Iran Moves 35 Years Ahead by Reverse Engineering US Drone
The RQ-170 engines are the fifth generation and the engines of Iranian unmanned planes are the third generation, Hajizadeh said on Wednesday, adding that to produce the engine we had to spend 35 years on the project. He said that the home-made version of the US drone RQ-170 captured by the IRGC will make its maiden flight in the near future. ● In relevant remarks in September, Lieutenant Commander of the IRGC said an Iranian drone which has been manufactured through the reverse engineering of the US drone which was tracked and hunted down in Iran late in 2011 will be unveiled to the public soon. "All the memories and computer systems of this plane have been decoded and some good news will be announced in the near future not just about the RQ-170 and the optimizations that our forces have done on the reversed engineered model of this drone, but also in area of other important defense achievements," IRGC Lieutenant Commander General Hossein Salami said. ● Iran announced on December 4, 2011 that its defense forces had downed a US RQ-170 aircraft through a sophisticated cyber attack. The drone was the first such loss by the US. US officials have described the loss of the aircraft in Iran as a setback and a fatal blow to the stealth drone program. The RQ-170 has special coatings and a batwing shape designed to help it penetrate other nations' air defenses undetected. The existence of the aircraft, which is made by Lockheed Martin, has been known since 2009, when a model was photographed at the main US airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan.