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The Air Force may have used a classified RQ-170 drone over Venezuela earlier this year, and now an even more secretive aircraft seems to have been spotted amid operations in Iran.
A local media outlet in Greece published photos of a stealthy, flying-wing aircraft spotted in the skies near Larissa Air Base, Greece. The outlet, OnLarissa, misidentified the image as showing a B-2 bomber, but experts believe it is actually the never-publicly acknowledged RQ-180 intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance drone.
RQ-180 isn’t even a publicly acknowledged designation. The number is based on the Air Force’s other stealthy ISR drone, the RQ-170 Sentinel, which was spotted at the tail end of Operation Absolute Resolve against Venezuela in a recording by an aviation enthusiast in Puerto Rico.
U.S. officials never officially confirmed the RQ-170’s involvement in the operation, but they have acknowledged its existence and its use in other cases. Experts told Air & Space Forces Magazine at the time that they were unsurprised that it popped up near the Venezuela operation.
With little known about the RQ-170, even less is understood about the capabilities of the RQ-180. Veteran aviation reporter and aerospace analyst Bill Sweetman has reported on the drone’s existence for Aviation Week, and it has been spotted just a few times in the open. The Air Force has never confirmed its existence.
There are clues, however, in the photographs published by OnLarissa that point to the RQ-180 or something like it, Sweetman told Air & Space Forces Magazine.
The rear of the aircraft comes to a single point, while the B-2’s rear is more “scalloped.” It has “no taper at all on the outer wings, they’re just cut off,” Sweetman noted, while the RQ-170’s wings come to more of a point. And while Israel has reportedly developed a secretive “RA-01” drone with a very similar design, Sweetman questioned why the Israelis would be flying their aircraft over Greece, the opposite direction of Iran.
Larissa Air Base has been a hub for U.S. drone operations since the Air Force moved MQ-9 Reapers there several years ago. USAF has invested tens of millions of dollars in facilities.
Taken together, those factors suggest the aircraft spotted over Greece is “more than likely” an RQ-180, Sweetman surmised.
“It’s Occam’s Razor,” Sweetman said, referring to the principle that the simplest explanation is often the correct one.
Some observers have noted that while the aircraft seen over Greece appears black, the few other glimpses the public has gotten of the RQ-180 have been of an aircraft painted white—earning it the nickname “Great White Bat.” But Sweetman argued the white paint job would actually be less effective for operations given that “when an aircraft is at very high altitude, the underside of the aircraft gets illuminated quite strongly from reflection from moisture and dust in the air, and it’s actually silhouetted against a very dark sky, so you want to make that aircraft black.”
If the aircraft seen over Greece is indeed an RQ-180, the reason for its presence would seem likely to involve Iran.
But U.S. military officials remain mum. U.S. Central Command has declined to answer questions about Operation Epic Fury and referred to its social media posts and fact sheets. On the list of assets used, those fact sheets have noted “special capabilities we can’t list here!”
Platforms like the RQ-170 and RQ-180 are used for penetrating ISR—entering contested airspace and collecting data while evading air defense systems. Venezuela had Russian-made S-300 systems that the U.S. was able to thwart during Absolute Resolve, and Iran is known to have had S-300s and other integrated air defense capabilities at the start of the war.
Those systems were primary targets in the early days of the war and the U.S. has claimed air superiority over much of Iran since the opening week or so. But that does not mean some Iranian capabilities cannot still operate. Ground-to-air threats may be less likely, but still exist, as in the case of an F-35A that had to make an emergency landing after taking fire late last week.
Penetrating ISR platforms play a key role in the early days of any operation by helping “knock the door down,” said retired Brig. Gen. Houston Cantwell, a senior fellow at AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and former drone unit commander.
“Absolutely, it would be a commander’s first choice, if I could choose something that is stealthy and unmanned when I’m going into a high-threat environment,” Cantwell said, describing stealthy ISR in general.
Nonstealthy drones like the MQ-9 have also played a key role in Epic Fury, their long dwell times and steady orbits enabling them to gather persistent intelligence and to destroy missile launchers when they reveal themselves. But the Reaper is a slow-moving aircraft and the Iranians have successfully targeted and shot down about a dozen of the aircraft, Air & Space Forces Magazine has confirmed.
Stealthy unmanned systems fill a gap between the armed MQ-9 and space-based ISR, Cantwell said. Because they can loiter high over contested airspace, capturing views from different angles and revisiting areas on unpredictable timelines, they can uncover things that satellites can’t see, and collect electronic intelligence much closer to the source than a satellite.
