hundreds.

Another major threat from the Iranians is that they have three advanced Kilo-class Russian subs. These are similar to the North Korean sub that sunk the South Korean Navy srare-of-the-art ASW corvette in the Yellow Sea. The Persian Gulf is much like the Yellow Sea --- ideal for a kilo class to lie undetectable in the mud of the shallow bottom waiting for a target to come near. On at least 20+ occasions so far, Kilo-class subs of Chinese and Russian origin have surfaced undetected within sight of a US carrier. Bang, you're dead!

And there is still the whole Straits of Hormuz issue. All along the Straits are artillery and anti-ship missiles in tunnels drilled into bluffs overlooking the waterway. For a ship passing through the Straits the distances to these missiles would be so short that the warning/decision/commit time approaches zero. The Iranians have also trained heavily on "multi-mode swarming" in which literally scores of 50-60mph fast torpedo boats, along with more conventional torpedo boats and naval vessels "swarm" a transiting task force immediately after a coordinated rocket and artillery attack on the same fleet.

Intelligence people were always taught that they are the "enemy's representative on the commander's staff." That is because the job of intelligence is to produce intellectually and objectively honest assessments of enemy capabilities. Of all the countries in the Middle East, Iran has firmly replaced Egypt as the most technologically advanced Muslim country.

When one underestimates an enemy, it gives then a huge advantage. Iran well knows that they could not stand up to the US military in any prolonged conflict. But they also know that they can act against American forces, especially capital naval assets, in the Persian Gulf where their ability to maneuver is restricted and attacks can be conducted from safe-havens in Iran. When naval planners consider the idea of Iran closing the Straits (which it can legally do any time it wants to) it gives them heartburn to think of the fate of capital ships caught in the Gulf or transiting the Straits. Naval planners' worst nightmare is to have an aircraft carrier come under coordinated attack from scores of shore-based anti-ship missiles and bofors guns followed up by a hundred of more extremely fast torpedo boats and other anti-ship vessels. And even if they survived there would undoubtedly be an advanced Kilo-class sub lying in wait in Iranian waters at the mouth to the strait. Not only would the navy have the challenga of confronting a threat in a situation where it can only maneuver a few hundred feet in one direction or another, but it would be liable to coordinated air, naval, and land-based "swarm" attacks that would simultaneously present far more targets than the ships could engage. And the carrier's defensive screen would be useless since the transit would be "in line" versus fleet formation.

Before people get too loud beating the war drums with either Iran or North Korea, they need to face up to the reality that it would be all too easy to walk away from any confrontation with either with a bloodied nose. North Korea has been training and creating strategy since 1953. Iran has been doing it since the Shah was deposed in 1979. They got a lot of practice during the Iraq-Iran War in the 80's when they were opposed by the American-equipped and trained Iraqi military. And, in one peculiar twist, the Iranians took note that the Reagan administration gave Sadaam two trailers to make mustard gas and a binary version of a nerve gas. The gases were used against Iranians during the war. While most civilians forget to factor in the effect of military chemical weapons, the Iranians together with the North Koreans have the #1 and #2 chemical warefare capabilities in the world.

Attacking Iran would not be a cakewalk. And especially with a military whose men and equipment are literally falling apart because of a collision between overuse and budget cutting.

"There were reports when they first captured the drone that they mislead it by overriding the signals from GPS satellites with stronger signals which they controlled. By carefully changing the timing of their fake signals they could lead the drone astray by causing it to calculate its position based on the false GPS data. If true that's a pretty clever way to gain control without having to break the encryption of the drone control channels. These guys are not stupid."

Do you believe everything the Iranians tell you? That was their claim.

For all we know we let it go there so that once they hooked it up to a computer it would infect theirs.

So what? let them make a copy, I mean how hard is it to make a remote controlled plane. I did notice they didn't say they were making a copy that could do all it is capable of doing.

The point of a drone is to go into dangerous airspace and NOT risk American lives. As such drones are designed to be destroyed and/or captured. It's not as if the drone contains our nuclear launch codes...

So they spend millions in cash to duplicate it. They could have just used Google earth. Stealth technology hasn't been much of a secret for years now. It's all about composite material and shape. The shape has been out in the open for years and the composite materials are not much more than the stuff they make hockey sticks out of now. Attacking our fleet would not be a hard task with or without a Iranian drone. Surviving attacking our fleet would be.

Dave Simpson you are nothing but ignorant, bigit, uneducated, dumbass i've seen on these pages. This link is especially for you : http://www.iranian.com/main/news/2011/02/13/43-nasa-scientists-are-iranians

" ... do we really care? ... "

Do we care about what? Whether you have brains enough to get out of your own way or not? Well it is obvious by your statement that you don't. So the answer is, no we don't care if you do or not.

If you mean do we care that there is a difference? Then yes we do. It's one of the things that separates us from dumb animals. That separates us from the ignorant.

But that to may be a concept that is beyond your ability to grasp.

