Did Iran Capture An Intact Drone?

[SkyPup]

I've been following this story for a few days now and wondering what to make of it. At first there was speculation the Iranians had faked the whole thing, but the photos are convincing and the aircraft looks largely intact. This is shaping up to be a very big loss for the US. I'm surprised the aircraft didn't have an inertial guidance system as a backup (instead of jammable GPS) and it didn't have a self-destruct feature.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=8517205&c=AIR&s=TOP

[Jediteo]

They did, quite possibly through signal jamming and hacking the drones navigation system. I agree, quite strange that it did not have a self-destruct. The UAV in question seems to be the RQ-170, a very recent aircraft, and one that has mainly been speculated on.

[BadAim]

With the fucking shitbags we have in our administration, it's not to farfetched to think it was on purpose. Just sayin'.

Nothing surprises me any more. Nothing.

[Jabo]

I see the US Government have asked politely for their plane back. Unsurprisingly Iran said no. Apparently Iran's military scientists were downloading the mission records. This could get awkward.

Jabo

[SkyPup]

I doubt Iran is much of a threat, but you can be sure the Big Boys (Russia/China) would love to get their hands on this thing and probably already have. Let's just hope the RQ-170's software/firmware had some sort of anti--tamper measures built in.