RQ-180 Secret Stealth Drone Appears To Have Made An Emergency Landing At A Greek Air Base (Updated)
RQ-180 Secret Stealth Drone Appears To Have Made An Emergency Landing At A Greek Air Base (Updated)
Spotters in Greece have caught an especially good look at what appears to be a particularly secretive drone.
Updated Mar 18, 2026 7:39 PM EDT
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Spotters in Greece have caught an especially good look at what very much appears to be a stealthy, long-range, high-altitude (HALE) intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance drone commonly referred to as the RQ-180, or an evolution of that design.
Pictures of the dark-colored, flying-wing type aircraft landing at Larissa National Airport, also known as Larissa Air Base, situated in the Greek city of the same name, were published earlier today by local news outlet onlarissa.gr.
“Those who were in the area near the 110th Fighter Wing [technically the 110th Combat Wing] in Larissa at the end of last week were left speechless when they saw an impressive plane in the sky, completely different in shape and appearance from everything we see daily in politics and the military air force,” according to a machine translation of onlarissa.gr’s piece, which misidentifies the aircraft as a B-2 bomber. “According to more recent information from military sources, this [aircraft] … reportedly parked at the Larissa military airport due to a breakdown and will remain there until it is repaired.”
TWZ cannot immediately confirm any of these latter details, but we have reached out to U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) and the Pentagon for more information.
What is clear is that this is not a B-2, which has a very distinctive saw-tooth trailing edge that is not visible here, among other features. In fact, the overall planform is highly reminiscent of the new B-21 Raider stealth bomber from Northrop Grumman, as well as past sightings of aircraft believed to be RQ-180s or progenitors of that design. The RQ-180 is widely understood to be a Northrop Grumman product, as well, and very likely played a significant role in risk reduction efforts as part of the development of the B-21, as we have posited for years.
A notional rendering of what the Northrop Grumman drone, commonly referred to as the RQ-180, may look like based on previous sightings. Hangar B Productions
There are also some very rough similarities to sightings of what is believed to be an Israeli drone called the RA-01, but with some distinct differences. The RA-01 shares a similar planform, but is a more svelte design that would be significantly smaller than what we are seeing here. Furthermore, it makes very little sense that an Israeli drone would be flying that far west for any reason. The American aircraft in question is likely quite large, sitting below the size of a B-21, but maybe by 25 percent, as a guess. It would be designed for extremely long-endurance, high altitude strategic reconnaissance missions.
B-21 Takeoff and Landing
The pictures from Larissa also offer a good look at the aircraft’s landing gear, which is very widely positioned. A gear configuration of that kind allows for the maximization of volume in between and underscores the sheer wingspan of the aircraft.
Whether the aircraft in question has been operating from Larissa, or simply diverted there due to an issue, is unknown. It is possible that it has been forward-deployed to the base, but still had to return to base unexpectedly, leading to it being spotted during the day rather than coming in discreetly at night.
Larissa is a Hellenic Air Force base, home to the 110th Combat Wing, which operates Block 52+ F-16C/D Viper fighters, as well as various types of drones. Since the late 2010s, the U.S. Air Force has also publicly used the base for MQ-9 Reaper drone operations over areas of Europe and Africa. That, in turn, has led to upgrades to Larissa’s infrastructure, especially along the south side of the base, where there are now hangars that could accommodate larger flying wing aircraft and that do not appear to be used to house MQ-9s.
By what we can surmise about the RQ-180 program, aircraft that are part of its lineage have likely been flying for roughly over a decade and a half. Yet in recent years, just as this platform was thought to be coming online in a grander operational sense, we have not seen the infrastructure that would be indicative of that. It’s even possible its scale has been reduced as the Pentagon looks to push its surveillance capabilities to space, and especially some of the kinds that an ‘RQ-180’ could do.
Still, given that this aircraft is now likely a component of the Long Range Strike (LRS) family of systems, and will work in concert with and even possibly have some commonality with the B-21, it could share that same infrastructure and come online fully alongside the Raider in the next couple of years. That is if the program is still intended to be scaled up, as opposed to diverting funds to on-orbit surveillance capabilities.
B-21 Raider. (USAF)
Regardless, the aircraft has been spotted flying over secretive locales in America’s Southwest for many years now, with sightings over Area 51, and reports of it flying out of Palmdale and Edwards Air Force Base. A conflict with Iran would be a relevant fit for what it was designed to do, so it should be of no surprise that it is flying missions over the country, even if it still remains in something of a late developmental state.
In all of the years of the RQ-180’s rumored existence, multiple stealthy HALE drone designs have emerged in China, at least undergoing testing, and these are just the ones we know about.
We will have more analysis on all this in the near future.
