Assault on Bin Laden: mystery of the downed chopper

[Mr London 24/7]

I love how on these artist's concepts the tail - the one part we've seen - seems so out of place, as if it came from a completely different aircraft.

Indeed and IMPO the rest is more of a radical difference than those drawn concepts suggest...

 

[Shinra]

This movie prop is according to newspapers
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/05/army-mission-helocopter-was-secret-stealth-black-hawk-050411/

The helicopter’s low-observable technology is similar to that of the F-117 Stealth Fighter the retired special operations aviator said. “It really didn’t look like a traditional Black Hawk,” he said. It had “hard edges, sort of like an … F-117, you know how they have those distinctive edges and angles — that’s what they had on this one.

A lot better than some crap from theaviationist who seem to know nothing of aerotech.

If you want some better info or pic from the past:

1st/block 0 modification
The vulnerability of helicopters became apparent during the gulf war while the success of the F-117 stealth fighter was overwhelming.
It was a logical decision to start work on making the special operations helicopters more survivable and stealthy.
With the ever small Army budget it was necessary to keep costs low with modifications rather than a new design costing billions in development and not getting anywhere.
The decision was made to produce modification kits that simply replaced the regular fuselage with RAM treated composites.
As such the kits could be shipped easily and secretly by C-130 or C-17 transports to the site of operation where they could be put on existing helicopters.
This would keep movement of such modified helicopters secret since they never actually move as such themselves.
Several MH60K helicopters were modified to be used with the kits.
As the modification resulted in a higher weight their General Electric T700-GE-701C engines were tuned for more power.
modifications included:
wire cutting blades
a swing-out hoist
encrypted satellite radio equipment, Inertial Navigation System (GPS-INS)
trapezoid countermeasure boxes
stealth engine inlet box
stealth air stream inlet for exhaust cooling/mixing
tail rotor blade with anti-erosion ram treated tape.
folding of main rotor was retained with removable hudcap system
RWR in tail cone
boxed-in main gear
additional internal tanks


2nd/block 1 modification 2004-6
After the cancellation of the Comanche project, part of its staff and budget was directed for a more extensive update and modification
of the radar-evading helicopters.
The increased weight & power of the helicopters required higher lift, which would require a complete new rotor system with vibrations control, drive train, new software etc.
This would have been expensive and was equal with developing a complete new helicopter.
It was decided to adapt the rotor system, controls, and drive train from the Sikorsky S-92.
The main blades were a shortened version of the S-92 blades. The new wide-chord, composite rotor blades to provided improved performance, particularly under "hot and high" conditions.
With increased lift it was possible to reduce the main rotor rpm and lower its noise.
modifications included:
stealth engine inlet barrier filter variant
doppler navigation system
Hover Infra-Red Suppression System

3rd/block 2 modification 2013+
modifications to include:
new engines
new blades
featuring retractable gear
ejectable ESSS or ETS stub wings

 

[LowObservable]

Interesting quotes, Shinra. Where are they from?

 

[quellish]

I would suggest this book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1563479184/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1563479184&linkCode=as2&tag=quellish-20

A number of the modifications that various people have suggested would be..... ill advised for a blackhawk.

 

[Shinra]

Blackhawk boxed wheel prototype

 

[Triton]

Zero Dark Thirty prop helicopter. Is this an accurate representation of the Stealth Hawk?

Source:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/movie-prop-or-stealth/

http://youtu.be/vcBjOVKKxh0

 

[bobbymike]

It's Oh Dark Thirty Ms. Hollywood director.

 

[Orionblamblam]

It's Oh Dark Thirty Ms. Hollywood director.

Yeah, I noticed that. I've never heard of "zero dark thirty" before. But apparetnly that's not the only major FAIL of this movie... it was supposed to come out a week or so before the election. How is it going to be useful agitprop in *December?*

 

[Arjen]

Recounts stretching into January.

 

[TsrJoe]

getting 'off topic' i know (who gives a hoot about the directors political leanings ?) but iv personally heard both terms 'zero' and 'oh' used in theatre, i guess it depends on the 'gung ho' groups terminology usage ?

cheers, Joe

 

[Triton]

What does "Zero Dark Thirty" mean anyway? Thirty minutes after midnight?

