In response to the mysterious UAV incursion into Israeli air space on Oct. 6, Haaretz has reported that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has flown several mock air raids over Lebanese villages on Oct. 8.
Haaretz has gone on to speculate who was responsible for the UAV and their motives. Hezbollah is thought to have been motivated by Iran and the UAV was thought to have been gathering intelligence on Israel’s secretive nuclear reactor near the town of Dimona.
A number of foreign (to Israel) experts believe this is where Israel stores its nuclear weapons, something the Israelis neither confirm or deny. however, this does pose an interesting question: was the UAV gathering targets for a possible Iranian counter attack or was it simply showing a capability?
Although the IDF is still investigating the UAV incident, Debka has reported that the incursion involved a (never seen before?) Iranian UAV helicopter whose aim was to show Hezbollah capability to launch long range surprise strikes deep inside the well guarded Israeli airspace.
Richard Clements for TheAviationist.com
Image credit: IAF
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I’m calling b*llsh*t on this one.
Lebanon is at the opposite side of Israel to where Dimona is, so it would have to travel over 400 miles directly over one of the most militarised places on earth if it went in a straight line.
If it didn’t, & some reports have said that it wandered over from the Mediterranean sea, paid a visit near Dimona, before wandering back over near Gaza, you’re getting around the 600 mile mark or more, also across some extremely heavily militarized areas – in a locally produced helicopter style UAV?
Got some nice river-front property in Brooklyn for you if you buy that…
So what is your take on this Ken? I understand (rightly or wrongly) that the UAV spent apx 30 min in Israeli airspace some of which was over a military base!. Does this demonstrate that the so called Iron Dome is, as many believe, basically ineffective or perhaps this was just one of those ‘false flag’ operations to give the psychotic zionists an excuse to further terrorise Lebanese villagers and ramp up the ME war with Syria & Iran which they so long for?
Where did this UAV originate from?
I thought Iron dome was made to Intercept incoming rockets, not to shoot down UAV’s or Aircraft ??
False flag seems to be the obvious take, but with the Israeli’s, who knows?
Strategic deception is a major part of their official military doctrine, & they seem to have taken it to such a level this may of been the regular military shooting down some secret test by Mossad or some other off-the-books operation that was so compartmentalized they didn’t know about it..
Makes more sense as anything the Israeli’s have come out with, anyway.
I wouldn’t take Debka.com very serious. Reportedly, they are publishing with an agenda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debka.com
Hezbollah Says It Sent Drone Over Israel
The leader of the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group has claimed responsibility for launching the drone aircraft that entered Israeli airspace earlier this week.
The rare admission Thursday by Hassan Nasrallah raises regional tensions at a sensitive time when the group’s backers, Syria and Iran, are under pressure.
Earlier Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hezbollah of launching the drone.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israeli-leader-accuses-hezbollah-drone-launch-17453907#.UHcII8XNaSo
Saw that, & was a little shocked. Would be very interested in hearing from an expert on drones on this…
The main US helicopter UAV in use is Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout.
– It’s got well over a decade of development work behind it, starting off with “a range of 125 miles (200 km), an endurance on station of three hours” before reaching it’s current range of “110 nmi (203.7 km) plus 5+ hours on station”.
From what I understand, the limit on range is the control hardware, so this technically would have the range to make the flight but the control hardware would have to be changed to something like the Sentinel or Global Hawk.
It also weighs something like 3,000lb’s fuelled up (over a ton anyway), so it’s not small.
It’s also not stealthy, & NATO had one shot down over Libya.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13858200
Had no idea Iran would be ready with something like that, & I check out some of the Iranian military boards. Also really shocked at the range for what seemed from the video to be a relatively small helicopter…
Video at following link. Hezbollah Secretary General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, admits UAV incursion and also that the UAV was Iranian manufactured. He also admits to the 2006 UAV incursion that was also shot down.