Journalists Encounter An RQ-170 Sentinel Drone At Vandenberg AFB

Hartman's image of an RQ-170 specially configured for testing making its approach to Vandenberg AFB back in March of 2017. Matt Hartman/Shorealonefilms.com

Warzone/The Drive: Journalists Had A Surprise Close Encounter With An RQ-170 Sentinel At Vandenberg AFB

The chance encounter is the closest the press has gotten to the notoriously secretive stealth drones.

Reporters and photographers were invited out to Vandenberg AFB on Monday to take a closer look at the ICON spacecraft installed aboard a Pegasus rocket, which itself was mounted on Orbital ATK's L1011 launch aircraft Stargazer. After completing their task they headed back toward the base's main hangar and were surprised to see something of an almost mythical mechanical creature sitting on the ramp—an RQ-170 Sentinel.

The base, which is perched along the Southern California coast, was once set to host a second Space Shuttle launch site, but today it usually sends reconnaissance payloads into high-inclination orbits and conducts ICBM test launches. But the facility has other uses as well, and its long runway is an attractive training feature for California-based military aircraft.

Although no squadron of aircraft officially calls the base home, a detachment of secretive RQ-170 Sentinels from the shadowy 30th Reconnaissance Squadron uses the base for testing. This little-known fact was first discovered by our own Joseph Trevithick and it became big news when our contributor Matt Hartman photographed a specially configured Sentinel landing at the base in 2017—a rare encounter that The War Zone was the first to report.

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WNU Editor: The RQ-170 Sentinel Drone has now been flying around for almost a decade .... and it is still a mystery.

The Story Behond The RQ-170 Sentinel Drone

Air & Space Magazine: The Drone that Stalked Bin Laden

The RQ-170 provided a secret, and vital, piece of the intel puzzle.

In 2009, after two weeks of being embedded as an independent journalist with a small team of U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, I ended up at Combat Outpost Monti, a 14-acre camp of tents, plywood huts, a few concrete bunkers and makeshift guard towers, and a helicopter landing area, all ringed by collapsible barriers. At the outpost, one of hundreds built in Afghanistan during the 13 years of NATO combat operations, the Marines were training and fighting alongside Afghan National Army soldiers. COP Monti was less than 10 miles from the Pakistan border, near the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

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First Known Satellite Image Of The RQ-170 Sentinel Stealth Spy Drone

Foxtrot Alpha: RQ-170 Sentinel Stealth Spy Drone Caught By Satellite For The First Time

The U.S. Air Force and the CIA’s famed but incredibly shy RQ-170 Sentinel has been caught on camera a few times in the U.S., including images of one supposedly forming up with an aerial tanker. It was also paraded around by Iran after its spectacular capture in 2011. Yet there are no known satellite images of it — until now.

One of the satellites that the website TerraServer sources images from snapped the bat-winged drone sitting outside of a shelter at Creech Air Force Base on February 2nd, 2012. You can see it here. Not only is it the first known occurrence of an RQ-170 being caught by a commercial imaging satellite, but it also works as a nice size comparison to the MQ-9 Reaper sitting nearby.

WNU Editor: You can see the image here. Not as good as Google Earth .... but still impressive since it shows what is happening at Creech Air Force Base.

US Air Force Confirms 'Beast Of Kandahar' Drone

RQ-170 Sentinel

From Yahoo News/AFP:

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 "RQ" prefix for the aircraft indicates an unarmed drone, unlike the "MQ" designation used for Predator and Reaper aircraft equipped with missiles and precision-guided bombs.

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Previous Post: Is The RQ-170 Sentinel Spying On Iran?

My Comment: There has been a considerable amount of speculation on this drone, but I still believe that it is it's stealth features that makes this drone an effective tool in the fight of the Taliban .... and that is the reason why it is in the Afghan theater.

The other drones are also effective, but the "buzzing sound" that they create has always served as a early warning signal to the Taliban .... especially when stealth and silence is what you may need in a particular area. There is also talk of it being able to avoid radar .... if true .... Al Qaeda sympathizers who man Pakistan's radar networks can now no longer warn Al Qaeda/Taliban leaders of an approaching drone.

Is The RQ-170 Sentinel Spying On Iran?

New Unmanned US Stealth Jet Based In Afghanistan Gathers Data In Iran -- DEBKAfile

US Air Force spokesmen confirmed this week that the hitherto secret unmanned, high-altitude stealth jet, the "Beast of Kandahar," was present at the big US air base of Bagram, in Afghanistan. Photos of the Beast on the Bagram tarmac - outside its regular base at Kandahar near the Iranian and Pakistani borders - appeared in various Internet sites this week.

Designated RQ-170 Sentinel, it is the first jet drone ever developed for military use. France's EURO Demonstrator is a similar project which will be ready for test flights only in another two years.

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Previous Post: USAF Confirms Stealthy UAV Operations.

My Comment: I believe that it is too early to determine what is the function of this drone. But what we do know is that it is in the middle of a war zone, and that it has a configuration that is different from other drones ... and that is about it.

USAF Confirms Stealthy UAV Operations

From Aviation Week:

The U.S. Air Force has confirmed to Aviation Week the existence of the so-called "Beast of Kandahar" UAV, a stealth-like remotely piloted jet seen flying out of Afghanistan in late 2007.

The RQ-170 Sentinel, believed to be a tailless flying wing design with sensor pods faired into the upper surface of each wing, was developed by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP), better known as Skunk Works. An Air Force official revealed Dec. 4 that the service is "developing a stealthy unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to provide reconnaissance and surveillance support to forward deployed combat forces."

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My Comment: It's function is obvious .... to be "quiet" and "stealthy" when spying on the enemy.