Iran Claims First Flight of Reverse Engineered RQ-170 Drone

Iran claims to have flown an unmanned aircraft copied from a Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel that crashed in that country in December 2011. It plans to place four copies into service by the end of the Iranian calendar year in March, the semi-official Fars News Agency (FNA) reported.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the first flight of a reverse engineered RQ-170 on November 10, and state-run television showed footage of the purported aircraft in flight. Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC aerospace force, then declared that “at least four indigenized RQ-170 drones” will begin operations by next March, FNA said November 12.

The Iranian version of the unmanned surveillance aircraft “has been built through a combination of the U.S. designs and ideas and those of Iranian experts,” according to the report. Unlike the RQ-170, the Iranian aircraft will “have a bombing capability” and be used for both surveillance and strike missions, Hajizadeh said.

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works advanced development arm is thought to have developed the RQ-170 by around 2005, and the U.S. deployed the stealthy aircraft to Afghanistan by 2008. However, the U.S. Air Force did not officially acknowledge the program until December 2009.