As far as I understood from the article above Iran used some kind of jamming devices to force their USA-like drone to perform some programmed actions and make a landing. Although it was not quite precise I am still very impressed because I have not expected such activity from the Iran and haven't thought that they could build practically the same UAV as US government develops.

In any way, in my humble opinion those unmanned drones are really the future of the world armies. Every country will soon begin to create such drones and other robots to have the equal defense abilities in the future.

To :Chris 749391,

you said .....Iran has successfully re engineered FROG-7,Scuds,BM-21,RPG-7 and f-5.......

I say...

FROG-7(9m21 and 9K52)........1950's.......Soviet

Scud (SS1)................................1957 ..........Soviet

BM-21(Grad).............................1964...........Soviet

RPG-7.........................................1961...........Soviet

Kilo class subs............................1960's........Soviet

F-5(F-5E & F-5F)........................1959-1972....USA (Soviet Equivalent...MiG-17)

These are hardly anything but modern military weapons......now if they could reverse engineer Ganges Kuhn's sword their collection of military antiquity will be complete.

YOU SAID:................Iran-Iraq war in the 80s when they were opposed by American-equipped and trained Iraqi military.

CORRECTION.....It should read.....Soviet-equipped and trained Iraqi military.(U.S. did not equip or train Saddam's forces....on the other hand Iran did have U.S made weapons and know-how and that was what helped them.)

(( Do some research and you will find that there used to be a country called SOVIET UNION and they were very good at making human life miserable.))

You said:.......And in one peculiar twist,theIranians took note that the Reagan administration gave Saddam two trailers to make musterd gas and binary version of nerve gas.

CORRECTION:.....U.S/Reagan admin.did not give Saddam two trailers......It was purchased by Saddam's Iraq from a multinational company.......(just like the test software for nukes test that U.S did not want China to have and a multinational company turned around and sold it to Chinese.)....Plus most of biological /chemical weapons could be manufactured in any will equipped chim/bio lab with some know-how.

...........YOUR every sentence need correcting ,So ....I give up and let the others do the rest of correcting......By the way.....Are you trying to rewrite histrey???...

The fact that they have to build a "copy" of the spy drone, as opposed to building their own from scratch, says alot about Iranian capability!

Dante: You may be correct in specifics, but the overall argument that Chris 749391 was making is that Iran is no small backwater nation without significant means to defend, or at least to incur significant damage, to an assault on their country. Remember how easy it was to quickly depose Saddam Hussein and set up an interim government with crowds cheering and flags waving? What hapened next? The United States is not a colonizing nation (it might have been once over a hundred years ago - but not now). We cannot take significant control of an advanced modern nation and expect everything to fall in line according to plan. Pretending that Iran is incapable of resisting a U.S. (or NATO) led assault is blind ignorance to recent history and common sense.

Thanks Obama!!! This is change you can really believe in!

Don't worry kids, president Obama is going to leave you a world with endless possibilities:

The possibility for a nuclear armed Iran which deploys American drones!

The possibility for a nuclear war launched by North Korea!

The ever growing possibility of economic collapse due to the highest national debt the U.S. has ever known!

The possibility that you will pay 10-20 dollars a gallon at the pump!

The possibility that drug lords from Mexico armed with thousands of U.S. government provided guns will invade your town!

The possibility that you will not be able to get a decent job no matter how hard you study!

The possibility that America will fall out of the space race for decades to come!

And just for the heck of it, the possibility that you will see with your own eyes an American president bowing to a Saudi King, again!

So thank Obama kids!

Dante,

I have to agree with Bill Crane and the basic premise of Chris' post. You can downplay Iran's accomplishments and suggest that they aren't really anything special, but nonetheless, we are talking about a country that obviously learns and takes that knowledge to use for their own benefit.

I don't think they will be mass producing exact copies of the drone, but they will learn some things from it. I see a far more simplified version needing a less extensive infrastructure to support, but effective just the same. If nothing else, experimenting and developing techniques to detect them and potentially target them for conventional interception, would be something worthwhile to them. Trial and error can lead to developing stealth technology and that is pretty much what we did. You can just guess or you can make educated guesses. We gave them a little education.

I think the most important thing Chris points out is the danger of underestimating your enemy. That is not to say that Iran in any way approaches being an equal, but they are more advanced than rock throwers. Our carriers are sitting in what amounts to a bathtub. If their desire was to issue a devastating blow with little consideration for the outcome of an all out war, it is foolish to think we don't have any vulnerabilities. We need to think about their potential motivations. School yard fights don't always start because the one who starts it is absolutely sure he can whip the other one. Sometimes the lesser adversary will be content just to issue a bloody nose to his opponent. It is sometimes like that in the grown up world too. They may not even approach being able to match us, but that doesn't mean they can't hurt us. Just being able to "wipe them out", doesn't make us invulnerable. Assured defeat doesn't equate to the perfect deterrent.

