Iran claims it can now make a copy of CIA spy drone captured last year

This photo released on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards claims to show a U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel drone which Tehran says its forces downed earlier that week. / AP Photo/Sepahnews

TEHRAN, Iran A senior Iranian lawmaker says Tehran can now manufacture a copy of an advanced CIA spy drone captured last year.

Avaz Heidarpour, who sits on parliament's national security committee, says experts have reverse-engineered the RQ-170 Sentinel craft and Iran now is capable of launching a production line for the unmanned aircraft.

His remarks were posted on the parliament's website, icana.ir, on Wednesday.

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Iranian officials frequently announce technological and military breakthroughs, most of which are impossible to confirm independently.

Heidarpour's comment comes two days after Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it decoded all data from the drone that went down in December 2011 near Iran's eastern border with Afghanistan.

Last week, the Guard claimed it captured another U.S. drone after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf.

[humanrights115]

Spinner-or-loser. You sound like the guy from the movie. Is that you?

[humanrights115]

This short report on cnn, shows the plans of the radical islam for london. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mlxMndnlzw

[humanrights115]

The Radical Islam is the biggest threat! Here it comes to europe. We must fight it.

[techcnc1a]

So what if they can "crudely" copy the physical air-frame design and control hardware? It's the software that's nearly impossible to extract from non-working "crashed" electronics. Probably strongly encrypted, running on proprietary computer architecture. Once this system loses power and turns off, it ain't coming back up that easily. Think about this, the best spook software engineers in the business had their hands in this. Even if this drone was recovered in perfect condition, what good is it, without the support systems and receivers on the other end? Think Geico Cavemen trying to reverse-engineer the Space Shuttle. Not gonna happen.

[Stopfmg]

What did you expect?

[Morvin]

The only reason they're capturing these in tact is because they were designed to be captured that way. The onboard computers are likely loaded with trojans and virus and the hardware is likely built to look real but is in fact useless junk. Now the Iranians will waste years trying to copy them, only to find their systems infected and their reverse-engineering yielding non-functioning duds.

[awenshok]

And after being inflated the copy will float in Ahmadiddleyou's bathtub...he HAS a bathtub, yes?

[patric627]

i'm seeing lots of comments essentially accepting the iranian claim.

quite simply... are you kidding?? whatever they 'can copy' it's probably a model airplane replica version of what they captured.

[USSAmerikan]

Great job, Mr. President!!! Obama was given the option to launch a strike, manned or otherwise, to destroy the drone so we could prevent our technology from being copied by the enemy. According to the New York Times, the Obama administration nixed the attack option because Iran could get upset and consider it an act of war... Instead, Obama asked if they would be nice enough to return it. Idiot! Now our closely guarded "secrets" can be used by the enemy... Imagine, if you will, a drone that cannot be detected by radar. Brilliant!!!! http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-12-13/Iran-Obama-drone/51855044/1

[sweetcakesmaria]

First of all, our technology had no business flying over Iran's airspace. How would we like it if they flew drones over our airspace? Secondly, when Gary Powers got shot down over Russia back in the 60's, no one suggested we attack the Russians to get our spy pilot back because that would have certainly sparked a war. USSAMERIKAN is suggesting that we should have invaded a soverign nation, Iran, possibly sparking a larger conflict simply because they were able to make us look bad by thwarting our efforts to spy on them. That is the very reason why so many smaller countries are looking to arm themselves with nuclear weapons just so that they can avoid being bullied by larger countries.

[IPonUall2]

They are either liars or have Chinese,Russian or NK help in building one.
I look forward to theirs to take the air so we in turn can fly it home.