"Beast of Kandahar" spioneert in Iran

[Elzenga]

   The Beast Is Back
Posted by Bill Sweetman at 1/25/2011 8:25 AM CST
It's back - more and better images of the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 have emerged on the Secret Projects forum. You need to register to see the rest, but if you're interested in this sort of stuff you should do so anyway.

blog post photo

blog post photo

It's possible from these images to get a clearer idea of what RQ-170 is and is not. It appears to be much the same size as an MQ-9A Reaper, and will have a similar payload but shorter endurance (because of jet propulsion, mainly).

Unless almost everything we have heard about stealth is wrong, this is a moderately stealthy aircraft. Compare it to the not-very-different-size RQ-3A DarkStar:  the edges are much blunter and there are not-very-stealthy bumps above and below the wing, with steeper angles and sharper curves than the RQ-3A designers tolerated.

blog post photo

The side views indicate the shape of the belly fairing, which looks like it houses an electro-optical/infrared sensor at the front end and (most likely) an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar behind it. Although it's an AESA, it probably gimbals to scan right or left.

The overwing fairings remain a mystery, but the best bet for now is that they are datalinks. Why two of them? One possibility: they contain antennas that can be rotated, when not in use, to reduce their reflectivity, given that the best bandwidth-selective radome can only do so much. So if your UAV is being illuminated by radar, you turn to place that radar on one side of the aircraft and use the antenna on the opposite, "shadow" side of the aircraft to communicate.

Satellite communications would be the obvious way to communicate, but you could use much less power if you used an airborne relay. So what exactly have the various Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) platforms been doing these last few years?

Both the satellite links and the belly fairing could be modular payloads, making it possible to configure the aircraft for strike missions or to carry a high-power microwave source - such as the one mentioned in this Lockheed Martin news release as "requiring an aerial delivery platform". It could also be an effective "stand-in" jamming platform to support other aircraft.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post:5b32f70f-3054-4261-947e-dc8fe095d08b&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

[Lex]

US Air Force confirms 'Beast of Kandahar' drone

Washington: The US Air Force on Tuesday confirmed for the first time that it is flying a stealth unmanned aircraft known as the "Beast of Kandahar," a drone spotted in photos and shrouded in secrecy.

The RQ-170 Sentinel is being developed by Lockheed Martin and is designed "to provide reconnaissance and surveillance support to forward deployed combat forces," the air force said in a brief statement.

The "RQ" prefix for the aircraft indicates an unarmed drone, unlike the "MQ" designation used for Predator and Reaper aircraft equipped with missiles and precision-guided bombs.

Aviation experts dubbed the drone the "Beast of Kandahar" after photographs emerged earlier this year showing the mysterious aircraft in southern Afghanistan in 2007.

The image suggested a drone with a radar-evading stealth-like design, resembling a smaller version of a B-2 bomber.

A blog in the French newspaper Liberation published another photo this week, feeding speculation among aviation watchers about the classified drone.

The air force said the aircraft came out of Lockheed Martin's "Skunk Works," also known as Advanced Development Programs, in California -- the home of sophisticated and often secret defense projects including the U-2 spy plane, the F-22 fighter jet and the F-117 Nighthawk.

The photo of the drone in Afghanistan has raised questions about why the United States would be operating a stealth unmanned aircraft in a country where insurgents have no radar systems, prompting speculation Washington was using the drones for possible spying missions in neighboring Iran or Pakistan.

The Sentinel was believed to have a flying wing design with no tail and with sensors built into the top side of each wing, according to published photos.

The RQ-170 is in line with Defense Secretary Robert Gates' request for more intelligence and surveillance resources and with the Air Force chief of staff's plans to expand the fleet of unmanned aircraft, the air force said.

The new drone is flown by the 30th Reconnaissance Squadron out of Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, which is under Air Combat Command's 432nd Wing at Creech Air Base, also in Nevada.

The United States has carried out an extensive bombing campaign against Al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan using the Predator and larger Reaper drones.

Robots or "unmanned systems" in the air and on the ground are now deployed by the thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, spying from the sky for hours on end, searching for booby-traps and firing lethal missiles without putting US soldiers at risk.

Agence France-Presse on December 9, 2009 at 7:32 am

[IPA NG]

Toch goed om te weten dat de Amerikanen nog steeds geheime wapens hebben en ontwikkelen.