I think it is odd that a few months before the Iranians got our drone, and I don't how they did it, but this article is a little odd. There was a virus the military was having trouble getting out of the control systems of predator and reaper drones that was cataloging the pilots keystrokes. It did not mention the RQ-170 Sentinel but it is still odd that a few months after this article,we lost a RQ-170 Sentinel.

http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/drone-curious-faa-reveals-uav-operators-near-you-731018#/technology/technolog/military-drones-flying-despite-worries-about-computer-virus-120229

China has asked to see the drone in return for a favor. (Prob a favorable vote at the UN)

Now if Iran cant figure out what they have (They are not the idiots that some of you make them out to be), the Chinese definitely will.

We might as well give up. They are bound to copy any of our weapons that fall on their country. We might as well drop a nuke on Tehran and let them copy that, too.

This is to IRESPOND---You could not be more wrong! The people of Iran have a big beef with the US...they have made this very clear when they refer to us as infidels that need to be silenced! HMMM, That sounds like they have a problem with us. You need to get your head out of the sand!

To: Bill Crane and 1NewDay,
I am not saying any action be taken by US/NATO,just saying get out of the way and let Israel handle it .Just like syrian reactors.(If Israelis do so ,you think Iranian responce would be aimed at US/NATO?....) And what Iran could do other then a small proxy war by Hezbullah , if even that......And i do not buy the silly ideas of "Boots on the ground "or "Nation building".All needed could be done from the air.
Second, Just to qoute Dr Zhevago?..".From defeat comes revolution.."...Hopefuly the success of the greens.
3ed,from ones post ,one could tell what they are druming for, where their news sources comes from,what their idealogy is,and even their geological locations....A name could not tell you that....Any body could have any name.
So , please read carefully .....
Have a nice day.

Christ is almost correct,

Iran-China partner in bed with each other, Its Wrong for any war-Mongers to say Iran is backward.The Lesson learned, NEVER underestimate your enemy.As the wisdom saying "Empty drum that makes alot of noise"

"China's territory is too big"- the United States probably wouldn't be able to successfully invade China, but China wouldn't be able to invade the United States either. Invading another country with the
intention of taking over serves no purpose in modern times.

"China can draft 350,000,000 people to fight"- do you really think that they have the resources available to them to be able to utilize that amount of people? They have no where near enough money to arm and ship out those soldiers to desired locations.

"China can shoot down their sats which most US military depends on deal a mighty blow to their
force." do you really think that its that easy to not only find, but shoot down one of the thousands of satellites the US has in space?Not to mention, they would have to shoot down A LOT of satellites in order to actually deliver a large blow to US communications.Tom

China would have to bypass American missile interception and China silk-worm later have prove to be accurate enough to actually hit the satellite from earth with one try, which is obviously extremely difficult. The US, with its advanced technology, had a hard time shooting down one of their own satellites, and that was just one satellite. Also, the US couldn't do the same with Chinese satellites?

China we all already know has been QUIET about his mighty military.This is what the Irianian have been Cooperating with the Chinese since the 80's with China,beside Russia..

The military ( taxpayers) spent untold Billions building this droThe military ( taxpayers) spent untold Billions building this drone and now they gave the technology away for FREE! Now Iran can use the technology against us or sell it to China, Pakistan, Russia, North Korea, you know all our Friends! Wonder-full , just freaking wonder-full. Our military is so full of bone heads just like congress..idiots all of them! Just like the Nuclear bombs, High tech means very little once our 'friends' steal the technology from usne and now they gave the technology away for FREE! Now Iran can use the technology against us or sell it to China, Pakistan, Russia, North Korea, you know all our Friends! Wonder-full , just freaking wonder-full. Our military is so full of bone heads just like congress..idiots all of them! Just like the Nuclear bombs, High tech means very little once our 'friends' steal the technology from us!

The assumption that it was easy to capture is a huge error in critical thinking. Everyone from Sun-Tze to Clauswitz has had the same first war of warfare --- never underestimate your enemy.

The thing that allowed the drone to be captured intact (not brought down) was the arrogance of the CIA who have no background in conducting military or quasi-military operations. Their assumption was that it could not be hacked into because Persians were stupid. Wrong assumption. The CIA operators were stupid and the Iranians did hack into it and simply changed the landing base coordinates to one of their own airbases and landed it there. Their only failure was that they replaced the altitude to begin the landing flare from 2 feet above the runway to 2 meters above the runway. (This is an error that cost NASA two Mars probes, so it must be easy to make and hard to detect.) This caused one of the spindly main landing gear to collapse and caused "cosmetic" damage to a wingtip.

Persians have a long history of being very good at math and science. In fact, I can only think of one other country with a longer history --- India. But being a classic Helenistic cynic, I believe that anything one man can do, any other man can do better. Usually it is only a matte of time. But for the CIA to fall for their own belief that all "ragheads" are stupid is fatal and, as you observe, not rocket science. It is arrogance.

What the CIA did is to give away several billion dollars in exploitable technology to every country that doesn't like us. That was taxpayer money.

This message will self destruct in one minute !

