A reported first flight by Iran of a reverse-engineered copy of the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) appears to have featured a sub-scale model rather than a full-scale replica as announced by state media on 10 November.
Video footage of the flight broadcast by Press TV on 12 November appears to show a remote-controlled sub-scale copy of the RQ-170, which Iran captured from the United States in 2011, performing a series of high-speed passes.
Whereas Iranian officials have hailed the flight as an example of the country's domestic aerospace capabilities, there are a number of giveaways in the video that indicate the RQ-170 in flight was actually a sub-scale model. Such a model was shown during the unveiling ceremony of the full-scale replica alongside the captured original, attended by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei and Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari on 11 May.
While the video mainly shows the aircraft flying in an empty sky, there are a few shots that give the viewer a sense of its scale. These include a brief shot of the RQ-170 taking off from a runway that would be far too wide if the vehicle was indeed full-sized
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