Monday, December 07, 2009

Mysteries Surround Afghanistan’s Stealth Drone

Courtesy of Wired Online Magazine

beastofkanharar

Earlier this year, blurry pictures were released by the French magazine Air & Cosmos of a previously unknown stealth drone taken at Kandahar in Afghanistan. The photos, snapped in 2007, prompted a wave of speculation about the classified aircraft. That speculation grew even more intense this week, when a blog belonging to the French newspaper Libération released an even better photograph. But while the new picture may answers some questions, it also creates a heap of new mysteries. Chief among them: Why use such a fancy, stealthy aircraft in Afghanistan? The Taliban have neither the radar to spot the plane, nor the weaponry to shoot it down.

The lines of the drone clearly indicate a stealth design slightly reminiscent of the B-2A Spirit bomber, but smaller. Over on Ares, veteran aviation expert Bill Sweetman describes the wingspan as being perhaps eighty feet, and notes “One important detail: the overwing fairings are not B-2-like inlets, but cover some kind of equipment - satcoms on one side, perhaps, and a sensor on the other.”

The aircraft, which Bill has dubbed the Beast of Kandahar, is widely believed to be a product of Lockheed’s celebrated Skunk Works, home of the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter. The Beast bears some resemblance to the Skunk Works’ Polecat drone, revealed in 2006. This was a private venture, costing some $27 million of Lockheed’s own money, designed to operate stealthily at high altitude and at supersonic speed. However, the Beast is not Polecat, as one look at the exhaust will indicate.

The Beast has also been identified with the covert Desert Prowler program, identified by black ops spotter Trevor Paglen. The Desert Prowler’s patches include the phrases “alone and unafraid” and “alone and on the prowl” as well as the figure of a wraith taken from an album cover by Insane Clown Posse. The wraith is said to represent the Grim Reaper…peculiar as it may seem, Paglen has shown that a remarkable amount of information can be gleaned from Black Ops patches and has written a book on the subject.

Meanwhile, there is considerable speculation on the Secret Projects Forum about technical aspects of the Beast, including attempts to calculate its exact size. The landing gear may have been borrowed from another aircraft, a common practice in drone circles to keep costs down. If the gear could be identified, it might say a lot about the size and weight of the Beast.

However, having established that there really is a stealthy U.S. drone operating out of Kandahar, the big question is what is it doing there? The Taliban do not have radar, so why deploy an expensive, stealthy done when conventional models like the Predator and Reaper work so well? And what’s the point of having a high-level, strategic craft in that theater?

There has of course been plenty of speculation. Much of it is focused on the idea that while it is based in Kandahar, the Beast may be carrying out missions outside of Afghanistan, with Iran and Pakistan both being possible candidates. For both of those radar stealth could be an important asset, and the beast may be carrying out signals-intercept or other tasks (looking for traces of nuclear material?).

This might make more sense than local operations: why risk an expensive, scarce black drone and run the chance of it being uncovered if you can do the job with other aircraft. On the other hand, if the Beast is a top-secret craft on a top-secret mission, why leave it out where it can be photographed?

One note of caution: the provenance of the photograph is not known, and it was published “without guarantee of origin.” So it might be some deliberate disinformation to put black plane-spotters off the scent of the real Beast.

UPDATE: Well whadya know. The Air Force has confirmed the Beast’s existence to Aviation Week. Officially, it’s an RQ-170 Sentinel, developed by Lockheed and flown by the flown by the 30th Reconnaissance Squadron at Tonopah Test Range, Nev.

Photo: Secret Défense

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