@Chris-749391

Quoting you "Everyone from Sun-Tze to Clauswitz has had the same first """"war""" of warfare". To get across your point better it's always beneficial to proof read before you post. Now as to your post, if you believe the CIA has no experience with war then you are truly dense. Take the opportunity to research the types and backgrounds of those who serve in the CIA. You will find that a lot of them are former elite military men i.e. green beret, seals, etc... Dont look now, but your ignorance is showing.

just saying

Optimist,

You speak like the quintessential politician: Senator Foghorn Leghorn.

Chris,

You’re begging the question. You’re assuming that the CIA was arrogant, when you have no incontrovertible proof that they were. You’re also assuming that CIA operators thought that their Iranian counterparts were stupid. Again, you have no incontrovertible proof that CIA underestimated the Iranians. Chris, you talk like a man with a paper ass.

You wrote: “What the CIA did is to give away several billion dollars in exploitable technology to every country that doesn't like us. That was taxpayer money.”

Prove it. Unless you can come up with some evidence to support your claims, then you’re spewing nothing but uncorroborated hogwash.

I am an old military intelligence analyst, mostly North Korean political/air defense. I worked with CIA types for years. They are indeed arrogant and have a very long history of over-reaching. They are pretty much considered "cowboys" to most of the intelligence community. Reverse engineering the drone will be the easy part.

They have the drone and we don't. Period. That is incontrovertable proof. To deny that they beat us at our own game is kinda silly and just reeks of sour grapes.

And for @BAX --- I am sorry that my typo caused you so much distress. Since you were unable to figure it out --- I intended "rule" for "war."

When uyou attack people rather than information, it only shows that you have no idea what you are talking about.

"I am an old military intelligence analyst,"

hahahaha

thank you for taking the time to post some real information Chris

Yes, Chris, it's quite clear that you have some good information. CIA arrogant? Nahhhh. lol. Of course they were always arrogant.

Yeah, whatever. With these Muslim Morons, it will work as well as the North Koreans' "leap into the future" with their missile launch that lasted several minutes into launch.

the problem with reverse engineering the drone is that if it doesnt work its harder to figure out what is going wrong. You cant be sure if your building it the right way or not. And its much more difficult to make upgrades on a technology you dont fully understand and just kinda copied. Its like stealing the answers in school, you might pass the test but you still dont understand the materiel. So i'm not too worried about the loss of this drone tech, hell in five years it might well be obsolete.

@Chris 749391

I find it interesting that yout take umbrage at my pointing out that you cant even quote a book correctly much less name the object of the book properly. Quoting you again "Everyone from Sun-Tze to Clauswitz", you do know, I hope, that his name was Sun Tzu. You give little credibility to yourself with that many obvious mistakes. I also find it interesting that you wish to demean, besmudge, disparage the CIA when all of your credibility is so vaporous. Having actually studied the Art of War I find that your comments in no means have any relevance to the entire volume. And much more I believe that if you did work for the "CIA types" it was more likely that it was in the form of a janitor.

Chris,

One thing you might not be aware of: they can copy the done all they want. You can also copy paper money. Both will be worthless. Without the controller, software and schematics, they won't make it off the ground. Give them 20 years or so of developement and they might get one off the ground. I have over 2 decades of experience in avionics and drones.

Chris, in regards to your statement about the Iranian HESA Saeqa. By all reports their attempts to reverse engineer that Northrop F-5 did not get very far beyond propaganda. Allegedly there have been less than a dozen built and even less produced as far as the upgrades. That is barely one squadron's worth. They may have the brains to attempt to reverse engineer our aircraft, but it looks like their infrastructure to mass produce aircraft is severely lacking.

Sorry Chris, I’m not buying it.

To begin with, you don’t seem to understand the meaning of “incontrovertible proof.”

Incontrovertible proof means proof that your testimony is verifiable, do you understand that concept? You explaining to the readers that you did maintenance work at DOD, doesn’t lend your testimony any truth value, in fact, it’s absurd. If you can’t verify your testimony, then it’s nothing but uncorroborated hogwash. Savvy?

Next, the idea that “they have the drone and we don't” was understood, thus the headline of the article we’re commenting on. For you to punctuate the apparent with a resounding “period” would be the same as you admitting that your bride is no longer a virgin the moment after she delivers your first child. You, my friend, are a master of the obvious.

And finally, you have become Clueless Chris. The article is about Iran having come into possession of an American drone, which implies that they must have somehow manipulated the electronics of the craft to gain possession. Other articles explain the electronic manipulation in greater detail. You’re assuming that there is something to deny, when in fact all the information that is necessary for the readers to reason with is contained in this article, which leads me to ask: What’s your point?

You seem to take great pleasure in your own country’s bad luck, and you enjoy demeaning our armed forces. If you don’t like America, then why are you here?

Paper ass Chris, paper ass.

I thank Chris for his comments. The main point here is that the Iranian's now have prototype to reverse engineer and can make great progress without having to go through all those years of development. Why the drones do not carry a self destruct mechanism in them beats me, as they are fairly small and could the most sensitive items could be relatively easily destroyed. When anyone thinks that other countries are backward, particularly countries that have large numbers of western educated and trained engineers and scientists its worrying. The fact that North Korea's missle failed, shouldn't provide much comfort. We only have to look at our own efforts in the late 1950's early 60's to see how fast and how far country can go in rocket development if they desire to.