Already, if nothing else, there are very strong signs that we’ve now gotten our best look ever at the drone referred to as the RQ-180 or a directly related design.
UPDATE: 3/19/2026 —
Greek news outlet onlarissa.gr has now also published the video below of what it is still misidentifying as a B-2 flying over Larissa.
Το αμερικανικό βομβαρδιστικό Β-2 πάνω από τον ουρανό της Λάρισας
Contact the author: joe@twz.com
Joseph TrevithickDeputy Editor
Joseph has been a member of The War Zone team since early 2017. Prior to that, he was an Associate Editor at War Is Boring, and his byline has appeared in other publications, including Small Arms Review, Small Arms Defense Journal, Reuters, We Are the Mighty, and Task & Purpose.
Μυστήριο με αεροπλάνο που παραπέμπει σε «αόρατο» αμερικανικό βομβαρδιστικό, πάνω από τον ουρανό της Λάρισας! – Δείτε φωτογραφίεςΤο θηριώδες πολεμικό αεροσκάφος φέρεται να στάθμευσε λόγω βλάβης στο στρατιωτικό αεροδρόμιο της 110 Πτέρυγας Μάχης
18/03/2026 - 6:51

Με το στόμα ανοιχτό έμειναν όσοι βρέθηκαν στα τέλη της περασμένης εβδομάδας στην περιοχή κοντά στην 110 Πτέρυγα μάχης στη Λάρισα, βλέποντας στον ουρανό ένα εντυπωσιακό αεροπλάνο, παντελώς διαφορετικό σε σχήμα και εμφάνιση από όλα όσα βλέπουμε καθημερινά στην πολιτική αλλά και την πολεμική αεροπορία.
Οι φωτογραφίες που κατέγραψε συνεργάτης του onlarissa.gr παραπέμπουν στο αμερικανικό υπερόπλο, το «Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit», το οποίο αποτελεί ένα από τα πιο εξελιγμένα στρατηγικά βομβαρδιστικά που έχουν κατασκευαστεί ποτέ. Ενσωματώνει τεχνολογία χαμηλής παρατηρησιμότητας (stealth) που του επιτρέπει να αποφεύγει τα περισσότερα σύγχρονα ραντάρ. Αναπτύχθηκε από την Northrop Grumman κατά τη διάρκεια του Ψυχρού Πολέμου, με στόχο τη διείσδυση σε βαριά οχυρωμένους εναέριους χώρους και την εκτέλεση αποστολών υψηλής στρατηγικής σημασίας.
Το χαρακτηριστικό του σχήμα «ιπτάμενης πτέρυγας» δεν είναι μόνο εντυπωσιακό οπτικά, αλλά και λειτουργικό, καθώς μειώνει δραστικά το ίχνος του στα ραντάρ. Το B-2 μπορεί να μεταφέρει μεγάλη ποικιλία οπλισμού, τόσο συμβατικού όσο και πυρηνικού, και έχει τη δυνατότητα να εκτελεί αποστολές μεγάλων αποστάσεων χωρίς ανεφοδιασμό, ενώ με εναέριο ανεφοδιασμό η επιχειρησιακή του εμβέλεια γίνεται πρακτικά παγκόσμια.
Το αεροσκάφος τέθηκε σε επιχειρησιακή υπηρεσία τη δεκαετία του 1990 και έχει χρησιμοποιηθεί σε σημαντικές στρατιωτικές επιχειρήσεις, όπως στον πόλεμο του Κοσσυφοπεδίου και στη Μέση Ανατολή. Παρά τις εντυπωσιακές δυνατότητές του, το πρόγραμμα χαρακτηρίστηκε από εξαιρετικά υψηλό κόστος κατασκευής και συντήρησης, με αποτέλεσμα να παραχθεί περιορισμένος αριθμός μονάδων. Αυτό, σε συνδυασμό με τις προηγμένες τεχνολογίες που φέρει, το καθιστά ένα από τα πιο «μυστηριώδη» και εμβληματικά αεροσκάφη της σύγχρονης αεροπορίας.
Κατά νεότερες πληροφορίες από στρατιωτικές πηγές πρόκειται όντως πρόκειται για το «B-2 Spirit», το οποίο φέρεται να στάθμευσε στο στρατιωτικό αεροδρόμιο της Λάρισας λόγω βλάβης και θα παραμείνει μέχρι να επισκευαστεί.
Δείτε τις φωτογραφίες:



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첫댓글 B21 참전 루머도 있었는데 아무래도 B2나 RQ-180을 오인한 거겠죠?
아 그런 루머도 있었나 보네요. B-2는 미익 형태가 다르니 아마도 저 RQ-180을 오인한 게 아닐까 합니다.