Did Iran literally hijack a US stealth drone?

[grimey]

GPS is a radio transmission on known frequencies. It can sure as hell be jammed.

[2R]

If the panels are not removed in the correct sequence the ninja nanobots are authorised to use deadly force

[Expat]

Life here in Asia is getting really complicated.
The Great Game is as great as ever. The US, we all know is using bases near the Iran border to spy on them, and hopefully map the targets.
They are claiming Pakistan is their ally in the war on terror. They also spy on them, and even attack them almost daily, at night. So much for an ally!
On the other hand, they keep supplying weapons to Pakistan, to the tune of billions per year. The reason? Pakistan is closer to China diplomatically, in its war against India. They would be willing to start acquiring Chinese weapons, if the US did not maintain them as an "Ally".

By closing their border last week, to NATO resupply convoys, Pakistan is using the attack as a pretext, but there may be more to it. Both India and China are interested to see Pakistan dropped from the friend of the USA list. There could be some influence there. Also Russia and ex-soviet republics stand to gain by the US needing the Northern Supply Route. Strange???
Hillary spent 3 days in Uzbekistan last month!!!
Strange that today Russia got all of a sudden admited in the WTO. Strange???
How I love the Great Game!

[Spokes]

WAAS is a civilian GPS and doesnt extend over afghanistan. GPS signals are too complicated to even block let alone mimic

A system equivalent to WAAS specifically designed for the UAV can easily be created and used to auto land a UAV. Correction signals would typically be sent through a data link. The data link would also include all other commands, so I am not sure how you could jam the data link, yet still get GPS correction signals into the UAV. I do not of course know exactly how this particularly UAV implements such a system (or even if it does), I just know it is possible.

GPS signals themselves are very low power and can easily be jammed. However doing so would be counter productive in a situation where you wanted to fool the UAV to land someplace else. To fool the thing, you would need detailed and specific knowledge of how the GPS corrections are encoded onto the data link, then you would have to somehow create your own data link signal, and transmit it to the UAV at a somewhat higher power than it would receive from its true controlling station. This is all very difficult. I am very suspicious of the claim of fooling the GPS.

[Spokes]

Life here in Asia is getting really complicated.
The Great Game is as great as ever. The US, we all know is using bases near the Iran border to spy on them, and hopefully map the targets.
They are claiming Pakistan is their ally in the war on terror. They also spy on them, and even attack them almost daily, at night. So much for an ally!
On the other hand, they keep supplying weapons to Pakistan, to the tune of billions per year. The reason? Pakistan is closer to China diplomatically, in its war against India. They would be willing to start acquiring Chinese weapons, if the US did not maintain them as an "Ally".
...

A couple things, Keeping a close eye on them would not be unusual. I'd be surprised if the US didn't do this with everyone. In any case, I would expect there very likely are elements within Pakistan not friendly to the US, even if the Government authority considers itself to be an ally to the US.

AFAIK, the attack that killed several (24? can't remember) was a tragic case of mistaken identity, on both sides if I remember correctly. Daily at night? I'm guessing you mean every night. I have not heard this- can you enlighten me on where this info comes from. Not that I don't believe you- I simply haven't heard it before.

And I think it is billion, singular, not billions. But that is just something I heard on the news, and have not looked up specifically.

[azimuthaviation]

yes GPS has a very small signal, the satellites transmit 50W so a reciever will only pick up less than a microwatt from each satellite. If it was easy to block their signal with just typical jamming techniques all one would need to do is transmit any signal at that frequency at several kilowatts from a tower and that would drown out the other signals for hundreds of miles, but the receivers can pick out the correct codes from within the noise.

The latest is that they did manage to jam the gps signal and it defaults into autopilot and eventually lands itself. I guess thats plausible, not too sophisticated, but theyre not exactly up against brilliant strategists themselves, this aint your daddys usa

[Hawkerflyer]

Just a thought, if Iran did reprogram the GPS and a future war were to break out, would US cruise missiles/GPS ordinance be rendered useless? In fact, Iran could just send them back. If this was the case I'm sure the US is pissing their pants!
I do find it hard to believe this story, that drone is very small and stealthy. At 50,000' how the hell would they be able to do that? A malfunction and the pilots hesitation/decision not to destroy it sounds more in line. I would love to actually hear what really happened but god knows we will never find out the truth on this one.

[Spokes]

Jamming a GPS will not likely cause a UAV to "default to auto pilot and land" There will be many backup navigation systems. The one I fly has seven different nav systems, half of them do not involve GPS. The people that design and build these machines are a lot smarter than you are giving them credit for.

What I suspect happened is the thing simply had an engine failure and glided to a landing. That would explain the relatively intact nature of what they displayed. (assuming they actually have an intact machine, and what you are seeing is not a mockup created from wreckage of a crash). I have seen UAV's land after an engine failure and live to fly again another day.

[JDW]

What I suspect happened is the thing simply had an engine failure and glided to a landing. That would explain the relatively intact nature of what they displayed.

Exactly, one of many failures could have thrown the thing into a flat spin or a falling leaf mode where it could come out in nearly one piece. Also seems to fit with the bit of damage on the left wing and the fact that the bottom of the thing is covered up....just a thought

Another interesting point from wikipedia: "The design lacks several elements common to stealth engineering, namely notched landing gear doors and sharp leading edges. It has a curved wing planform, and the exhaust is not shielded by the wing.[10] Aviation Week postulates that these elements suggest the designers have avoided 'highly sensitive technologies' due to the near certainty of eventual operational loss inherent with a single engine design and a desire to avoid the risk of compromising leading edge technology."
If you're flying something single engine, by remote, over hostile territory loss has to be factored in......unless its got an f135 for power, i hear those things cant fail

[azimuthaviation]

The one I fly has seven different nav systems, half of them do not involve GPS.

Maybe Iran anticipated it was using its ground based nav systems as a backup and turned them off. Or maybe it also has an inertial system onboard as a backup, but only the americans and iranians know for sure. and maybe the chinese by now. Either way im pretty skeptical about either sides claims but starting to think that it was brought down by some sort of hostile interception. If it crashed during a spin or engine failure why was the landing gear down? I have to assume that it wasnt displayed with the gear down because they were too mangled during the crash/landing and not protected within the wheel wells as would be expected in such an event. or the iranians couldnt come up with a believable mock up of a uav landing gear system. who knows?

[Spokes]

I think a gliding landing is a more likely scenario, than some kind of flat spin/crash type thing with an engine failure. As for landing gear, it is not inconceivable that landing gear could be programmed to come down on its own in an engine failure. I have once seen a UAV land on its own with an engine failure, where only a bit of a berm on the rollout caused some damage, on what otherwise would have been a perfect landing and rollout in the rhubarb. Also, Turning off ground based navigation aids would not really be a big issue to deal with.

Like you said, I doubt we will ever know, but I suspect that the Iranians got luck and found this machine on the ground after an engine failure, and a kind of semi-successful gliding landing in the desert someplace. Probably not to far from some kind of civilization. It's a lot simpler, and the whole hack the GPS story just doesn't seem plausible to me.

[Beefitarian]

Well they're sending it back. Not really...

http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/01/29 ... =229298368

[imarai]

At it's best, speculating is speculative.

I can't prove it, but I think conspiracy theories are a conspiracy.