[VandeWiel]

Mysteries Surround Afghanistan's Stealth Drone (Updated)


Earlier this year, blurry pictures were released by the French magazine Air & Cosmos of a previously unknown stealth drone taken at Kandahar in Afghanistan. The photos, snapped in 2007, prompted a wave of speculation about the classified aircraft. That speculation grew even more intense this week, when a blog belonging to the French newspaper Libération released an even better photograph. But while the new picture may answers some questions, it also creates a heap of new mysteries. Chief among them: Why use such a fancy, stealthy aircraft in Afghanistan? The Taliban have neither the radar to spot the plane, nor the weaponry to shoot it down.

The lines of the drone clearly indicate a stealth design slightly reminiscent of the B-2A Spirit bomber, but smaller. Over on Ares, veteran aviation expert Bill Sweetman describes the wingspan as being perhaps eighty feet, and notes "One important detail: the overwing fairings are not B-2-like inlets, but cover some kind of equipment - satcoms on one side, perhaps, and a sensor on the other."


http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/12/mysteries-surround-afghanistans-stealth-drone/


zie ook:


http://www.noahshachtman.com/archives/002598.html


En MR Michael Moore himself:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latest-news/mysteries-surround-afghanistans-stealth-drone

en:


With its low-observable design, the aircraft might be useful for flying the borders of Iran and peering into China, India and Pakistan for useful data about missile tests, telemetry as well as gathering signals and multi-spectral intelligence.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/BEAST120409.xml&headline=USAF%20Confirms%20Stealthy%20UAV%20Operations&channel=defense


en

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3a649e3cf4-8c07-4739-82cf-322c6c56ccd5&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

[VandeWiel]

Er waren de laatste maanden al veel berichten over een "geheime" Stealth UAV die vanaf Kandahar vloog. De vraag was "wat moet je met Stealth bij de Taliban als tegenstander". Er werd onder andere geclaimd dat het was omdat dan enkel de Amerikanen wisten waar hij vloog en niet de Afghaanse luchtleiding die het dan dus ook niet door kon geven. Het lag er dik bovenop dat het voor Iran was, maar Debka komt nu als eerste daadwerkelijk met deze claim:


New unmanned US stealth jet based in Afghanistan gathers data in Iran

US Air Force spokesmen confirmed this week that the hitherto secret unmanned, high-altitude stealth jet, the "Beast of Kandahar," was present at the big US air base of Bagram, in Afghanistan. Photos of the Beast on the Bagram tarmac - outside its regular base at Kandahar near the Iranian and Pakistani borders - appeared in various Internet sites this week.

Designated RQ-170 Sentinel, it is the first jet drone ever developed for military use. France's EURO Demonstrator is a similar project which will be ready for test flights only in another two years.

Little is known about the Sentinel, which was manufactured by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Program. USAF spokesmen disclosed only that its new deployment responded to secretary of defense Robert Gates' request for increased intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support for combatant commanders in Afghanistan.

According to DEBKAfile's military and intelligence sources, Washington had a reason for letting the Beast surface at this time in the form of a published photograph and a note about its ability to fly over the borders of Iran, China, India and Pakistan for collecting "useful data about missile tests, telemetry, signals and multi-spectral intelligence. The disclosure came on the heels of Iran's big air defense exercise for guarding its nuclear sites which ended in the third week of November; it appears to be a message to Tehran that all its war games, especially in intelligence and electronic warfare, were pointless since its skies are wide open to American drone activity against which Iran has no recourse.
Some of the Web sites, including the veteran Aviation Week, speculate about the Sentinel's configuration and features from the published image, describing it as "a tailless flying wing design" with sensor pods built into the upper surface of each wing.

Its designation denotes an unarmed drone rather than the armed Predator UAV which has been used to fire missiles at terrorist sites on the Pakistan-Afghan border. But this assumption is open to question in view of the impression of "a deep, fat center-body" which could house a bomb or missile bay.

Furthermore, its is painted medium grey like the Predator or Reaper, rather than the dark gray or overall black that would provide better concealment at high altitudes.

Both these features suggest the mysterious Beast of Kandahar may have secret functions other than pure reconnaissance.


http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6409