Air Defense Base Drives Away US Drone

Air Defense Base detected a US Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk drone last week and gave it a warning to stay away from Iranian airspace, a top commander said.Speaking in a televised program on Saturday evening, Air Defense Commander Farzad Esmaeili said the US drone was given a warning on August 26, Tasnim News Agency reported.“Iran will never allow such hostile planes to approach its airspace and would not hesitate to bring them down, if necessary,” he said. Highlighting the country’s progress in developing advanced air defense systems, the commander said Iranian experts have manufactured a homegrown “galactic” radar system with a range of 3,000 kilometers.Esmaeili noted that Bavar-373, a homegrown long-range air defense missile system, has undergone missile tests and is going to come into service by the end of the current Iranian year in March 2018. Bavar-373, designed and manufactured by Iranian experts, has a vertical launching system with square launchers, mostly used for air defense on warships. It uses a long-range, phased array fire-control radar system, dubbed Meraj-4.