File image.
Videos purported to show Israel’s most secretive drone, the RA-01, flying over Iran surfaced on March 2, amid the ongoing war between the two.
The videos were said to be recorded in Tehran, the capital of the Islamic Republic, although there is no evidence confirming this. The mysterious drone seen in the footage features a flying-wing design, in line with many known stealth drone models.
The existence of the RA-01 was first revealed in October of 2024 through documents leaked from the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
According to the intelligence documents — which detailed Israeli preparations for an attack on Iran that took place later on the same month —, the drone is capable of conducting extended intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions over sensitive regions, including Iran.
Taking this into account, it makes sense for Israel to send the drone over Tehran as it launches strikes with the United States against the Islamic Republic.
The documents also revealed that RA-01 drones are deployed at Ramon Air Base in southern Israel. Experts have since identified a pair of secluded fence-off areas at the northeastern end of Ramon with shared direct access to one of the base’s two runways, which could house the drones.
Each of the fenced-off areas has a pair of semi-circular hangers that are approximately 24 meters long and just under 20 meters wide.
Israel has worked on stealthy drones in the past. In the 1990s, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) reached at least the wind tunnel testing phase of development on one high-altitude long-endurance drone concept with radar and infrared signature-reducing features, called the HA-10.
A paper that members of IAI presented at the 24th International Congress of the Aeronautical Sciences in 2004 describes the HA-10 as one of “a number of additional high altitude advanced configurations” the company had previously examined “within the framework of the advanced design activity.”
No new news on the project has been released by IAI since then. Still, the RA-01 could very much be a derivative of the HA-10.
Of course, the drone seen in the latest video could be something else altogether. It may be the U.S. top-secretive RQ-180 stealth surveillance drone.
The drone could also be one of the copies Iran developed from the American RQ-170 Sentinel stealth surveillance drone, which the Islamic Republic downed and captured in 2011.
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iran bez pomocy rosji chin i hezbollahu za moment, nie będzie miał narzędzi do ścinania pejsów!
nie obawiaj sie o persow maja wiecej godnosci niz polske scierwa w warszawie