US Air Force confirms 'Beast of Kandahar' drone

[The Straight Story]

US Air Force confirms 'Beast of Kandahar' drone

WASHINGTON (AFP) – 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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091208/pl_afp/usaviationmilitarydrones

[AllentownJake]

1. The Taliban has radar?

Who knew!

[TheWraith]

3. They're probably running it there for shakedown purposes.

"Real world" testing, even if not against a hostile radar system, can be vital to seeing whether an engineering project is going to be capable of performing in actual service.

[AllentownJake]

4. My guess is it is flying over Pakistan once they confirm it works nt.

[951-Riverside]

5. Iraq/Aghanistan is likely the new Area 51 n/t

[Robb]

7. Heh. Makes sense, actually.

I'll be damned if I'm heading over there with a lawn chair for any planespotting.

[vadawg]

9. yup nothing like using a combat zone to field test equipment

its there that the stuff thats gonna fail is gonna fail...

[TheWraith]

12. I bet a lot of guys wished they'd done that with the original M16 rifles. nt

[vadawg]

14. yup i was involved with the first combat trials of a new system and it stunk

nothing worse than having mags drop out when you run, or continual stoppages, or worse whole sight units just dropping off..

[formercia]

15. How come we never have time to do it right the first time?

but we always have enough time to do it over when it fails?

[vadawg]

16. unfortunately what works well in design and in practice sometimes just dosent work on the field of

combat, what designer is ever going to think that the rifle hes designing will have to be able to survive a 40 foot drop and still function, when you are on the field shit comes up and happens that no one was expecting. Then they redisgn the system and next time out something else goes wrong....

[formercia]

19. I worked at a facility that developed tools for EOD.

They have to work the first time, all the time.

[NightWatcher]

2. why a recon drone over Afghanistan?

from someone's blog:

Exactly what is the UAV's mission in Afghanistan? The Taliban and Al Qaida don't have radars or an integrated air defense system (IADS), so there's no real requirement for a stealthy drone in that campaign. On the other hand, a very low-observable, high endurance UAV would be ideally-suited for keeping tabs on nuclear facilities in neighboring Iran or Pakistan.

http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2009/05/beast-of-kandahar.html

[tekisui]

6. That is what it is all about. Monitoring Pakistan and possibly Iran.

I think that is why we are dumping troops there. It has nothing to do with Afghanistan. Afghanistan is just where our bases are.

The surge in troops and weaponry could trigger a series of events that lead us, quite naturally, into an escalated conflict in Pakistan.

[juno jones]

8. Why do I keep having the words

'Domino Theory' and 'Laos' come to mind?

Our prescence is meant to destabilize the region. I think the dems are walking into Gates's little miltary finger trap. Soon we will never be able to extricate ourselves, because we will have multple fronts, some of whom own some pretty big guns.

[phasma ex machina]

10. +1 For the moment most stories in Roggio's Long War Journal concern Pak incidents.

Artist concept of The Beast:




Alleged photo of The Beast:

[thereismore]

11. picture

[Forkboy]

13. Looks like a baby Hedorah.

Careful, they grow up to be the Smog Monster, and Godzilla is in retirement so we'd be fucked.

[The Straight Story]

17. Looks like a new model of hummer

A smog monster in it's own right ;)

[Forkboy]

18. LOL

Good one! :toast: