{"id":192055,"date":"2009-05-17T11:41:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-17T16:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/05\/17\/what-the-hell-are-they-flying-in-afghanistan\/"},"modified":"2009-05-17T11:41:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-17T16:41:00","slug":"what-the-hell-are-they-flying-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/05\/17\/what-the-hell-are-they-flying-in-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Hell Are They Flying in Afghanistan?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img20.imageshack.us\/img20\/2152\/3e959cdbff5248a8a480b0f.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img20.imageshack.us\/img20\/2152\/3e959cdbff5248a8a480b0f.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;\" us=\"\" img20=\"\" 1450=\"\" jpg=\"\" width=\"350\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img20.imageshack.us\/img20\/1450\/4050f3e5c4394781ba5a44c.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;\" width=\"350\" \/><\/a>OK, so we now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aviationweek.com\/aw\/blogs\/defense\/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&amp;plckScript=blogScript&amp;plckElementId=blogDest&amp;plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&amp;plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3A25afdd9c-786a-483f-95ae-23cc9f365167\">have a picture to go along with the reports<\/a> of a stealthy UAV operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>So, you have the grainy picture, and the artist&#8217;s conception.<\/p>\n<p>The thing is, it doesn&#8217;t make any sense to use stealth in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>The Taliban does not have any air defense radars operating, so why work on a specialized stealth shape?<\/p>\n<p>I can see aural stealth (noise), and IR stealth, and visual stealth, but using a radar avoiding platform where there is no radar just makes no sense.<\/p>\n<p>[on edit]<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/img20.imageshack.us\/img20\/6645\/coraxuav8445220.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img20.imageshack.us\/img20\/6645\/coraxuav8445220.jpg\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;\" width=\"350\" \/><\/a>I just came across the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Corax_%28aircraft%29\">BAE Corax<\/a> (Raven in Greek) as a possible answer.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a British system, and it matches the general configuration, including the long wing, though the photo seems to show a lot more wing sweep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OK, so we now have a picture to go along with the reports of a stealthy UAV operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan. So, you have the grainy picture, and the artist&#8217;s conception. The thing is, it doesn&#8217;t make any sense to use stealth in Afghanistan. The Taliban does not have any air defense radars operating, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153,1025,1152],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-technology","category-uav"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192055"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}