Assault on Bin Laden: mystery of the downed chopper

[Machdiamond]

This bolt-on theory is completely unfounded and not supported by the photos. The main rotor mast profile is different, how do you bolt that?

It is a Black Hawk derivative for sure, but the entire airframe must have been redesigned.

Now people start making bold conclusions based on a false theories... :

 

[quellish]

This bolt-on theory is completely unfounded and not supported by the photos. The main rotor mast profile is different, how do you bolt that?

It is a Black Hawk derivative for sure, but the entire airframe must have been redesigned.

Now people start making bold conclusions based on a false theories... :

There *was* a bolt on kit for a Black Hawk variant, but this is not it. So that may be where some of these theories originated.
There was also one for the Apache that was not fielded

 

[yasotay]

Walter Boyne: Why everyone misinterpreted Stealth Black Hawk story

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2011/05/walter-boyne-why-everyone-misi.html

"I think it gave [the public] a sense of pride and self-sufficiency," Boyne said. "For me to think that the United States of America with 4.9% of [gross domestic product] devoted to defence can at best field four modified stealth helicopters when engaged in three wars is shameful."

In Boyne's view, the knowledge that US special operations still rely on bolt-on stealth kits reveals the US vertical lift aircraft industry is still mired in the aerodynamic and signature limitations of the Vietnam-era. The fact that one helicopter crashed during the operation allegedly due to power settling -- ironically, revealing the programme's existence -- should come as no surprise, Boyne said.

The Black Hawk "is still a 30-year old design," Boyne said. "When you put on aftermarket stealth it degrades your performance."

Walter is right. To bad we have decided we can't afford to do anything about it. Gets my blood up to think we (US) can drop $20B (yes - B!) on a new bomber, haggle over a how many fighter engines to work on, but cannot put a dime more into rotorcraft science and technology. If you look at where we are loosing aircraft and the sortie generation by type, it really makes you wonder.

Yes I know X-2 and S-97. Sikorsky with a fat back order can take the risk. Boeing can roll out anything but will they? I'm betting not without a firm nod from somewhere/someone on high whispering that there is serious work. Bell has BA-609... oh wait! Nevermind.

Kudo's to Sikorsky for being the last of the "why not!" major helicopter companies in the US. It appears senior middle age has settled in on the rest of the mainstream US rotorcraft industry.

 

[Matej]

Walter is right. To bad we have decided we can't afford to do anything about it. Gets my blood up to think we (US) can drop $20B (yes - B!) on a new bomber, haggle over a how many fighter engines to work on, but cannot put a dime more into rotorcraft science and technology. If you look at where we are loosing aircraft and the sortie generation by type, it really makes you wonder.

This should be at least the part of the answer:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/army-report-military-has-spent-32-billion-since-97-on-abandoned-weapons-programs/2011/05/23/AGwuqjCH_story.html

 

[Grey Havoc]

Unfortunately, quite a few of those programs, e.g. Comanache, shouldn't have been cancelled in the first place. The cult of Transformation, among others, have a lot to answer for.

 

[blackstar]

Unfortunately, quite a few of those programs, e.g. Comanache, shouldn't have been cancelled in the first place.

Too many of those programs, like Comanche, served no purpose. We didn't need a stealthy scout helicopter to go behind Warsaw Pact lines looking for Soviet tanks.

 

[donnage99]

The first problem is that weapon programs like these should have been better managed to avoid massive cost overrun.

The second problem is that politicians should not place protecting military contractor's jobs for their individual states over our national military potentials, prolonging weapon programs that are no longer relevant yet are sucking away money from potentially critical programs.

Military budget peaked each year and yet the flow of new introduced weapon systems being fielded are stagnant.

Same thing for the Navy. The Air Force did a little better, but it too has an embarrassing history.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Too many of those programs, like Comanche, served no purpose. We didn't need a stealthy scout helicopter to go behind Warsaw Pact lines looking for Soviet tanks.