Kathy, I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you and Chris. LiarsInPolitics has it right though. Iran may have the drone itself, but unless they can reverse engineer all that's inside it's just another useless relic. Here's a little history trivia for you. Towards the end of WWII, one or two Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers were forced to land in Russia with mechanical problems or battle damage. The Russians were salivating at the the mouth because they got hold of the U.S.'s most high tech weapons system. The Russians had absolutely nothing that compared to this and immediately set out to reverse engineer this four engined strategic bomber for themselves. The Russian Tupelov design bureau spent years working on this and by the time they managed to place it into limited production we already had jet bombers in service. The plane the Russians finally built was a total dog. They never were able to properly reproduce the technical aspects. Especially the standard to metric conversions. All they had was a pattern airframe with no technical manuals. The American aircrews destroyed them upon landing. Iran is faced with the same problems involving this drone.

Yes CIA trained OSAMA BIN LADEN he's on their payroll for years,they even call our " Boy with the Blue eyes".

Rooster Roast Home perharps!!

Right. Barry was the designer, builder, and operator of the plane. Excellent deductive skills Sherlock.

Can't you see that it always, inevitably, HAS to come back to Barry, Stone Mason? He says nothing/does nothing to get the drone back, bad Barry for being an incompetent wuss. He tries to get it back by diplomatic means, bad Barry for being a ball-less, anti-American apologist. He tries to get it back by force, bad Barry for getting us into so many wars.

Stone Mason,

A simple point that seems to have evaded your keen observational skills: Ralph's comments describe President Urkel’s after-the-fact failure to either regain possession of the drone, or destroy it on the ground before the Iranians could begin investigating its workings.

And risk getting us into another war. Quite a plan, isn't it?

My guess is that Defense Dept. specialists recommended against taking any action, since any technology they could gain from the drone is at least ten years behind our own cutting-edge technology and the probability of a bad, violent outcome from destroying it would far outweigh whatever off-chance there is that the Iranians will gain crucial information from the downed drone.

Of course, there IS the possibility that Obama was incompetent and cowardly, and that the Chinese and Russians will actually have access to valuable technology that will affect the balance of power. That's very much a possibility and I'm not denying that. But I prefer not to jump to conclusions if I'm not knowledgeable enough of the circumstances.

If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.

No, Mike we'd have worse.

Mike,

There were almost 3,000 people in 2 buildings and 4 planes, who were minding their own business one day a little over a decade ago. Seems to me they died anyways. You can go stick your head in the sand and get your arse blown off, but as for the rest of us, we prefer to know what our enemies are doing.

Does she have a sister?

It would be simple to copy the self-destruction sequence that's already in place in the drones in Congress.

@truth,

It HAD a self-destruct "package." The issue was that the way that the drone was designed was not thought through very well. It made far too many wrong assumptions, many of them about potential enemies.

1) They decided that the drones were undetectable by radar. Pretty much true (though not entirely.) But the Iranians detected them by high altitude contrails that are much more prevalent over desert areas. A contral with no matching radar signature equals a stealth aircraft.

2) The drone had been programmed to return to Kandahar if contact was lost with the operators and to command detonate only on a signal sent from the operator. The Iranians once they had learned to detect the drones by their contrails had apparently been able to hack in and dump all the memory to their own computers. This part was an obvious and amateurish design flaw. When you have the code on your own computer and time is not an issue, it is then only a matter of time until you decrypt any encrypted parts.

3) But the drone had another design flaw --- it could have targets and recovery bases programmed in flight. This was so that a target of opportunity could be surveilled on the way home, for example, or an alternate landing base designated if the primary had bad weather. It didn't take the Iranians long to figure out that this was an extreme vulnerability.

4) The Iranians had observers at the border who could alert them that a drone had crossed into Iran. They may had to wait through several flights to catch the contrail. They they alerted their technicians who changed the recovery base coordinates and altitude to one of their own bases. A very minor change --- less than 10 bytes out of the millions of bytes of code in the drone. They, probably using jammers along the border, they massively jammed the comm link to the drone. As soon as the drone lost contact, it did what it was programmed to do --- go directly back and land. Unfortunately, the Iranians had, according to Israeli intelligence, programmed the runway altitude to allow for a landing flare in meters instead of feet, so the drone stalled about 6-7- feet above the runway instead of 2 feet. If you look at pictures of the drone in flight, you will see that the main landing gear is very spindly. One of the main gear collapsed on landing doing cosmetic damage to one wingtip.

5) The interception was done in such a way that the CIA operator had no idea that the drone was compromised and once the jamming began the operator had no way to communicate with the drone, even to send a self-destruct signal. And, to the operator, the use of jamming would have been considered a "normal" reaction to the accidental detection of the drone, so nothing was perceived to be amiss until the time had actually passed when the drone would have run out of fuel.

