How long-distance drones from a cornered Iran could threaten NYC

As President Donald Trump ratchets up the pressure on the Iranian regime this week, Tehran continues to hit its immediate neighbors with wave after wave of attack drones.

With some 6,000 miles separating Tehran and New York City, the American homeland would seem safe from that threat: Iran’s Shahed attack drone, its most commonly deployed model, has a range of just 1,200 miles.

Yet long-distance drone strikes are feasible — and Iran may have the capability to accomplish them.

Aircraft engineers calculate the range of an aircraft with a century-old equation that balances aerodynamic drag with fuel consumption.

With clean aerodynamics — endurance drones tend to resemble gliders with long, straight wings — and an efficient engine, drones can travel surprising distances.

In 2003, a hand-launched drone with a six-foot wingspan called Spirit of Butt’s Farm flew across the Atlantic in a 39-hour journey that took it exactly to its GPS-set planned landing site.

Computer-aided design and manufacture have steadily improved drone performance, and building small drones is easier than making full-size aircraft, requiring only a well-equipped workshop rather than a factory.

Determined engineers have shown how long-range attack drones can be built and flown under wartime conditions. 

When Saudi Arabia destroyed the Houthis’ limited air force in 2015, it felt safe from retaliation — but three years later, the Houthis were hitting airports and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

They had given their short-range Qasef drones stretched wings and extra fuel tanks to reach over 1,000 miles.

Similarly, starting in 2022, Ukrainian developers produced a slew of small attack drones in response to Moscow’s aerial barrage.

They have been steadily hitting faraway Russian oil and gas facilities with drones that will soon reach the 6,000-mile range, President Volodymyr Zelensky says.

Greater ranges are already possible.

The current champion among piston-engine drones is the Vanilla, made by Platform Systems for the US military.

Resembling a small powered glider with a 35-foot wingspan, the Vanilla can fly more than 15,000 miles, meaning it can reach any point on Earth. 

Vanilla only carries surveillance gear, but it could equally well be fitted with a 30-pound warhead — small potatoes compared to the 1,000-pound punch of a Tomahawk missile, but precision makes up for size.

GPS means that drones can now hit to within a few feet, and certain targets are vulnerable even to a small amount of explosive in the wrong place.

After all, Ukrainian Morok drones carrying very small warheads set the gas terminal at St. Petersburg ablaze last month.

Does Iran have this technology?

In the absence of an effective air force, Iran has worked since the 1980s to build up an advanced drone ecosystem.

The regime has a history of reverse-engineering captured drones and making copies.

In 2019, Iran retrieved the remains of a downed American jet-powered RQ-4 Global Hawk long-range drone, and in 2023, it included what it billed as “the longest range drone in the world” in a parade of drones on trucks, giving no name or specifications.

Iran’s slow, low-flying Shaheds can be difficult to spot on radar — and while most are countered when sent in a swarm, a few always tend to get through.

US officials have admitted that stopping Iranian Shaheds has been more difficult than expected.

These drones have already hit a large number of targets, including airports, US embassies, air bases, radar systems, and multiple oil facilities, as well as residential buildings and hotels.

Some of these targets are symbolic.

Some are high-value sites where a small explosion can cause expensive damage.

Others are meant to terrorize the population.

So, yes — the technology to fly an attack drone from Iran to the US mainland exists, and building such a drone is well within Iran’s capabilities.

If the regime doesn’t possess such drones already, it is surely working on them in underground bases.

No wonder, then, the US and Israel are continuing to pummel Iran’s military production facilities in their ongoing campaign.

Fortunately, long-range drones are slow-moving, relatively easy to detect, and destroy. 

US AWACS radar aircraft can spot drones far out over the Atlantic, and F-22 and F-15 fighter jets can intercept them long before they reach land and take them down with air-to-air missiles. 

In the Gulf and in Ukraine, drones are sent in waves, meaning a few often get through air defenses — but the number of long-range drones sent at any one time will necessarily be much smaller. 

However, regular air traffic complicates matters: The Russians last month apparently shot down a light aircraft carrying a popular influencer near Moscow, mistaking the plane for a Ukrainian drone.

Long-range drone attacks may literally be a long shot for Iran.

But their threat, from any adversary, will impose a continuing cost on the United States — and only constant vigilance will keep them from doing serious damage. 

David Hambling is the author of “Swarm Troopers: How Small Drones Will Conquer the World.”