Iran and US Drone, you decide

[IndyBeerman]

I wasn't arguing that a plane couldn't fly level without input. Just that they normally end up a big firey mess, not wholly intact.

United Flight 232 also lost hyd control, and managed to even get on a decent glide path with an actual runway and that didn't end well either.

This is without any doubt in my mind the very first time that any aircraft has successfully landed without any human control, fully autonomously. Even when we do "auto-pilot" landings, the location of the landing is still controlled.

For a plane to pick out its own landing site, and successfully land goes way beyond any kind of conventional technology we currently employ.

Kudos to us for developing such sophisticated software.

If memory serves me right, after the turbine disintegrated and and the turbine blades cut the hydraulic lines, did'nt the pilot and co-pilot control the planes limited yaw with left and right engine control, only to close enough and cart wheel on landing.

It was a miracle that the casualties was as low as it was when it broke apart.

 

[singlestacksig]

If memory serves me right, after the turbine disintegrated and and the turbine blades cut the hydraulic lines, did'nt the pilot and co-pilot control the planes limited yaw with left and right engine control, only to close enough and cart wheel on landing.

It was a miracle that the casualties was as low as it was when it broke apart.

pilot, co pilot & 3 or 4 others fought very hard to keep that plane flying..
it was amazing that they even got to a runway at all..
people were not able to do it again in a simulator.. but 2 fed ex guys did do it in Iraq a few years ago..

 

[gunbunny]

UA 232 could only make left turns, but it ultimately wasn't their turning ability that botched the landing - circumstances dictated that they had to land hard, and a wingtip drifted low enough to contact the runway. If there had been a little less momentum, the wing might not have made contact and the cartwheel shown round the world might not have happened.

(It would have been nice to have had the casualties number a few less - I keep a piece of the Sioux City runway on my desk.)

One KEY thing was communication - discussion was very direct and open in the 232 cockpit, and in contrast, look at the errors in the recent Air France crash. In AF447, the voice recorder transcripts indicate the pilots didn't communicate their strategy with each other and they didn't clearly identify the specific issues that were occurring. If they had, the Atlantic might have gained one less high-tech artificial reef.

The drone I saw in person a couple of years ago was the size of a mobile home. If it's going to self-park, I'd want it to be very, very good at selecting "safe" locations. Should it abort a landing if it identifies a rabbit in its path? Dog? Child? Can it do so?

 

[indykid]

The idea that a pilot in a recon aircraft would do better than these drones because the pilot would never let the plane get captured was disproven a long time ago during the cold war. Remember Francis Powers and the U2 that he should have hit the self destruct, but didn't.

As for the A7 that slammed into the Remada, I was in that bank just a couple of minutes before the crash. Saw the smoke from the highway and was shocked when I got back to work and found out what happened.

 

[IndyBeerman]

UA 232 could only make left turns, but it ultimately wasn't their turning ability that botched the landing - circumstances dictated that they had to land hard, and a wingtip drifted low enough to contact the runway. If there had been a little less momentum, the wing might not have made contact and the cartwheel shown round the world might not have happened.

Nope, it made mostly a right hand turn event over the almost 300 miles with 1 legit left turn.

No flaps and was running in at 240+knots on approach, if they would have been coming in slower, I don't think they would have even made it that close.

A lot of things happened that day for that many people t0 live and tell about it. The good Lord was mighty busy during that particular time frame.

Enough Thread Jacking, I still think that if this is the the real McCoy that they really have, it was intended for them to get it with a mighty Trojan Virus to generate a back door for us into their networks.

 

[KG1]

Enough Thread Jacking, I still think that if this is the the real McCoy that they really have, it was intended for them to get it with a mighty Trojan Virus to generate a back door for us into their networks.

This is an interesting theory and would explain why the drone is still intact.

The CIA could still of had control of it and landed it safely over the border with the intent of Iran capturing it. Then they could just claim that they lost control and communication with it and it somehow landed autonamously without damaging itself.

Of course that's all purely speculation on my part. Mainly because i'm not in the CIA and privy to such information.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

That A-7 that crashed missed runway 315 because he came in to darn hot and was trying to come back around to 225L when he decided it was not going to make it and ejected after he pointed it at a "supposed" empty field.

Instead when he ejected it veered clipped the roof of what I think was a AFNB Bank and them hit and slid into the lobby.

It was a fluke it crashed like that.

If it would have cleared the Ramada, it would hit right right where my wife used to work at in the building EDS used to lease.

That worthless Major should have buried that A-7 and himself in the field rather that harm innocent people.

After all he tried to continuously re-fire the engine from the Greenwood area until IIA.