One of the problems that military planners struggle with is called the Piper Cub paradox. It is a form of asymmetric force because we depend very heavily on very expensive military toys that are so expensive that their numbers are limited, such as this drone. The case is usually made using a fighter jet. Pick any high-tech fighter, such as the F-23 or F-35 and figure out its cost to purchase, maintain, and the cost of training a combat pilot and the cost of constant proficiency training (it should be about triple the initial cost of the aircraft. They you buy the number of Piper Super Cubs and trained pilots that the same amount of money would buy --- thousands of them. Each sophisticated high-tech jet could carry as many as 8 air-to-air missiles and associated electronics. A Piper Cub can only carry one air-to-air missile and associated electronics. A missile does not really care what type of aircraft fires it. Then you match the one jet against the thousands of Piper Cubs. You are really matching thousands of missiles against 8 missiles. The jets always loseeven if things go perfctly for them.

This country has placed all its military "eggs" in an expensive high-tech basket. In some increasing number of cases, the complexity and cost of the systems has become a serious military vulnerability. These expensive aircraft and ships and robots and UCAVs look sexy and certainly have their place in warfare, but too much reliance on them is a huge mistake that has the potential to cost this country dearly.

If a high school kid with too much time on his hands can hack into very sophisticated security sites, such as Visa and Mastercard, think what a dedicated well-educated team, even of Iranians, can do. The capture intact of our newest and most sophisticated stealth drone should be a wake-up call to the fact that our very sophisticated "force multipliers" might be worthless to dedicated low-tech adversaries.

There is some truth to it. Though with all new technologies, there is an expense at first. We see robotization of warfare principly because it will bring down the cost. It will and make it more efficient.

You talk about the short term. The long term robots will be cheaper and more efficient at killing then any human.

The CIA is not operating these things.

The CIA was operating the drone that the Iranians caputured. Here's a quote from the wikipedia article: "According to unnamed U.S. officials, a U.S. UAV operated by the Central Intelligence Agency was flying on the Afghan side of the Afghanistan-Iran border when its operators lost control of the vehicle."

While the CIA did not used to have any quasi-military or military role (the military has its own equivalent -- the DIA), that was changed on 2004 to permit them to conduct quasi-military operations in a "tactical emergency environment."

Mostly the CIA has a long tradition of hiring people straight out of college, there are some ex-military people hired, mostly because they already have the appropriate security clearances. But ex-military intelligence people are usually not interested in the CIA because it has such a bad reputation in the military intelligence community.

When I worked at the Far Eastern Watch Center, whenever we has visiting CIA people, we were always briefed not to share any intelligence information with them and to report all inquiries to our supervisors. CIA people seemed to be unaware that there were compartments within intelligence that they were not invited into. Most of the old heads just thought of them as intelligence collectors with no real expertist in anything other than "handling" turncoats and those who had been bribed. This especially applied to analysis --- where the CIA seemed to have a baffling lack of a sense of operational necessity. For example, I can remember once getting a "reminder" that I had not cited a CIA report from Vietnam that "proved" that the North Vietnamese were going to attempt to build a moon base to shoot down US Spooky AC-47's at night. The reminder pointed out that it had merit because both the moon and Spooky only appeared at night. I framed the twx and hung it over my desk for all to enjoy. The really sad part was that someone was tortured to death to get this "valuable" information.

I have little respect for the CIA based on first-hand experience.

They (the CIA) probably didn't hire you and I know why - your narcissistic and have little respect for anyone or anything.

mymy, always the hatred for people who actually have something worthwhile to say, wonder why

Thanks for the Information, Chris. Was very useful and I never noticed how many flaws it had.

@Chris 749391

Your posts are getting more and more incoherent. Along with your lack of English and grammar skills I find that anything you type is suspect.

Chris,

Although, Wikipedia isn't the greatest of sources, it is a source. That's what I'm looking for, a reader who bothers to back up his arguments with citations, is credible.

Your anecdotal dialog is compelling and interesting. Do you have any dates or locations that you could cite in parentheses to corroborate?

You no longer have a paper ass. You are beginning to impress me.

it wasnt shot down, they reprogrammed the GPS and landed it.

@jim,

What good it does them is this:

We spent billions of taxpayer dollars in developing stealth technology and then gave it to the Iranians for free because of arrogance and incompetence. They can easily duplicate the anti-radar codings. They can use the drone to study radar signatures in such a way as to determine how to modify radars to pick them up. They learned valuable lessons in decrupting battlefield communications. They have a stealth design that they can scale up to a stealth fighter design. (They had already been working on a homegrown stealth version of their F-5's.) They have an insight into the sophisticated AI programming that allows the drones to be semi-autonomous. But most of all they have something that can be traded to China, Russia, North Korea, etc for missile, guidance system, and nuclear technology.

I'll bet you dollars to donuts that we have lost our capability to send these drones over North Korea in addition to not being able to fly them over Iran. The North Koreans have working with the Iranians on missile and nuclear weapons, now they get payback in the form of being able to reverse-engineer in an area that could prove deadly to US military people in some future conflict or even in "peacetime" inteligence gathering.