Given that the gestation period of a new weapons system is approximately "one human generation," and a successful weapons system can be expected to have a lifetime of "two to three human generations," coupled with the fact that the world can turn upside down in under "one human generation," it's ill-advised to declare that a weapons system that *today* might seem pointless won't have a point long before it would be withdrawn from service. Had Comanche been continued and fielded, it would clearly have had a role near Pakistan, and would have one in the coming 2019 skirmishes with North Korea and the 2025 conquest of Quebec and the 2033 liberation of France from the joint forces of the Great Eurabian Caliphate and the Tintin Fan Club.*


*Note: sounds silly? Keep in mind that one of the more politically powerful and wealthy religions in todays world was started as a bar bet among sci-fi authors in the late 1940's. So I'd keep an eye on those Tintin fans.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The first problem is that weapon programs like these should have been better managed to avoid massive cost overrun.

Simple solution: don't pay until the weapon is produced, and then pay only what you promised to pay. Contractors eat the overruns. Soon, no overruns.

 

[Machdiamond]

The nice part with that approach is that you will not have to pay anything ever.

 

[yasotay]

Lets not forget the dramatic growth of the Pentagon bureaucratic population that has paper bound most efforts within the DoD.

 

[quellish]

Lets not forget the dramatic growth of the Pentagon bureaucratic population that has paper bound most efforts within the DoD.

At the same time, in the last 10 years there has been a proliferation of "special" procurement offices that are largely outside the normal procurement process. Small, focused, BIG SAFARI-like organizations that get products developed and fielded quickly - like the organizations that likely produced the aircraft that is the subject of this thread.

 

[blackstar]

At the same time, in the last 10 years there has been a proliferation of "special" procurement offices that are largely outside the normal procurement process. Small, focused, BIG SAFARI-like organizations that get products developed and fielded quickly - like the organizations that likely produced the aircraft that is the subject of this thread.

Don't assume that those tactics always work. DoD spent billions on IEDs in those kinds of offices and never found an effective solution.

 

[Lauge]

..... and the Tintin Fan Club.*

Smiling, while petting a white cat: "So, Mr. Blamblam, you are on to us. It seems we will have to accelerate our plans" ;D

Regards & all,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg

PS: What's that religion you refer to? I've never heard anything about that?

 

[yasotay]

At the same time, in the last 10 years there has been a proliferation of "special" procurement offices that are largely outside the normal procurement process. Small, focused, BIG SAFARI-like organizations that get products developed and fielded quickly - like the organizations that likely produced the aircraft that is the subject of this thread.

Don't assume that those tactics always work. DoD spent billions on IEDs in those kinds of offices and never found an effective solution.

... and had the bureaucratic jungle of DoD procurement not gotten so procedure bound, many of those "quick procurement offices" would have been unnecessary.

 

[Arjen]

PS: What's that religion you refer to? I've never heard anything about that?

Scientology. If you wish to discuss it, 'The Bar' is the place.
*Very* *much* off-topic - further reading :
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu

 

[Lauge]

Scientology. If you wish to discuss it, 'The Bar' is the place.

I don't

Regards & all,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg

 

[Arjen]

<sigh of relief>

 

[JimK]

You knew it was coming:

http://www.foxnews.com:80/us/2011/06/02/chinese-toy-company-makes-replica-stealth-chopper-used-in-bin-laden-raid/?test=faces

 

[InvisibleDefender]

You knew it was coming:

http://www.foxnews.com:80/us/2011/06/02/chinese-toy-company-makes-replica-stealth-chopper-used-in-bin-laden-raid/?test=faces

Already posted here --- Reply #227 on: May 24, 2011, 03:37:07 am

I don't think I would call a plastic model that you have to build, a toy.

 

[Arjen]

I don't think I would call a plastic model that you have to build, a toy.

I once tried explaining that to a ten-year-old. And failed.

 

[Stargazer]

I don't think I would call a plastic model that you have to build, a toy.

I once tried explaining that to a ten-year-old. And failed.

Well, go and try to explain that to just ANY wife...