Call it capriciousness; call it Fate. While I was stationed in Washington State, an F-106 at next-door McChord AFB lunched an engine on takeoff and the pilot ejected. The aircraft lawn-darted itself in an apartment building retention pond. The explosion and fire ruined 4 apartments but no one was injured or killed. Twenty years previously, an engine failure caused a military aircraft to take out about 3 city blocks in Tacoma. The locals were still talking about it. When a helicopter loses an engine, you can pretty much point straight down to where it will end up, whether it crashes or lands safely via autorotation. With a fixed-wing, it all depends on what's wrong and what aerodynamic forces are acting on the lifting surfaces. While ATO can point to Flt 282 at Sioux City Iowa, I can point to the airliner which made a successful ditch into the Hudson River after an all-out engine failure at low altitude. Both of those incidents, in my view, were outstanding examples of crew coordination and aircraft handling under dire circumstances, despite the differences in their outcomes. To IndyBeerMan, well, I don't know what to say about your opinion of what the AF pilot should have done. I'd say he stayed with the aircraft longer than he should have before he punched out, but he did the best he could to salvage the situation. I'm not prepared to say he should have sacrificed his life, but I wasn't there and, having suffered a couple inflight emergencies of my own over the years when I was flying, I suppose I might have a different view of things than you do.

 

[dukeboy_318]

This is an interesting theory and would explain why the drone is still intact.

The CIA could still of had control of it and landed it safely over the border with the intent of Iran capturing it. Then they could just claim that they lost control and communication with it and it somehow landed autonamously without damaging itself.

Of course that's all purely speculation on my part. Mainly because i'm not in the CIA and privy to such information.

Part of me has wondered this since it happened. Anyone remember that JAG episode where they planted a virus in a F14 and got into Iran hands or something like that. Possibly, this could be a real life case of that. OR Mr. O is just too chicken to stand up and do what should be done. Course option 3 is that it is Mr. O's way of finding an excuse to go to war with Iran, either way, this cost us taxpayers who knows how many millions

 

[Sylvain]

Questions surround captured U.S. spy plane

 

[Blackhawk2001]

The idea that a pilot in a recon aircraft would do better than these drones because the pilot would never let the plane get captured was disproven a long time ago during the cold war. Remember Francis Powers and the U2 that he should have hit the self destruct, but didn't.

As for the A7 that slammed into the Remada, I was in that bank just a couple of minutes before the crash. Saw the smoke from the highway and was shocked when I got back to work and found out what happened.

I can't recall anyone on this thread saying a pilot in a recon aircraft would never let the plane be captured. What I, specifically, said, was that a human pilot is able to respond to unanticipated circumstances better than a computer-guided aircraft - at least for now. Any aircraft which relies on computers for its control, however - whether manned or not - is subject to hacking, jamming, and other electronic counter-measures that can render it uncontrollable without manual-link backups.

 

[KG1]

According to an Iranian engineer they hijacked the US drone and caused it to land in Iran.

In an exclusive interview, an engineer working to unlock the secrets of the captured RQ-170 Sentinel says they exploited a known vulnerability and tricked the US drone into landing in Iran.

Exclusive: Iran hijacked US drone, says Iranian engineer - CSMonitor.com

 

[ATOMonkey]

All people from the middle east are professional liars. They'll say anything if they think you want to hear it, or that it will increase their status some how.

I give it 50/50 whether it's true or not.

The CIA has released statements that it IS our plane and that we want it back, but we're pretty good liars too.

I want to revise my original speculation.

I now believe this to be a Decepticon. It's only a matter of time before they organize and launch an attack against man-kind.

 

[caverjamie]

According to an Iranian engineer they hijacked the US drone and caused it to land in Iran.



Exclusive: Iran hijacked US drone, says Iranian engineer - CSMonitor.com

That article sure makes it sound like that guy knows what he is talking about. Either way, our government admitted that the drone was doing recon over Iran - so if we're admitting we were doing something illegal, why the HECK didn't we blow the thing up if we knew where it was. How much worse is an air strike on the drone? What a waste of money... Isn't this supposed to be why we spend billions on defense programs, so people can't do this to our equipment - or hell, at least put a friggin self destruct code in the thing, you have to be kidding me!

 

[dukeboy_318]

whos to say it doesn't have a self destruct feature and its designed to go off in the middle of them tearing it apart for intel?

 

[caverjamie]

whos to say it doesn't have a self destruct feature and its designed to go off in the middle of them tearing it apart for intel?

I don't think so, but you may be right. If the president didn't want to escalate things by blowing it up, I suspect they didn't want an "armed" drone within Iran. A booby-trap exploding and killing Iranians could probably be considered an act of war.

I'm just a dumb citizen - but unless something is going on here that we're not being told - it seems to me like the obvious course of action would have been to send an air strike and blow the thing up, then deny everything. Take home lesson...stop flying our expensive stealth drones into countries that can (possibly) disable them. At least until we are actually at war with them.

 

[ATOMonkey]

Little planes like that don't have the weight or space available for a "self destruct" device.

Aero engineering is all about putting 10 pounds of **** into a 5 lb bag.

There may be some kind of "self destruct" in the computer, but even then, I assume sections of data will still be recoverable.