@Dale,

We had no idea where the drone was. Until the Iranians put it on display, the CIA thought that it had had a serious technical malfunction and had crashed. But even then, they had absolutely no idea where the crash site would have been, but were scanning satellite images of the Iranian desert looking for it. And when Iran put it on display, they had already moved it to a non-airbase location, most likely a scientific facility of some type.

You can't blow it up or go retrieve it if you don't have a clue as to where it is. And initially, the CIA didn't even know that it had been captured intact. Eventually Israeli intelligence will tell the CIA where it is --- years from now.

Of course they knew where it was Chris...what makes you assume they didn't? And the CIA has nothing to do with the operation of these drones.

@Wally,

You need to do a little rading on the in cident before shooting off your mouth. Here is a link to a nice summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident

You will see that CIA was indeed operating the drone when it was captured. You will also see that they didn't even know it was captured until the Iranians were showing it on Iranian TV a number of days later. They thought it had crashed somewhere in the Iranian desert.

If they didn't know it had been captured intact, how could they possibly have known where it was? Just stop and think a tiny bit. How could they have possible known where it was?

Hold the phone. How many of you posters have privy to classified information on this? If you do...then by all means spew it out (which would be treason)...otherwise....stifle!!

Once Congress is briefed on classified information it becomes public knowledge.....at least amongst foreign intelligence services.

@CPO,

The problem with your statement is that the bad guys already know for real what intelligence is only guesing at. The only legitimate use of the miltary's classification system is to keep a potential enemy from knowing what we know, but also to protect the sources used to find it out. The problem is that this same classification system is being (illegally) to keep information from the American people. Congress has always been very good at protecting information that is legitimately a military secret (or a state secret in the case of non-military information.) The only rub is when the information is classified only to serve political purposes or to keep information from the American public. A lot of Congressmen, of both parties, do not like the lack of transparency that overuse of the military classification system often brings. And since the bad guys already know, they are very apt to feel that the American public has a right to know.

Or were you making an accusation through innuendo that American Congressmen are working for foreign intelligence services?

@ Chris

that the CIA was operating the drone doesn't mean that it was a CIA agent flying it. Predator drones are also operating for the CIA but the USAF pilots are the ones who actually operate the drones. The missions are given by the CIA, that's all there is to it.

Prove it.

And the first foreign nation invited to view it was China.

Treason.

Otsoko,

You are the funniest thing since Chlamydia.

Chlamydia is hilarious! Unless you have it. Sorry, Arkius.

:)

Nickie,

It's only hilarious if you're giving it away in your own gift-wrapped box. Sorry Nickie.

That makes alot of sense ... when do you suggest that we bomb China, since they have had the drone since Iran discovered it and then immediately transported it to China for disection.

Oh, did you mean bomb Iran who doesnt even have the drone? That would be stupid since it is in China and has been for months.

Iran most likely has the schematics from that disection, but then again so doesnt China.

Which one of you morons is going to take up arms against China to recover that drone??? Even if China didnt have all of our technology (military as well as industrial), which they and Israel do, they have always had the numbers to outlast any invader.

I am also wondering why our BFF, China, didnt say "hey, we have your drone BFF USA, why dont you come and transport it home"?

billy barty,

You're coming up short.

Hope,

Do you think the drone is in China for disassembly?

It wouldnt be the first time (nor the last) that China disects our latest technilogically advanced aircraft (both commercial and military) to make knock-offs of them. They just finished (I read the article just before xmas, 2011) replicating some of our best technilogically advanced commercial jets for their own benefit. Instead of buying them from US companies, they are making their own now.

They began small (copyright infringements) with our kids toys (i.e.:cabbage patch kids) and "nick-naks" that decorate too many of our homes, then went up the copyright infringement ladder. They have hacked into our secure computer networks, including our infrastructure and military logistics, and while denying such, have been traced by our own "intelligence" agencies. That cyber-espionage was all over the news during the last presidential campaign with Hillary Clinton being very "vocal" over it, but I guess everyone was more interested in McCain's VP candidate to notice.

Why wouldnt they ....

@billy barty: you must be jumping the shark many a time per day: "Bomb them before they bomb us"...

The USA has 900 military bases worldwide. How much bases do you need to feel safe? Who is more threatening? The USA to the world, or the world to the USA?

US citizens are weak, they weaken themselves with a little procedure called circumcision and then they are insecure for the rest of their lives. The rest of the world shakes their head at the insecurity of the americans

michael: I'm not sure whether you're writing sarcasm or not since your argument is so foolish that it is laughable. But, assuming for the moment, you're serious, then you know next to nothing about the American people. If this country is attacked, you will see an immediate and overwhelming response that the "problem" be solved by whatever means is appropriate, and further, you will see an overwhelming response of volunteers for whatever jobs, military and/or civilian, need to be filled. I think I'll leave it at that.

