Pentagon should get some lessons in stealth technology from ParcelForce delivery vans. They always manage to call at my house, and even ring the doorbell, without me noticing.

Has he fronted up with the £££ yet?:hmm:

Hmm. On this occasion, SAM is not talking complete rubbish. I can't vouch for the assumptions about what equipment has been supplied, but the physics of the radar systems of that age are probably about right. Just this once, assume that SAM knows something about SAM Radar.

And his point about radar reflections from closed u/c doos carries weight too.

Hate to be a party pooper. Am I going to get stoned now? And I don't mean in a nice way.

He is talking about a SAM operator.

Unless I am much mistaken, which is perfectly possible since I know nothing whatsoever about the subject, somebody needs to first find the target to hand to the SAM operator for the killing of the target.

Some kind of wide area radar surveillance needs to first realise that there is a target up there.

Otherwise how does the SAM bloke know roughly where to look?

Those guys might have rather different radars/ interest in undercarriage door shapes.

Since the other stealth aircraft have these doors, we must assume they have a reason. Yes, the drone is a lot smaller than a B2, but it is not that small, and boy is it noisy.

I may have some experience in this area!:ok:

Seems like the US military is unofficially stating that Iran has the drone....

Tourist. Yes. I don't argue with any of that.

JTO, sorry. Didn't know where you were coming from.

A Bloodhound Operator, huh? Here you go in layman's terms on sawtooth edges then...

If I may add my 2 cents...
 

.. whilst not wishing show all of my cards, my own experience tells me that SAM's contributions are, in part at least, convincing and credible.

Perhaps of greater importance, we might reflect on the credibilty of the august Sunday Times... IMHO a rag with a shoddy history of erroneous, ill-conceived and poorly reasearched aviation-related "scoops." TP

:ok:

Ouch!!!:D

some interesting stuff in todays Iranian propaganda release
You have to try and find the truth from within the rhetoric, but the suggestion of the location, and the number of alleged previous downings is interesting
As also is now the claim that it was shot down - previously they were only claiming some kind of cyber warfare was involved

Fars News Agency :: Iran Warns of Wider Response to US Spy Missions

"
Iran Warns of Wider Response to US Spy Missions
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran's response to US spy drones will not be limited to the country's borders, a military source said after Iranian armed forces shot down another US spy drone yesterday.

Given the flagrant violation of our country's borders, the electronic and operational actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Armed Forces against the enemy planes will not be limited to the country's borders," an Iranian official told FNA.
The official had also informed FNA on Sunday afternoon that the country's forces had downed a US RQ-170 Sentinel drone over the Eastern parts of the country.
"An advanced RQ-170 unmanned American spy plane was shot down by Iran's armed forces. It suffered minor damage and is now in possession of Iran's Armed Forces," a military official told FNA on Sunday.
In similar remarks, military sources told Iran's Arabic language Al Alam television that Tehran will intensify its response to the United States' spying operations.
"The Iranian military's response to the American spy drone's violation of our airspace will not be limited to Iran's borders any more," a military source told Al Alam, without giving details.
After a day of silence, both Pentagon and NATO officials acknowledged the shooting down of their Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in eastern Iran, alleging that the aircraft with a mission to fly over western Afghanistan had gone astray.
The drone had been downed with help from the Iranian military's electronic warfare unit.

The military official warned of a strong and crushing response to any violations of the country's airspace by American drone aircraft.
RQ-170 Sentinel is made by Lockheed Martin and is used for highly important, top secret missions. The UAV was used to keep watch on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan as the raid that killed him was taking place earlier this year.
The surveillance aircraft is equipped with stealth technology, but the US Air Force has not made public any specifics about the drone.
Iran has shot done over a dozen US drones during the last few years.
In January, Iranian forces shot down two pilotless US spy planes over the country's airspace, and after Washington denied the shooting down of its drones, Tehran offered to put them on public display.
In July, Iranian military officials showed Russian experts several US drones shot down in Iran in recent years.
Also in July, Iranian lawmaker Ali Aghazadeh Dafsari said Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) had shot down an unmanned US spy drone that was trying to gather information on an underground uranium enrichment site.
Dafsari said the drone was flying over the Fordo facility near the holy city of Qom in central Iran.
Iranian military official first announced in February 2005 that the United States had been flying surveillance drones over its airspace to spy on its nuclear and military facilities. "

I like this one, made me laugh. Can anyone guess as to why? :cool:

What's interesting about all of this friction between Iran and the US is that in the first two to three years of Operation Enduring Freedom (US in Afghanistan) we found ways to work with the Iranians due to some of their concerns in re Afghanistan, and in particular the western sectors of Afghanistan.

What appears to have happened is a drone in Western Afghanistan went wrong, or lost comms linkage to its controlling station and wandered off into the wrong airspace. (Alternately, might have been a deliberate "short change in course to take a peak at something in Iran" of course. Hard to say). So it was shot down, which, were I Iran's Air Defense Authority, I'd do as well.

Their airspace ... it's a fair cop.

You do know how big a '170 is, don't you?

The one I saw was about 30-40ft wingspan - just a bit bigger in span than a Hawk I'd say, but an awful lot shorter!

Hardly "little" that's for sure!:=

It's not the size that matters (honestly) its the RCS. And if you peek around layered ADS you will see how things are handed off from one to another. Totally different than engagement (there it is shoot) end game radar. Then on to do we have the right type of pointy thing with the right acquisition thing to get close enough to do anything. Back to layered defence.

Back to sleep.

Au contraire, fltlt, size does matter. Stealth measures reduce RCS, so if you have a B747 sized target and apply Stealth techniques you might end up with a Tornado sized RCS (ie. Still pretty frickin' huge), but if you take a Tornado sized target and apply Stealth techniques you might end up with a golf-ball sized RCS(ie. Pretty frickin' small) - so size is applicable with stealth.

Looking at RQ-170 I see a compromise over minor stealth tweaks, economical concerns (full stealth is frickin' expensive and labour intensive) and aerodynamic performance (that looks like a high lift wing with very little stealth). I agree with others on here that RQ-170 is not a full stealth platform design like B2, F117 or F22.

LJ

Well aware RCS is what counts.

Flying wings are also rather fuel efficient - '170 has few (obvious) stealth features but I'd wager (sportsman's, not cash) that it's a damn economical, and thus enduring, piece of kit.

Willard, my thoughts exactly - hence my comments on compromise :ok:

I think we thought and posted the very same within moments of each-other.

LJ Using tech available, size does not matter as much as you think. It is purely a matter of how you present it. At a certain point the void becomes more important than any other. If you know where to look, and you should, the explanation is there. Just takes time to wade through it all. Unfortunately with all the other advances in detection, RCS is becoming a little passe, as to what it takes to do it properly vs desired effect. Folks tend to forget that the effort is to get as close as you can BEFORE being detected in time for the opposition to do anything effectively. No matter how low the rcs is, you WILL be detected, its the standoff vs system min engagement range/reaction time odds you are trying to beat the house on.

From all the noise out there, sounds like some other folks are worried about the gubbins too.