- Iran: Eight Prisoners Hanged on Drug Charges
- Daughter of late Iranian president jailed for ‘spreading lies’ - IRAN: Annual report on the death penalty 2016 - Taheri Facing the Death Penalty Again - Dedicated team seeking return of missing agent in Iran - Iran Arrests 2, Seizes Bibles During Catholic Crackdown
- Trump to welcome Netanyahu as Palestinians fear U.S. shift
- Details of Iran nuclear deal still secret as US-Tehran relations unravel - Will Trump's Next Iran Sanctions Target China's Banks? - Don’t ‘tear up’ the Iran deal. Let it fail on its own. - Iran Has Changed, But For The Worse - Iran nuclear deal ‘on life support,’ Priebus says
- Female Activist Criticizes Rouhani’s Failure to Protect Citizens
- Iran’s 1st female bodybuilder tells her story - Iranian lady becomes a Dollar Millionaire on Valentine’s Day - Two women arrested after being filmed riding motorbike in Iran - 43,000 Cases of Child Marriage in Iran - Woman Investigating Clinton Foundation Child Trafficking KILLED!
- Senior Senators, ex-US officials urge firm policy on Iran
- In backing Syria's Assad, Russia looks to outdo Iran - Six out of 10 People in France ‘Don’t Feel Safe Anywhere’ - The liberal narrative is in denial about Iran - Netanyahu urges Putin to block Iranian power corridor - Iran Poses ‘Greatest Long Term Threat’ To Mid-East Security |
Thursday 24 March 2011Iran Announces Launch of Its Unmanned Flying Saucer
Break out the foil hats: Iran has built a UFO. This photo accompanies an actual news release from Iranian news service Fars, which claims the Islamic Republic has built a flying saucer. Of course, it's possible Iran's news agents chose to illustrate their announcement with a screen shot from a 1950s B movie. But the Fars News Service does not explain the photo's origin, simply stating that the flying saucer was unveiled in a special ceremony. The ship is called Zohal -- Saturn in Persian -- and is designed for aerial imaging. Zohal has a data downlink and can fly in both indoor and outdoor spaces, according to the Fars News Service. The Daily Mail points out that Fars is a hard-line state-run news service. But with this photo, we can't help but think of the homophone farce instead. The news release states that "the flying machine is equipped with an auto-pilot system, GPS (Global Positioning System) and two separate imaging systems with full HD 10 mega-pixel picture quality and is able to take and send images simultaneously." But is Zohal actually a little "cuadrotour" drone? Another news release, from the perhaps more reliable Iranian Students' News Agency, shows a picture of a quadrocopter grasping what looks like an old-school Pentax. The news release says that this, instead, is Zohal. But again, this photo's origin is unclear. SUAS News, which covers the UAV community, says this is a DraganFlyer X6. "We doubt very much that the Canadian company has sold airframes to Iran knowingly," reports SUAS' Gary Mortimer. So which one is it? IEEE Spectrum's Automaton blog points out that Iran may indeed have built a Coanda-effect UAV, which looks like a flying saucer. The plate-shaped UAV has a rotor at the top that thrusts air downward, providing lift and thrust. No matter Zohal's actual design, it's not the first time Iran has claimed to have built a ridiculous piece of machinery for defense and surveillance purposes. The Bavar 2 flying boat thing, unveiled last fall, supposedly packs automatic weapons and surveillance equipment. Iran has announced several achievements in robotics and other technologies during the past year. It launched some turtles into space in 2010, and unveiled a dancing humanoid robot named Surena-2. But a flying saucer just seems too good -- really, just too silly -- to be true. Source: FoxNews.com http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/23/iran-announces-launch-unmanned-flying-saucer/ |