Leaked documents expose top secret Israeli drone

TomcatViP said:
See my pm today. A field unit would need only that kind of robots to keep the RCS within operational constraints.
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They would need an RCS range to measure and validate the baseline signature first as part of the development of the aircraft. Then a diagnostic imaging radar would capture what a "pristine" configuration looks like, and operational units would use the imaging radar to validate the LO integrity against that pristine baseline image after maintenance

Diagnostic imaging radars are not really useful at the development stage. Outdoor (far field) RCS ranges are critical during development.
 
TomcatViP said:
What we see is clearly an operational base!
Seems we have here a misunderstanding. ;)
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I don’t see the misunderstanding.

My original question was wether Israel has an outdoor RCS range - which is necessary to develop a stealth aircraft.

In response diagnostic imaging robots were brought into the conversation. Those robots are not a replacement for an RCS range and are not useful for the development process.
 
Alright so we've established it's unlikely they've developed their own. What are the odds on them having bought one off the shelf?
 
MrPhantomMan said:
Alright so we've established it's unlikely they've developed their own. What are the odds on them having bought one off the shelf?
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It would probably be identifiable by NGA then.

quellish said:
My original question was wether Israel has an outdoor RCS range - which is necessary to develop a stealth aircraft.
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How good is a compact range? Could they get something "pretty stealthy" with just testing that way, even if it's not as an outdoor range and in-flight testing?
 
publiusr said:
Could a one way drone perhaps extend its range following a river using WIGE?
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Rivers are crossed by bridges and power lines that a drone cannot avoid if it is not programmed to do so. In my opinion, it is much more effective to fly over railway lines and motorways because they are usually the shortest route.
 
godstar23 said:
I read that post; it was interesting info and why I was looking up more about ranges. The manufacturer seems to be claiming that using the reflector gives you outdoor-quality far-field measurements indoors ("all the benefits of far-field measurements but at a shorter-range length"). I was wondering if that was marketing hype.
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Yeah using reflectors to make a “longer” path isn’t going to lead to a good measurement. With each bounce loss and noise are introduced.
 
There have been few "news reports" of israeli "stealth" drones.

For example this one from a few years ago about the "secretive" "stealth" drone the Israelis were calling "Spork":
breakingdefense.com

Israel’s air force officially receives new, secretive Spark UAV, 'gateway' to 5th gen drones - Breaking Defense

The military revealed little about the new platform, but claims it will “significantly improve” troops’ operational capability.
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com

This report created more speculation about Israeli stealth drones that was repeated on and on.

Earlier this year the "secretive" drone was displayed at trade show. In Saudi Arabia:
www.newarab.com

Israeli drone tested in Gaza 'appears at Saudi Defence Expo'

Orbiter 4 UAV, nicknamed Spark, is part of a top-secret Israeli drone programme dubbed Storm Clouds. It is being tested on the population of Gaza
www.newarab.com www.newarab.com

Not actually looking very stealthy. I'm sure there were some similar stories going around earlier.

And in this most recent case, again, the source here is supposedly the documents leaked from NPIC/NIMA/ZIMA/NGA whatever their name is now, Except, those documents do not say anything about a stealth drone. A surveillance drone, sure. But it was someone on twitter who added the "stealth" part for no reason, and tried to make it look like they were quoting the leaked documents.

And now the "stealth drone" is being reported as fact by various websites and news agencies.

Let's take a step back and look at how the IAF has been maintaining their acknowledged "stealth" aircraft:

Cleaning-F-35-Adir-2-1536x997.jpg

Yup, they're mopping the radar right off that sucker. Or destroying the coating stack and fiber-mat. THAT is a reason to get a diagnostic radar robot.
 
quellish said:
Not actually looking very stealthy. I'm sure there were some similar stories going around earlier.
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"Stealth" is always a matter of degrees, and has always been used/abused in print media. It doesn't take a lot to be tactically useful, though (I know this is an unpopular opinion here haha).

You still see the occasional articles touting the "stealthy" Have Glass treatments, or Rafale's stealthiness.

Just takes one person mentioning the signature is less than might be expected and suddenly a journo hears the opportunity to use the word stealth in his article. Guaranteed click.
 
It shocked me that the Thud didn't have as big a signature as one would imagine.
 
