Iran leaders have told the national media it has built a drone capable of flying silently with vertical-take-off-and-landing capabilities.
These reports follow earlier claims from the Iranian military that it flew drones from Lebanon over Israeli bases. The Israelis deny these reports, but the Iranians claim to have the intelligence to back it up.
This would not be the first time the Iranians have made unproven claims of their technical capabilities. It would also come at a time the Iranian leadership would like to flex some muscle in light of the Israeli posturing for a potential attack on their nuclear capabilities.
Expecting the international media to call Iran’s bluff, military leaders said the drone will be displayed in February.
U.S. military officials, especially Air Force generals, have said for a couple years that they should start developing weapons capable of targeting drones. These weapons wouldn’t differ much from the ones that shoot down manned planes, but they should be prepared to target the smaller drones prevalent outside the U.S.
No photos of the new drone have leaked out, yet. We here at Defense Tech will remain skeptical until we see at least some visual proof.
{ 48 comments… read them below or add one }
I'm sure the visual proof you seek will be photoshopped.
or from Google Maps
I am so sure you are right, if you know anything about Iran, lies are as good as the truth till you get caught. Oh liar liar Iran is on fire.
We've had that same tech for a couple of centuries now too, it's called a balloon.
Or a paper airplane.
hang glider?
But neither of those are VTOL whereas a balloon is.
I'll believe it when the Israelis shoot one down.
The same is true of flying saucers.
Figured Israel would take that as an opportunity – "Please help us! Iran is flying super-secret drones in our airspace, we must strike now!"
One drone over flight = Israeli F-15I strike
So…we know that the Iranians aren't capable of reverse engineer the Sentinel they "shoot" down, when will they ship it to China or Russia, have they already done that?
Gimme your thoughts defense pros! :)
No they aren't, and yes they probably did a while ago.
Just rip out the guts and leave the rest in a museum.
First of all I have been in Iran several times they do not have the capability to keep the lights on in the streets 24 / 7 so stop the nonsense we gave them F5s the simpliest aircraft in the world to maintain and they cant keep 4 of them in service at the same time……..
I wouldn't trust what the state media of Iran says mostly crappy Islamic propaganda. Overall the best weapon against these small drones is a cheap FIM-92 Stinger SAM.
The drone is so silent it doesn't show up in the plain of reality.
Sounds like they put together a kit for a radio controlled electric helicopter.
Hardly groundbreaking stuff even for many 13 year old kids around the world.
That's too much work for the Iranians- They probably just went to Amazon and did a search for "remote helicopter with camera" and sprint a quick $20 US ($1,000,000 Iranian) and you can have one too!
On a serious note though – this is actually how US forces in A-stan or Iraq were protected- a soldier received a $20 remote car with a camera on it from his kid bro as a gift (don't recall if holiday or b-day or what) so he charged it up and sent it ahead of the convoy looking for IEDs. When it found one and blew up, a another quick $20 replaced it.
So, perhaps we should be a bit cautious with our tongue-in-cheek ridicule- they ust might have come up with something low-tech that serves the purpose.. but boy is it still fun to make fun of them!!!
Is that the drone that also causes hurricanes?
(Read somewhere that Syria and Iran are claming to have caused Sandy.)
Yes, just like the British caused the "protestant wind" that blew the sails off the Spanish armada
That was an act of God actually; not even King Philip could credit the British with that one.
Another news about Iran. Here we go lets hear it. Now everyone is going to complain and just wipe off everything as a lie. It's just like China and their stealth airplane. they don't have one.
These news should not be published here anyways since most of the readers here are american. What is the chance of any news that is coming out of the Iran and published here get accepted ? None! So just stop posting those. This is my personal opinion.
