RQ-170 Sentinel a New Stealth UAVThe USAF confirms that the RQ-170 Sentinel is in development, and is predicted "to supply reconnaissance and surveillance support to forward-deployed combat forces", to keep with an announcement released on four December.
The announcement comes when a series of pictures of a jet-powered, stealthy aircraft have appeared on the net since last April, similarly as a clear shot of the aircraft that circulated widely in early December.
But it had been not immediately clear whether or not the aircraft shown in footage and additionally the RQ-170 are identical. Besides describing the RQ-170 as stealthy, the USAF released no more technical information concerning its new UAV, or any photos.
The RQ-170 is flown by the thirtieth Reconnaissance Squadron, a unit reactivated by the USAF at the Tonopah check range in California on one September 2005, to keep with a service reality sheet.
In a news unharness a few change of command, dated 10 August, the USAF described the thirtieth as a "developmental UAS squadron beneath the 432nd Wing, Air Combat Command".
The RQ-170 joins the USAF's growing inventory of huge surveillance aircraft, wwhich contains the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 international Hawk and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems RQ-1 Predator/MQ-9 Reaper. but the Sentinel appears to be the primary publicly acknowledged operational UAS designed for stealth.
The Sentinel's confirmed existence additionally sheds new light-weight on Lockheed's activity within the massive UAS market, that was previously thought-about to be undeveloped.
Lockheed's Dark Star unmanned air vehicle lost a contest within the late 1990s to the worldwide Hawk. Since then, Lockheed unveiled the P175 Polecat, a stealthy, high-altitude UAS, but the only known example crashed throughout a flight check.
