Article Entry
10 Dec 2009
Comments:2
US Air Force Confirms ‘Beast of Kandahar’ Drone
Added by USGIF Category: Daily Intelligence Brief, General
This week, the US Air Force confirmed that it is flying a stealth unmanned aircraft known as the “Beast of Kandahar,” a drone spotted in photos and, until now has been 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. Aviation experts dubbed the drone the “Beast of Kandahar” after photographs emerged earlier this year showing the mysterious aircraft in southern Afghanistan in 2007. Read more here.
Tags: Army, Beast of Kandahar, Drone, GEOINT, geospatial, Stealth Drone, US Air Force
I saw one of these beasts while I was surfing in Santa Cruz, CA about 3 years ago or so. The thing was about 500-1.000 altitude and the other guys our there surfing with me all saw it as the wave were between sets at the time. Also what caught our attention af first was a low flying twin engine beechcraft plane that was coming down on it probably to see what it was but the beechcraft had to bank away due to the land cliffs nearby and he would have violated minimum altitude laws as they are lower over land than water as I confirmed with the nearest civilian airport when I reported it about 2 weeks after I saw it. The one I saw was nowhere near the specifications of those given so what I saw might have been something very close but not the Beast. The one I saw looked only about as big as a hang glider and about the same proportions but flat and completely silent. it continued to fly right in over the land.
The one I saw was black had no landing gear and had twin props about 3 feet from each wing tip but completely silent. This occurred in Monterey Bay, CA right at 41st aveenue at the surfing spot called The Hook and actually I was at “Sharks” surf spot which is the same wave as the Hook but about 50 yards down the wave peak. It looked like it was only about 3 fieet thick or less. I concluded that it was unmanned because of this thinness. It might have been even thinner. I figured if it had a pilot he would have to have been lying down prone inside and I don’t think it was thick enough for that. I know a 90 year old guy that worked at skunkworks buying wooden props for a UAV that had chainsaw engines and was completely silent and he bought the wooden props from some dude and they also were totally silent. I believe what he described is what I saw.