Hope,

You're clueless. I was being sarcastic, because you said the drone was in Chine about ten times.

And BTW, only living things can be dissected (Notice I spelled it correctly). Mechanical things are disassembled.

It DID have a self-destruct system. This would have been initiated by a command from the operator. But the decision had been made that if the command comm link was lost, the drone was to fly back to Kandahar and land automatically. The problem was that once the Iranians commenced jamming the comm link, the operators were unable to send a destruct signal. ll the Iranians had to do was to change the coordinates and altitude from Kandahar to one of their military bases and then start jamming. It worked like a charm, apparently on the first try.

Jerry,

You just won a scholarship to eighth grade. Congratulations.

That's right, they still will have to figure out for them selves how to control it. There is no control system to copy.

Even if they work out the stealth. Its still a short term thing. We still have American know-how and R&D and the skunk works. These guys have donkeys and goats.

The ability to control the drone, once you have it captured is the easiest part. This is because the drone is dsigned to be semi-autonomous. To fly it all one has to do is set in the coordinates of targets and waypoints. The drone will then automatically take off, fly to the first target and start recording information or taking pictures. It moves from target to target relying on GPS satellites for navigation. Then it automatically returns to base and lands automatically. This is not like a Predator drone where it is necessary for a human operator to "fly" the drone with a joystick.

When they first show it to the press that had removed the right main landing gear and wingtip for repair. It can be safely assumed that they werew successful because of the lack of damage to the drone. If they knew enough to hack into it, they can fly it with ease. There is simply no magic there --- the computer does all the flying.

There is virtually no external "control system" associated with the drone. It is all AI and semi-autonomous and all the "flying skills" are located in the drone's computer. The primary use for an operator is not to fly the aircraft, but to control the data link to retrieve battlefield intelligence and to fire weapons such as Hellfire missiles. It isn't like a big r/c model or even like the Predator. But this issue here is even worse. The drone would not have been transmiting back on the data link because that would haveled to its easy detection. So even the sensor data and pictures taken would have been stored in memory instead of being sent back.

The fact that the Iranians were able to usurp the drone's control system and land it at one of their airbases is plenty of proof that they can fly it anywhere they wish. Some posters need to stop and thing for a second.

All we need to do is put a video on youtube showing a jew working on the drone and the mullahs will demand that the drone be stoned to death. Bingo, problem solved.

Oh yeah, and the engines are lubed with pig fat. Burn the infidel drone!

The trap was in our hands

Something similar but different: if you keep them busy, they will learn and grow attached to modern things. They need to teach their personel which means they get a more sophisticated workforce. Also economically they will put more money into warfare, which will bring them close to economic bankruptcy. It is very hard to sustain a nuclear and or biological weaponry. It costs a lot of money. That was and is still the primary reason of the START treaty's between the Soviet Union (now Russia) and the USA. So it isnt all that bad, as in the end they will be an open market for economic purposes that even their people will enjoy. They already watch TV and wear Adidas. Scary people...

Well according to Ralph396 above it is Obama's fault. As if he designs and operates the drones personally.

He is the commander and chief and this supposed accident was done at his bidding.

These drones crash with some regularity. Wally I guess think a drone loss trumps the lies about Iraq and following 2003 criminal invasion by Bush-Cheney. Bush-Cheney were on duty when the US was attacked in 2001. Fail.

That's "Lil" gw bush-league and that dick, Cheney!

and....anyone could make a copy of it from balsa wood, probably even monkeys!

1) The Iranians were able to hack into the drone's control system and change the RTB coordinates and altitude. This is how, when they started jamming the comm link that the drone autonomously returned home, but "home" was now an Iranian airbase. This thing is not flown with a joystick by a pilot. It is semi-autonomous meaning that it flies itself, needing only setup input from a technicial so it knows where to go. In face the only thing a controller is actually necessary for is to fire weapons, since the military has not yet authorized autonomous weapons systems to be developed. So, if the Iranians were able to cause it to land where they wanted it to, they already know everything that is necessary to fly it.

2) The most liklely immediate use for the information from the drone, besides barter with countries who are not out allies, primarily China, India, and North Korea, is to use data about anti-radar coatings and precise angles necessary to disberse rather than reflect radar to build the stealthy version of the Iranian reverse-engineered F-5. Such a variant could be flying by 2014 with the stealth secrets learned from the drone according to Jane's.

2

Darn tootin' right grino-man! We needed somebody with balls like ol' GW!. Someone who has the guts to go into a war and WIN! Oh wait, we LOST the Iraq war and now an ashamed and broke country pulled out with a trillion dollar bill that it still has to pay and 5000 dead. Oh well, I'm sure YOU weren't inconvenienced Gringo-man. So all in all, its almost like a VICTORY! WOOHOOO, now let's kick some butt!

Pass the Cheetos will ya Gringo?

Uh..........Tim. Where did you get the "we lost in Iraq" thing from? You'd better go back and kick that person in the balls. We didn't lose in Iraq.

You sound like a real intelligent guy there Tim. Keep me up-to-date on any late breaking news.