alt Hacker NewsI wonder, at the point of such a simple thing as the Saheed (there are videos online of some of its electronics, not saying it's bad, indeed it's cheap and effective, but it's dirt simple), does the USA really need to reverse engineer it? Is it just a way to prevent project management turning the thing into a million dollar per unit thing?
People calling it "reverse engineered" are not entirely correct.
The "Low accuracy, low speed, drone" concept has not changed since the V1 was invented by the Germans. Who then went ahead and built a more modern one back in the 80s. It should look very familiar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_DAR
It has all the bells and whistles you can recognize: GPS guidance, shitty small piston engine, lumbering speed, launched from a box truck using a small booster rocket.
See, the funny part is that the project was considered a failure because they were designed as anti-radar munitions, to just hang around until a radar transmitted and home in and destroy it. But that part of the project never figured out a good seeker.
It's just convergent evolution. That's what the design requirements imply.