You're correct. Any "news" out of Iran will be greeted with nothing but disbelief. Precisely because they have a well documented history of lying…
There is no news coming out of Iran that is accepted. The Iranian government is led by religion, no state can be run by religion. The separation of church and state will ultimately end the sectarian violence, over time of course. As long as religion has anything to do with policy or lawmaking, then those poor people over in the middle east have no chance at all. It is not one religion against another, it is religion against state that is the problem. Why is it you people never get that?
Ya'll really i figured it out in less than 10 seconds………its a ballon or blimp.
Does all of those.
Bah too soon!
But it also has sensors that see only jews and detects evil american earthquake weapons.
Each ballon carries a guy named achmed.
"Each ballon carries a guy named achmed." – on a stick!
Regards & all,
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
Pff, big deal. Drones are not new tech, and silent or vtol or both aren't either. Truth is, their's an open source hw drone project out there, using open source software. It does EVERYTHING your military drone can do, except it's not weaponised. Don't pay attention to Iranian posturing, maybe they got a drone in at 50 feet or something, who cares? Just look at http://www.diydrones.com and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysyYKPa9Rcg you'll understand that the military industrial complex aren't very far ahead compared to what an individual can do… Drones are non-state actors too!
Being Iran made this public , it says they have no space satellites that spy on the world. They resort to balloon drones & the tunnels for intel.
Whereas western tech most likely has marked positions of every land air and sea craft Iran has.
Just to add, we should make disposable drones. Launch into Iran & post the footage publicly. Self destruct the drones when out of fuel.
We had that years ago and some people are still asking questions,believe me we had them and have even better then 30 years ago..
Besides the United States, Iran is the only country that has in its inventory the F-14 and the RQ-170.
This is true about the F-14s, but we have not supplied parts or service for those in decades. Few if any are flight ready.
If Iran is to be believed, then they've reverse engineered enough to keep the few they have flightworthy.
I guess it's good we never made plans to build them in Iran…man, that would've been awkward.
The F-14 airframe without the Phoenix missile armament in simply an antiquated interceptor.
Frankly, I am not worried about what technology Iran can field. What we all should recognize after 11 years of war is that its not the technology that we should fear, but the spirit of those behind the weapon. Iraq and Afghanistan fighters have been using ’50s era weapon systems and causing thousands of deaths
Sure, but tech allows them to do more than simply strike at targets within their own soil.
The ultimate silent drone. Can't be seen, heard…by anybody. Ever.
Oh noes drones.
These EVIL Iranians are (potentially) threatening our (Israels) world peace (dominance) again!
We need to bomb them and wipe them off the map!
I wonder where Srsly is – if he/she is Iranian or American or what. Cuz I find it very interesting that the Iranian on the board (mehrdad) can see Iran – his/her own country- for what it is, yet the outsider defends them and believes their propoganda
I'm Iranian,first you should know that standards are different in Iran!
I think for those stup!ds who build this paper drone,making less than 120db sound is considered silent! but for the knowledge of western countries i should say Iranians can do nothing without imported technology and machines from west….believe it or not they use imported west technology and machines to hurt west later!
Mocking a potential adversary may make someone feel good, but it invariably leads to consistently underestimating their real capabilities. This leads to erroneous decisions which cost lives in the best case and leads to defeat at its worst.
It's time accept the fact that other countries are capable of building some complex weapons, and seemingly doing it faster than us. Our arrogance could prove to be our down fall.
By "drone" they mean "Islamic extremist"
By "vtol" they mean shot from a cannon
By "silent" they mean they duck-taped his mouth shut
Their next gen will be weaponized- he will have a remote suicide vest.
"Hey Mohamad, did Achbar land yet?"
"No Saleem, oh! He just hit, push the button!"
As sual the 5 stages of grieving starts with denial.
Here is the secret (Mehran Tavakoli Kesh) to all of Iran's advanced technology capability, including the ability to intercept the RQ-170 drone. http://www.keshefoundation.org/en/new-horizons/gr…
Please, please, please, please tell me you're joking. Please?
Regards & all,
Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg
Yeah, we had silent drones when we were kids. We launched them with rubber bands…