{"id":14469,"date":"2018-02-12T14:48:41","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T14:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2018\/02\/12\/israel-air-force-says-seized-iranian-drone-is-a-knockoff-of-us-sentinel\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:48:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:48:44","slug":"israel-air-force-says-seized-iranian-drone-is-a-knockoff-of-us-sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/unmanned\/2018\/02\/12\/israel-air-force-says-seized-iranian-drone-is-a-knockoff-of-us-sentinel\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Air Force says seized Iranian drone is a knockoff of US Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TEL AVIV, Israel \u2014 A senior Israeli Air Force officer told reporters Monday that the Iranian drone it intercepted over the weekend was a \u201ccopy\u201d of a stealthy U.S.-built RQ-170 Sentinel<\/a> downed by Iranian forces over Iranian territory in 2011. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a copy of a similar system that fell in Iran,\u201d Brig. Gen. Tomer Bar, chief of staff of the Israeli Air Force, said of the drone in Israel\u2019s possession, which he identified as Shahed 171.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey more or less duplicated it \u2026 but I won\u2019t grade them,\u201d said Bar, referring to Iran\u2019s reverse engineering capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran released a video of the Shahed 171 in flight back in 2014. Two years later, Iran showed another knockoff based on the Lockheed Martin Sentinel, an armed version known as the Saeqeh, according to Tal Inbar, director of the UAV and space program at Israel\u2019s Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are two copies that Iran made out of the RQ-170. One is Shahed 171, and this is supposed to be jet powered and for reconnaissance missions. Then there is the other variant of this vehicle \u2014 similar in design to RQ-170, with a piston engine and a propeller \u2014 named Saeqeh. This variant was shown in 2016 armed with four laser-guided munitions,\u201d Inbar told Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officers here said Israel maintained persistent intelligence of the drone as it took off from the Palmyra area of Syria, made its way through northern Jordan and entered Israeli airspace, where it was shot down by an Israeli Apache helicopter. \u201cWe have full situational awareness, 24\/7 \u2026 and we remain steadfast in the face of the strategic aims of Iran and Hezbollah<\/a>,\u201d Bar said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to the Feb. 10 breach of Israeli territory by the Iranian reverse-engineered U.S. system, Israel deployed a force package of eight F-16Is to target the Iranian command trailer near Palmyra in central Syria. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was during that retaliatory raid<\/a> that one of the Israeli F-16Is was hit by a Syrian-based air defense missile on its return to Israel. The front-line fighter fell in Israel\u2019s Galilee region after the pilots ejected over Israeli territory. <\/p>\n\n\n\t