US RQ-170 Drone on track to be cloned as IRGC announce “code is cracked”

Iran successfully decoded the captured US Drone RQ- 170, and now ready to Clone it
Jafria News – 26 April, 2012

JNN 23 Apil 2012 Tehran : Iran has begun building a copy of the US surveillance drone spy drone RQ 170 it captured last year,after breaking its encryption codes, the commander of the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps announced on Saturday, Iranian Mehr news agency reported.

Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh who was speaking on the anniversary of the establishment of the IRGC also said experts are receiving information from the captured spy plane, and revealed what he said were “codes” gleaned from the unmanned aircraft.

“The Americans should be aware to what extent we have infiltrated the plane,” General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, military aerospace chief said.

“I am giving you four codes so the Americans understand just how far we have gone in penetrating the drone’s secrets,” he told state television.

“In October 2010, the aircraft was sent to California for some technical issues, where it was repaired and after flight tests, it was taken to Kandahar (in Afghanistan) in November 2010, when a series of technical problems still prevailed,” he said.

“In December 2010, it was sent to an airport near Los Angeles for repair of its equipment and sensors, and flight tests. The drone was then sent back to Kandahar,” he said.

Hajizadeh did not give further details, saying: “This aircraft is a national treasure for us, and I cannot divulge information about it.”

But he added Iran has “started producing a copy of the RQ-170 drone,” stressing it used the same US technology in stealth fighters and bombers.

He said that Iran had managed to hack the controls of the drone, thus enabling the Iranians to reverse-engineer the aircraft to make its own copy.

The RQ-170 Sentinel was shown on Iranian state television last December.

The unmanned, bat-winged RQ-170 Sentinel drone went down in Iran four months ago, and Iran’s gleeful military proudly displayed it on state television apparently intact. …more