US Air Force confirms 'Beast of Kandahar' drone

Tue Dec 8, 4:28 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Air Force on Tuesday confirmed for the first time that it is flying a stealth unmanned aircraft known as the "Beast of Kandahar," a drone spotted in photos and shrouded in secrecy.

The RQ-170 Sentinel is being developed by Lockheed Martin and is designed "to provide reconnaissance and surveillance support to forward deployed combat forces," the air force said in a brief statement.




The new drone is flown by the 30th Reconnaissance Squadron out of Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, which is under Air Combat Command's 432nd Wing at Creech Air Base, also in Nevada.

Over the last two weeks, an increasingly steady stream of grainy images have appeared on the internet of a strange, sleek new aircraft spotted in the skies above the war-torn country.

Oklahoma State University's associate professor of Aerospace engineering Dr Jamie D. Jacob says "It is jet-powered - probably twin turbojet or low bypass ratio turbofan engines - so it'll be faster and more manoeuvrable than a comparable Predator vehicle and have the ability to fly higher"
This may mean then that Afghanistan is being used as a base of operations to fly covert surveillance missions over Iran, who do have radar based ground-to-air missiles

The topic already exists:

There is a new pic. Check it out.

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