 

[Orionblamblam]

(who gives a hoot about the directors political leanings ?)

There have been some *legal* rumblings about the White House giving excessive access to the film makers. "Excessive" as in "illegal." Which is pretty disturbing given that the goal here was a promotional advertisement for the administration.

It's fair to debate the propriety of declassifying operations, documents, technologies... but what shouldn't be debatable is that doing so to create partisan political propaganda is pretty sleazy.

 

[Orionblamblam]

What does "Zero Dark Thirty" mean anyway? Thirty minutes after midnight?

"Oh-dark-thirty" is generally just another way of saying "holy crap, it's late."

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oh_dark_thirty

Noun
oh dark thirty
[list type=decimal]
[*]Some unspecified hour in the early morning (implies an unpleasant time to be awake) I had to get up at oh dark thirty to catch a plane.
[/list]

 

[Triton]

Thanks, Orionblamblam.

I am skeptical that Zero Dark Thirty will be an accurate chronicle of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden because it is being made so soon after the events. Bin Laden was killed on May 11, 2011, the war on terror is ongoing, and many of the participants hold the same military ranks or political positions today. How truthful or accurate can these sources be? As for Director Kathryn Bigelow gaining illegal access to classified information, it seems it is a he said/she said type of argument. The same goes for the accusation of Bigelow producing a pro-Obama Administration puff piece. Author Chuck Pfarrer claims that the "official" story is inaccurate. Official statements from the Department of Defense support the "official" story and deny that Bigelow has gained access to classified information. A lot of opinion out there, but little in the way of hard facts.

I believe that the real story will come out in twenty or thirty years, perhaps when the participants are dead and documents declassified. Most information released so soon after the event should be regarded with skepticism.

Oh, and just because I posted pictures of the helicopter prop and the trailer for Zero Dark Thirty, it doesn't mean that I endorse the movie or claim that it is factually accurate. The trailer and photographs were added for purposes of discussion only.

 

[Triton]

Post script:

The Zero Minus Thirty helicopter prop looks like the love child of a Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk and a Sikorksky UH-60 Black Hawk. Is the implication that the helicopter was designed and built in the 1980s?

 

[Jemiba]

Post script:

The Zero Minus Thirty helicopter prop looks like the love child of a Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk and a Sikorksky UH-60 Black Hawk.

That would be the Kamov UVK !
(from vertiflite magazine, spring 2010)

 

[Orionblamblam]

Post script:

The Zero Minus Thirty helicopter prop looks like the love child of a Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk and a Sikorksky UH-60 Black Hawk.

It looks not unlike the actual 1978 Sikorsky designs for a stealthy Blackhawk:

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=9714

 

[quellish]

Post script:

The Zero Minus Thirty helicopter prop looks like the love child of a Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk and a Sikorksky UH-60 Black Hawk.

It looks not unlike the actual 1978 Sikorsky designs for a stealthy Blackhawk:

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=9714

With a modern tail grafted on. A tail optimized for different aspects than the rest of the vehicle

 

[Triton]

Recounts stretching into January.

With Supreme Court ruling.

 

[LowObservable]

It's called "studio prop designer" vs. "aircraft configurator".

The only movie airplane that I ever really liked was the flying wing from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Northrop meets Junkers - someone there actually liked airplanes.

Of course, the one that caused the biggest security flap was Firefox.

 

[Grey Havoc]

It's called "studio prop designer" vs. "aircraft configurator".

The only movie airplane that I ever really liked was the flying wing from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Northrop meets Junkers - someone there actually liked airplanes.

Of course, the one that caused the biggest security flap was Firefox.

Going OT for a moment, what was your opinion of the B-3 from 'Broken Arrow'?

 

[bob225]

Why did Firefox cause such fuss? Sure I read that they wanted to use Saab viggen as Firefox originally

 

[famvburg]

Indeed, I too would like to know the flap regarding the Firefox, I've never heard that before.