 

[yasotay]

Another interpretation of the Stealthhawk by a well known aviation artist. One that I think is far more likely to be accurate than most of the efforts seen to date.

http://markkarvon.deviantart.com/

 

[Grey Havoc]

"Night of Reckoning". Apt title.

 

[frank]

That's really not accurate. My ex-wife very well knew the difference & was in full agreement with my models. My current GF of nearly 3 years is also good about models vs. toys, as I collect both. There are some good ones out there!

I don't think I would call a plastic model that you have to build, a toy.

I once tried explaining that to a ten-year-old. And failed.

Well, go and try to explain that to just ANY wife...

 

[frank]

WE wouldn't call it a toy, but to most, if not all non-modelers, plastic models are just that, toys. Consider the source, meaning media in general. It also doesn't help that plastic models are generally found in the toy dept. of dept. stores or found in toy stores in general. Remember, these are the same folks who refer to jet fighters as 'fighter jets'. Not that that's exactly inaccurate, it just sounds stupid & out of date.

You knew it was coming:

http://www.foxnews.com:80/us/2011/06/02/chinese-toy-company-makes-replica-stealth-chopper-used-in-bin-laden-raid/?test=faces

Already posted here --- Reply #227 on: May 24, 2011, 03:37:07 am

I don't think I would call a plastic model that you have to build, a toy.

 

[Deino]

Another rendition ....

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5f6ff8c90100vgyy.html

Deino

 

[Stargazer]

Nice, but why is the tail rotor at an angle?

 

[flateric]

because it's the same on original

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Most likely the tail rotor is at the same angle as the angled fuselage (stealth principle of alignment).

 

[flateric]

No. Canted tractor tail rotor is a trademark of all Blackhawks. This "provides a small vertical
component of thrust to allow for a
larger center of gravity envelope". and
without much loss of side force.

 

[CJGibson]

Same on the S92 and later model S65 (CH-53E).
Chris

 

[robunos]

No. Canted tractor tail rotor is a trademark of all Blackhawks. This "provides a small vertical
component of thrust to allow for a
larger center of gravity envelope". and
without much loss of side force.

Have a look at this......
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,12876.msg127094.html#msg127094




cheers,
Robin.

 

[firepilot]

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_schmidle?currentPage=all


A new article with a few interesting bits of information, most of it would be already known to people here, but at least it does bring up the RQ-170, the exterior shaping of the MH-60, and some of the operational aspects of what went down that night.

 

[fightingirish]

In the new book "SEAL Target Geronimo" by Chuck Pfarrer, a former SEAL team commander,
the stealth helicopters are called "Ghost Hawk"
and their callsigns during the mission were "Razor 1 & 2".

 

[sublight]

It just keeps getting better:

"After being deployed to Afghanistan, the team were told to use older helicopters, Stealth Hawks, as sending in Ghost Hawks without the back up of jet fighters was considered too risky. Decoy targets were set up and the U.S. Navy scrambled Pakistan's radar to protect the mission."

So the choppers used in the bin laden raid are "new" stealth choppers and apparently we also have "old" stealth choppers no one here has ever heard of???

 

[flanker]

It is other way around.

 

[sublight]

It is other way around.

Either way, there is another secret helicopter out there?

 

[SOC]

Chuck Pfarrer...I knew I recognized that name from something unrelated to all this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_(1999_film)

Yes, that's the same guy!

 

[quellish]

It is other way around.

Either way, there is another secret helicopter out there?

I have not read the book (I don't think it comes out until tomorrow), but what I have heard from several places is that the helicopter crashed after the assault, not while inserting the assault force.

It's safe to say there are several kinds of LO rotorcraft out there, for different missions. There was an Army rotorcraft project at Groom Lake called GHOST at one point. The Pave Hawks that operate out of Groom Lake in a security and SAR role are part of the "GHOST Squadron", which is not related to that program. It is possible that the "Ghost Hawks" are the product of the GHOST program, though it's just as likely that someone thought it was a cool name.