

RQ-170 Sentinel  (Source:









Source: Defense News

Comments     Threshold


RE: Useless?
By AssBall on 12/7/2011 1:07:23 PM , Rating: 4
Well they probably could infer some things from it, and even reverse engineer it a little bit, but the fact remains is that Iran isn't even close to having the technology to replicate it. They'd have to sell it to China or something.

RE: Useless?
By bah12 on 12/7/2011 1:27:00 PM , Rating: 2
Which is most likely what they will do. Iran talks a big game, but doesn't really want a direct conflict with us. However they will do all they can to make our lives difficult, so selling this to China would be a good start.

The Chinese are by far the biggest pink elephant in the room no one wants to talk about. They have the funds and resources to actually do something with this tech, and whatever that is it wouldn't be very good for us in the long run. But hey by now they've probably hacked the DOD enough, that they don't need to reverse engineer it, they probably have the full plans :)

RE: Useless?
By Cypherdude1 on 12/8/2011 3:27:19 AM , Rating: 1
Incredible. The US practically gave the Iranians one of our top secret technologies. If it wasn't ready for deployment, why did the US use it? It appears that Lockheed Martin or the USAF pushed for deployment too quickly and now the Iranians have it. I can't even believe it.

Perhaps Lockheed Martin or the USAF wanted to give the Iranians a Christmas gift.

It's enough to take your breath away.

RE: Useless?
By geddarkstorm on 12/7/2011 1:29:07 PM , Rating: 2
That's what we worry about.

Just the stealth coating and airframe/engine technologies alone are not something we want in any one else's hands.

But hey, that's the nature of the world and nations--everyone is always getting their hands on everyone else's technology eventually. Just a matter of if they have the know how and manufacturing sophistication to replicate what they find (or the want to do so). The arms race never ends.

Only problem here is this may be our current top of the line tech, which means we won't surpass it for awhile, and could leapfrog someone like China much closer to us.

RE: Useless?
By autoboy on 12/7/2011 2:25:16 PM , Rating: 3
If we even know the name of the drone then it isn't our top tech. Still, the coatings and general design of the aircraft are bad to have in enemy hands but the engine design in this thing probably isn't anything new.

RE: Useless?
By nafhan on 12/7/2011 3:49:47 PM , Rating: 2
Agree. I'd also say that much of the technology that's going to be hard to replicate is not even in the drone at all.

For instance:
1. the systems integration stuff and the factories that go into building something like this
2. the infrastructure for using and controlling advanced drones (having the drone is kind of like listening to one side of a phone call)