 

[ubiquitous08]

Without knowing the details and purely speculating but didnt Firefox have a "faceted nose" completely dissimilar from all Mig / U.S products that featured round circular radomes? That might have caused a few concearns not unlike when the U.S saw Lampyridae.

 

[Gridlock]

There have been some *legal* rumblings about the White House giving excessive access to the film makers. "Excessive" as in "illegal." Which is pretty disturbing given that the goal here was a promotional advertisement for the administration.

Only if you're that disturbingly angry 'OPSEC' guy. And there's a group named by Karl Rove-types if ever I saw one.


I might just leave the internet for the next 6 months.

 

[LowObservable]

The B-3 was pretty lame (I thought). Not exciting at all.

I've heard (can't remember exactly where) that there was a certain degree of twitch when Firefox came out in 1982 - because the faceted nose looked a lot more like an F-117 than it looked like anything else, and Senior Trend was more than a little sensitive at the time.

That was a little before I went into a major Univ library to look for a copy of an SAE paper that I had ill-advisedly loaned out, and found that the relevant pages had been neatly removed from the bound volume with a very sharp instrument.

 

[Triton]

I also seem to remember that there was speculation that the MiG-37 (fictional NATO reporting name Ferret E) model kit by Italeri and Testors bore a strong resemblance to the then secret United States Air Force stealth fighter.

 

[Orionblamblam]

... disturbingly angry 'OPSEC' guy.

Combat veterans tend to get miffed when a non-veteran claims credit for their efforts.

 

[famvburg]

The only thing about the Firefox looking like an F-117 in the front is that we didn't know what the F-117 looked like until 6 or so years later. IIRC tho, an article in Wings or Airpower in '82 mentioned Eastwood used Lockheed engineers to help design the Firefox, so maybe there is something there.

 

[Grey Havoc]

The B-3 was pretty lame (I thought). Not exciting at all.

I found the design pretty decent myself. [shrugs]

In a strange way, it could be said to have been one of the last designs out of McDonnell Douglas. They acted as consultants on the design (mentioned in the movie credits, IIRC).

Scott did a model of it for Fantastic Plastic: http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2517.0

And here's a bit of mood music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty3A_eaLliM

EDIT: Some info on the B-3 models, real and digital, used in the movie, in case anyone is interested: http://www.therpf.com/f10/anyone-ever-done-broken-arrow-b-3-a-23280/

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[Stargazer]

Now for the REAL low RCS (LRCS) studies conducted as early as 1978 to reduce the Black Hawk's signature:

Source: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a058906.pdf

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Thanks - Scott posted those on his blog over a year ago -

Stealthy Blackhawks – The Unwanted Blog

- and a link was posted earlier in the topic, but its nice to have the whole document.

 

[quellish]

Thanks - Scott posted those on his blog over a year ago - http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=9714 - and a link was posted earlier in the topic, but its nice to have the whole document.

There are a bunch of documents related to this topic now available in DTIC that were not a year ago. There are some studies on low RCS composite tail booms, etc.

 

[DFC]

Okay question


What are the chances that a SAR equipped satellite in LEO that happens to traverse a path that intersects with one of these stealth helos in flight be able to pick it up?

 

[TomS]

No one who knows the answer to that question should be answering it.

 

[Mr London 24/7]

Zero Dark Thirty Trailer 2 has a few more clips of the 'Stealth Hawk'.

It really does has a very specific look: unusually specific for a Film production. Sawtooth edge detail is visible to some panels on both the production still and the video clip. I'm increasingly inclined to think that this is based on eyewitness accounts... very 'Eighties'...

 

[famvburg]

Ok is it just me or is that a worthless clip? It's darn near all white, like trying to see a Polar Bear in a blizzard and what little I could make out, didn't look like any helos.

 

[TomS]

I don't think there's any reason to believe they got access to or information about the real aircraft. The designs look like a typical semi-plausible design from a movie model maker who had access to the Internet and knows a little about aircraft -- no better than the FA-37s from Stealth.

 

[flateric]

F/A-37 from Stealth was made with a help from Northrop Grumman guys btw

 

[TomS]

Yes, but the design clearly has nothing in common with a real aircraft. If anything, NG was steering them away from anything sensitive.