(06-20-2019, 03:51 PM)TJBender Wrote: So there are three possibilities:
1. Iran downed a US drone that was violating Iranian airspace.
2. Iran downed a US drone over the water.
3. lolwut, there was no drone you numbskulls!

It seems like option one was the right answer. So, um, what were we doing flying a drone in Iranian airspace? I suppose we had their permission to violate their borders?

The answer is #2. That particular UAV and the others in the area are for maritime surveillance and to look 20-30 miles inland at high altitudes. They have no role or reason to fly over Iran’s airspace. Also, we have very limited numbers but very high demand. Therefore they are almost never used in high risk situations. If the US wants to look further inland we use satellites for intelligence that doesn’t require immediate processing and usually a U-2 for more immediate need. 

Watch the Iranian SAM launch video and you can see they outed themselves. They gave a location for the launch and you can calculate time of impact versus speed to work out a distanced traveled for the known missile type. They absolutely fired into International airspace and as the UAV was at lower altitude...perhaps returning to base depending on the time.

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