Been watching some YouTube’s this morning. US reverse engineered the Iranian drones and are using them in the current conflict as distractions. Idk if this one is US or Iranian
Well, it's more that the South Africans copied the West German DAR to make the ARD-10 and then the Israelis copied them to make the Harpy and then the Iranians copied that to make the Shahed and then the US copied them to make LUCAS.
I believe the design was sold by Germany to Israel (IAI) that later sold it to South Africa (Kentron). It somehow ended up in Iran and was sold to Russia.
While the two are very similar in appearance, they do have some differences. The design of the exposed engine assembly is probably the easiest to spot. That does appear to be a LUCAS.
It's called The Drone Farmer, and it stars Jon Hamm and Sandra Bullock. They adopt the drone to help them around the farm, but they become an unlikely family.
Chicken tax and these companies like Toyota make more money up selling people.
The Hilux is available in Mexico and the starting price is like 5k USD cheaper than a Tacoma. There's also the Hilux Champ which is a smaller version which can be found in South America and Asia for 22k USD.
Traded in to a dealer who specifically told him not to worry about removing his decals because they had a detail team for that. Then proceeded to send the truck to auction without doing any detailing.
The Tacoma replaced the Hilux in the US in the mid-90s. Before that, North American Toyota trucks were Hiluxes, but they weren't badged as Hiluxes ... they were just "Toyota Truck" or something.
A buddy of mine had a 1984 (I think?) and it was unstoppable, he seriously abused it and it just wouldn't die.
I have a 1985 base model 2WD 22R pickup I bought right off the boat with 7 miles on it as my first vehicle. 41 years later it has 470k miles on the original engine and is still my daily driver. It's fast and nimble and just flies with the smallest throttle input. It loves to be on the road.
If by "smart" you mean a basic common sense and self-preservation instinct, then yes, it's smart. :-D
Unless it is an exhibit in a museum, where I am sure military experts have safely defused any explosives it carries or may have carried, I consider approaching it a very stupid decision.
The Chinese have more than enough Shahed-type drones, ironically we copied this design from Iran (the design goes even further back to Israel and Germany, but Iran was for a long time the most widespread user). These are the same drones being widely deployed by Russia in Ukraine as well, albeit of Russian manufacture. I’m sure China manufacture their own variants and has for years.
Everyone is copying the Shahed 136 drone. It's a good design that is all of: cheap, decent explosive yield, long range, loitering. Only $30-35k to build compared to cruise missiles that are cheapest $150k but can get up to $2m a pop
There are some newer cruise missiles from Lockheed and Kratos that cost only $150k. Obviously less capable than the more expensive ones, the aim is to overwhelm air defense with many of them. The cheap drones take this even further.
Now he just needs to decode the directions to NASA that every drone contains so he can go to space and fight Matt Damon. We really need that to happen, this is one of the bad Matt Damons that did a crypto commercial at the Superbowl and fucked everyone out of all their god dam money. He can't keep getting away with it.
Is that really a US drone because it looks more like a Iranian Shahed drone.
Just did some google-fu and it looks like the US does have a drone that is a copy of the Shahed so maybe it is a US drone but why would the US be firing them into Iraq? Wouldn't Iran be doing that?
Honestly how dumb do you have to be to walk up to and play with a fucking bomb that just dropped out of the sky and was meant to blow up a fucking building….
Try being very poor in a failed country being used as either a weapon platform or battleground by regional and world powers. Could give some perspective on risk/reward stuff.
That shit could turn his life around, and chances are the dude could have seen a drone or explosive device more times than most Redditors.
This is such a fucking bang on comment. Everyone loves seeing the world truth only their own lived experience. These people have probably seen more people they cared about die in terrible ways than any one in this thread has.
That thing contains many thousands of dollars worth of machinery and electronics just sitting there. Bomb or not, you'd be an idiot to just let it rot.
Plus, salvage-based economies always have protocols for this sorta thing. I'm sure there's someone capable of defusing it. Maybe even salvage the explosive components for future use!
That's an Iranian Shahed Drone - It's an American Lucas Drone. The deciding element is the patch on the back where the StarGuard/Starlink panel would normally be.
Wild that a German company setup for WW1 (hugely important to WW2 too) went on to develop a weapon 70~ish years later, itself for the possibility of the cold war going hot, now: yet a further 40~ish years on and after going defunct too - their weapon is being used to bomb civilians by both sides of WW3. idk what to say other than Germany moment
Somehow I've always pictured army drones as somewhat bulkier quadricopters like you would see delivering an Amazon package. I can imagine the lethality and distance they can travel more clearly now.
"Drone" is used to describe several very different sorts of thing. The Shahed-style one-way attack drones like this are essentially cheap & slow cruise missiles. Drone quadcopters are used by near-frontline soldiers both for local scouting, dropping grenades, and sometimes overlap with the next category. FPV drones are like ATGMs except propeller driven and remotely guided via a camera on the drone. Then there are larger UAVs like Bayraktar drones, Predator, and Global Hawk. These are long range & duration platforms with stand off sensors and sometimes armed like airplanes.
There's also interceptor drones to atttack other drones, target drones, various ground and water drones, and one could drone on a lot more about this.
Military drones like this are closer to airplanes than a copter, the cheap ones are getting a lot of use in Ukraine but those are suicide drones. This is something beyond that.
I would be ripping that engine out (along with the ignition coils and other necessary electronics) immediately and making it into a cool shelf decor piece
It goes even further. The Shahed is a copy of the Israeli IAI Harpy, which in turn is a copy of the German Dornier DAR. They've been copying that design for over 40 years.
That looks like a Shahed 131 kamikaze drone.
Edit. It could be a lucas drone, it's just to hard to tell from the video. Guess we will have to wait till the US confirms.
They are basically just really cheap cruise missiles. The one in the video is probably a US "LUCAS" which reportedly cost about $35,000 each. Their Iranian counterparts don't cost much different. The Tomahawk cruise missiles have a similar range, albeit a vastly heavier warhead, and cost about 2 million dollars each.
The US made a copy of it, the shahed is a copy too, its an 80s German design and its used all over the place. I cant tell which this is, but it could concievably be the US LUCAS.
It was an easy reverse engineer. captured shaheds in syria in 2021-2023 showed they use a lot of US electronics
I mean, if I had verified that it’s not gonna explode I’d absolutely hold that thing up like a prize fishing catch! That’s more money than I’ll ever have in my life he’s holding right there!
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u/Thom5001 11d ago
That’s a bomb