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DWG said:
Historically railways typically followed the route with the least slope, not the shortest.
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What I was trying to say was that railway lines are shorter than the course of rivers, I didn't mean that they were the shortest distance between two places.

That reminds me of an anecdote I read about the layout of the ancient Roman roads. The engineers of the time used donkeys so that the animal's instinct would tell them which were the steepest routes to cross the mountains.:)
 
publiusr said:
I guess they didn’t use the NO STEP stencil fearing the ink’s radar return.
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We laugh, but these things do have a thickness (and a conductivity).

On a slightly thicker scale there was a period when I could feel road markings through a car's suspension, even though we don't normally consider those as having a perceivable depth. Sensitivity matters.
 
Justo Miranda said:
What I was trying to say was that railway lines are shorter than the course of rivers,
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That's not necessarily true, a river thinks nothing of dropping 30m or more in no distance at all, a railway may have to go miles out of its way to avoid that drop and maintain it's ruling gradient (often 1 in 200). And railways are further constrained by permissible radius of curves, which can further restrict the feasibility of a particular path.

And of course if you're flying predictable routes along roads, rivers or railways, you're inviting someone to set up a flak trap or string a few cables, or just to run into existing ones. cf https://www.flightglobal.com/helico...ter-norwegian-near-catastrophe/160477.article TLDR: Norwegian helicopter doing a cable survey ran into someone else's cable, not marked on the maps they were using, that crossed over the cable they were following.
 
DWG said:
That's not necessarily true, a river thinks nothing of dropping 30m or more in no distance at all, a railway may have to go miles out of its way to avoid that drop and maintain it's ruling gradient (often 1 in 200). And railways are further constrained by permissible radius of curves, which can further restrict the feasibility of a particular path.

And of course if you're flying predictable routes along roads, rivers or railways, you're inviting someone to set up a flak trap or string a few cables, or just to run into existing ones. cf https://www.flightglobal.com/helico...ter-norwegian-near-catastrophe/160477.article TLDR: Norwegian helicopter doing a cable survey ran into someone else's cable, not marked on the maps they were using, that crossed over the cable they were following.
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It doesn't matter how predictable it is, it just has to work the first time
 

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Bounce said:
theaviationist.com

Video of Mysterious Drone Allegedly Flying Over Lebanon Sparks Speculation on Secret Israeli RA-01 Stealth UAV

A closer look at the clip of a drone claimed to be Israel’s secretive stealth RA-01 drone. A low-resolution video, likely recorded from a considerable
theaviationist.com theaviationist.com
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Looks like a mini RQ-180 or a ‘ Next Gen’ RQ-170 to me.

The fact that it was filmed in daylight at low altitude does pose a lot of very interesting questions and scenario’s, though. I don’t think the Israeli’s need stealth drones to operate safely above southern Libanon, or anywhere over Libanon for that matter. Seems to fly really low, too. As if they want it to be seen.

If real: I’ve said it before: the only ones the USAF is keeping secrets from are the American tax payers.
 
Q-nimbus said:
Looks like a mini RQ-180 or a ‘ Next Gen’ RQ-170 to me.

The fact that it was filmed in daylight at low altitude does pose a lot of very interesting questions and scenario’s, though. I don’t think the Israeli’s need stealth drones to operate safely above southern Libanon, or anywhere over Libanon for that matter. Seems to fly really low, too. As if they want it to be seen.

If real: I’ve said it before: the only ones the USAF is keeping secrets from are the American tax payers.
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It's troubling that the text of the article clearly shows that the author did not read the "leaked documents" even though he links to them. Instead the article mostly repeats the incorrect information other web sites have published about the documents.

For example:
Rumors about the existence of a classified Israeli drone, supposedly called the RA-01, began to circulate last week following the alleged leak of confidential U.S. documents from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). These documents, now widely shared across social media, claim that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) may operate an advanced stealth UAV fleet capable of long-range missions.
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No, the documents say nothing about an "advanced stealth" UAV.

Some reports indicate that the RA-01 may be housed at Israel’s Ramon Air Base in the Negev Desert, where satellite images reportedly reveal structures possibly dedicated to unique aircraft storage and deployment.
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The documents literally say that the thing was observed at Ramon Air Field. There is no "some reports indicate" it "may be" at that location.

