Posted on 05/05/2011 7:21:08 AM PDT by La Lydia
(WASHINGTON) -- Before an elite team of U.S. Navy SEALs executed a daring raid that took down Osama bin Laden, the commandos were able to silently sneak up on their elusive target thanks to what aviation analysts said were top secret, never-before-seen stealth-modified helicopters. In the course of the operation that cost the al Qaeda leader his life, one of the two Black Hawk helicopters that carried the SEALs into bin Laden's Pakistani compound grazed one of the compound's walls and was forced to make a hard landing. With the chopper inoperable, at the end of the mission the SEALs destroyed it with explosives.
But photos of what survived the explosion -- the tail section of the craft with curious modifications -- has sent military analysts buzzing about a stealth helicopter program that was only rumored to exist. From a modified tail boom to a noise-reducing covering on the rear rotors and a special high-tech material similar to that used in stealth fighters, former Department of Defense official and vice president of the Lexington Institute Dan Goure said the bird is like nothing he's ever seen before.
"This is a first," he said. "You wouldn't know that it was coming right at you. And that's what's important, because these are coming in fast and low, and if they aren't sounding like they're coming right at you, you might not even react until it's too late...That was clearly part of the success."
In addition to the noise-reducing modifications, a former special operations aviator told The Army Times that the general shape of what was left of the craft -- the harsh angles and flat surfaces more common to stealth jets -- was further evidence it was a modified variant of the Black Hawk.
A senior Pentagon official told ABC News the Defense Department would "absolutely not" comment on anything relating to the destroyed bird.
Neighbors of bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, told ABC News they didn't hear the helicopters the night of the Sunday raid until they were directly overhead. The rotor covering, along with a special rotor design, suppressed the choppers' noise while inbound, Bill Sweetman, editor-in-chief of Defense Technology International, said.
"Helicopters make a very distinctive percussive rotor sound which is caused by their rotor blades and if you can blend that down, of course that makes a noise that is much less likely to be heard and much more likely to blend into any background noise that there is," Sweetman said.
The U.S. has attempted to use stealth helicopters before. In the mid-90s, the Army developed several prototypes of the Comanche helicopter, a reconnaissance helicopter that was at the time a revolutionary step in stealth technology. But in 2004 the Department of Defense scrapped the program and promised to used technology developed for the Comanche on other crafts.
Since then, the government has been working to silence the Army's Black Hawk helicopters but an official program for the stealth choppers was never publicized. The wreckage, Sweetman said, is the first the public has ever seen of an operational stealth-modified helicopter....
They already are. Holder was twisting himself in knots yesterday trying to justify killing an unarmed OBL when he was testifying before some Congressional committee.....
I don't understand why a fighter or two weren't sent in to destroy the rest of the remains of the helicopter.
The UH-60s first flight was in 1974. It entered service in 1979. Were you working on stealth before then?
1 out of 2 went down. 50% failure rate. Not bad.
If a stealth chopper goes down in the middle of a Paki compound, does anyone hear it (post “firefight”)?
I was responding to post No. 22. Please read it and see if you can better grasp what I said. There are two things going on here: SEAL’s decisions at the time, on the ground and current, real-time incompetent White House/BO administration constant revisions of their story, to which they cannot stick.
IR signature reduction has been a technology around since the Viet Nam conflict and has been simply improved ever since. It is teh radar reflectivity that is the major issue. Noise reduction has not been a big item on the agenda simply because it is difficult to tell where the noise is coming from until a helo is almost on top on you. Of course, some noise reduction has been accomplished but not much success because of the simple physics involved. The emphasis has been on radar signature reduction because those detection devices give advance notice with direction, speed, and altitude information. Yes, all three items are truly necessary but all of these with a Harry Potter invisibility cloak would help. We’re just not there - YET!
The keyword id modified. These aren't a completely new aircraft just some enhancements to Blackhawks. Sounds like it works though.
Loss of lift on approach (settling with power) caused it to land on the wall, shearing off the tail boom.
The tail boom was on the outside of the wall and the rest of the helo came to rest on the inside of the wall.
Without running all the way around the wall, the only part available to be destroyed was the main part inside the wall.
Thus, the reason why the tail rotor section remained to be photographed.
Different company! I was not aware and did not care about the Blackhawk at the time. Army didn't give us one of those. They were still using the UH-1H/AH-1S/OH-58D (and the UH-60) at the time I was involved in this project.
Wrongo, Tex.
Stealth technology concerns all aspects of aircraft emissions.
Included are visual (camoflage and other techniques); radar (passive and active spoofing); sound (suppression, canceling, redirection); IR (cooling, diffusion) and others.
Many aspects to the problem. Solving only one means you lose the game.
Not wrong. The “stealth” technology I was involved in was only concerned with radar signature! My post clearly says that was the only issue I concentrated on.
Tim Robbins made up with dark hair and beard will play a righteous, misunderstood Osama blown away by the evil murderous Seals straight from the Bush administration. Matt Damon will play the new, good seal who brings those other Seals to justice.
That’s the Hollywood version.
“Sounds like that TV show Airwolf from the 80’s :) “
More like the movie “Blue Thunder” an urban stealth helicopter with silent mode.
Proud to say that I had a small hand in developing some of the technology in the late 1980s. We demonstrated a novel computer chip with tiny actuators to the Army that would eliminate vibration in a helicopter in about 1990. I secured the R&D funding for the project. We had a brilliant scientist at our aerospace company who worked for 20 years developing the novel chip.
Don’t know if our technology is actually in the field. A lot of technology development is like that. You hand it off to the applications engineers, but you don’t have a need to know how it is used if at all.
The sonic footprint of a helicopter flying low can be relatively small. I’ve seen helicopters from a distance that are flying low at night and couldn’t hear them.
If you are at the LZ, then yes, you will eventually hear them in advance of their arrival. But off to either side... not so much.
Nope.....your OTHER posts may have said that, but not post 35, which is what I responded to.
I KNEW exactly what you were saying but I think I failed to express that in my post. So sorry for the confusion. I was agreeing with you totally! The SEAL’s et all did their job perfectly, it’s the administration that’s the Gang that Can’t Shoot Straight! Again, my apologies for not being more careful how I said it. Heck, it made perfect sense TO ME when I wrote it. But then so much does that when I read it later it looks like I’ve lost my mind. I need to learn to proofread!
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for the details. The article I read made it sound like the ‘brushing’ of the wall led to the whole problem. My son is a full time helicopter pilot here in Florida, actually he’s in SW Florida, down in Naples. He routinely flies when it’s over 95 degrees and the humidity is sky-high. He is pretty familiar with the concept of settling with power. He flies a Bell 206B most of the time though, and even with the high heat and humidity he seldom has much of a load, just himself and another deputy as his observer. Thanks again!
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