While the leaked documents hint at the RA-01’s possible operational use, including a purportedly close connection to Israel’s preparations for missile defense scenarios, tangible evidence about this drone remains scarce.
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The documents do not indicate any connection between missile or air defense and the UAV.

There is a lot of talk /"news stories" about these documents and their "revelations" written by people who clearly have not read the documents. And it's only 2 pages!
 
GTX said:
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So I think it’s pretty safe to assume the Israeli’s are using American spy drones or at least American tech. I’ll go further and speculate that this is the follow up to the RQ-170 which I’ve long suspected to be operational (simply because the RQ-170 was a pretty crude and hastily put together design - I may be wrong of course).

The picture of the wing taken at the harbor of Haifa however - I’m sceptical. The planform doesn’t match, and it looks more like a horizontal stabilizer for an airliner.

The drone in the video looks a lot more like the Polecat that was stored at Palmdale - different than the picture taken at Haifa.

I believe the smaller spy drones are modular so the wings can be detached so they can be transported to their forward base by airplane. If that isn’t possible, I still don’t think they would ship a secret spy drone via a civilian port.

The size is about correct though, of what we would expect, based on the containers next to it: a wingspan of about 18 meters.

Very interesting nonetheless!

Also, all the above is based on the assumption that the drone in the video is real, which is very much in question. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be a model aircraft made by an enthousiast. I certainly hope that’s not the case though .
 

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TomcatViP said:
Aren´t triangles jet blast area? If the info for recon drones is legit, then 20m span for an axially mounted turbofan makes sense. It would still be twice as big as an RQ-170.
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I've seen such white triangles at former Special Ammunition Storages (SAS) here in Germany, where CH-47 Chinook delivered or picked up nuclear warheads in front of bunkers where they are stored in. Such white triangles are visible from a great distance during the day and illuminated at night so that the helicopters know exactly where to land. So much for the facts. Do these triangles serve a similar purpose?
 
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Thanks for the details. I do not think however that those are the same. As you can see, the triangle apexes are covered by the hangar entry door making them unsuitable for Helicopter operations.
If those were for an aircraft, signaling where to taxy, IMOHO, they would be pointing in the other directions. Here we clearly have those for an aircraft that taxi out of a permanent shelter to hold under this hangar before rejoining the taxiway.
 
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TomcatViP said:
Thanks for the details. I do not think however that those are the same. As you can see, the triangle apexes are covered by the hangar entry door making them unsuitable for Helicopter operations.
If those were for an aircraft, signaling where to taxy, IMOHO, they would be pointing in the other directions. Here we clearly have those for an aircraft that taxi out of a permanent shelter to hold under this hangar before rejoining the taxiway.
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1731517428671.png
Here is an aerial photo of a former SAS in Germany with a white triangle pointing in the direction of the bunker where the helicopters are supposed to land. Such large triangles are not made for taxiing on the ground, you can see lines on Google Maps doing the job, they are made to be seen from high above.
1731517692994.png
The large white triangles seem to say: "Deliver right here" but what?
 
Guys it’s nothing special, the white triangles depict a danger area because of the jet blast coming from the aircraft that’s under the shelter getting it’s final checks and maybe weapon load before taxiing to the departure runway.
 
Q-nimbus said:
Guys it’s nothing special, the white triangles depict a danger area because of the jet blast coming from the aircraft that’s under the shelter getting it’s final checks and maybe weapon load before taxiing to the departure runway.
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But these are the only white triangles of this type on Israeli military airfields. So these UAVs have particularly powerful engines compared to the F-15, F-16 and F-35 jets and their possible weapons are also more dangerous...? I can't believe that.
 
sdo216 said:
But these are the only white triangles of this type on Israeli military airfields. So these UAVs have particularly powerful engines compared to the F-15, F-16 and F-35 jets and their possible weapons are also more dangerous...? I can't believe that.
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Or these are the only aircraft that are routinely run up to higher engine setings whilst still under cover...
 
timmymagic said:
Or these are the only aircraft that are routinely run up to higher engine setings whilst still under cover...
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There are two squadrons with still classidied UAVs on Ramat David Airbase in the North of Israel with no specially fenced or walled areas and no white triangles in it
 

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