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“stealth hawk” used in Op Neptune


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If an archive of Military Photos forum exists you will probably find something that wasn't axed during the purge, outside that I think Reddit, What If forums and whatever you can find on crazy boards like /k/ it is what all the web has to offer

 

Luigi

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38 minutes ago, Dave Williams said:

Little to no information or photos have ever been released, certainly not enough to make an accurate model.

 

That could be because they do not exist.  You can believe what you want though.

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56 minutes ago, Newtonk said:

Interesting in that what is the tail rotor left behind from? 

 

The tail rotor section was a prop left behind so that Pakistan could save face with their own population  and claim they were not aware of it since the U.S. used a super-stealthy, silent helicopter to get in.  Kind of defeats the purpose of a silent, stealthy H-60 when the other aircraft on the mission are standard MH-60Ls and MH-47Gs.  They are not stealthy at all.

Edited by HeavyArty
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1 hour ago, HeavyArty said:

 

The tail rotor section was a prop left behind so that Pakistan could save face with their own population  and claim they were not aware of it since the U.S. used a super-stealthy, silent helicopter to get in.  Kind of defeats the purpose of a silent, stealthy H-60 when the other aircraft on the mission are standard MH-60Ls and MH-47Gs.  They are not stealthy at all.

According to what is open-source, the regular helos weren’t part of the assault force that inserted the team into the compound.   They were in a support role where stealth wasn’t a critical need.    

 

With regard to a “stealth hawk”, a pic briefly released on this forum and then removed shortly afterwards showed a test hawk with some pretty extensive RCS reduction measures, so it’s certainly possible / probable that the Army might have some of these specialized helos kicking around.    

 

Bottom line is we’ll never know what, if anything, actually flew into Abottabad that night.  

Edited by 11bee
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Personally, in my opinion, SOMETHING VERY TOP SECRET flew the team into the compound. I believe that "something" is a stealth helicopter BASED upon the UH-60 airframe.  Do I believe it was a "bolt-on" package? NO

This project was built from the factory up. Probably ALOT of secret units were in on this helo. DARPA, Flight Concepts, 160th just to name a few.

Awhile ago over on the 160th FB site,  an artist painting of the stealth hawk was posted and caused a ruckus amongst the members. Maybe,  just maybe,  someone slipped up and possibly started to let the cat out of the bag.

As far as retractable gear,  Sikorsky already has RG helos in its inventory. The technology is already there. I'm sure alot of info was gleaned from the RAH-66 program.

Personally, I'd love to have a 1/35 scale stealth hawk. It would be cool to build whether it's real or not!

 

Tim

Edited by hawkwrench
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6 hours ago, hawkwrench said:

Personally, in my opinion, SOMETHING VERY TOP SECRET flew the team into the compound. I believe that "something" is a stealth helicopter BASED upon the UH-60 airframe.  Do I believe it was a "bolt-on" package? NO

This project was built from the factory up. Probably ALOT of secret units were in on this helo. DARPA, Flight Concepts, 160th just to name a few.

Awhile ago over on the 160th FB site,  an artist painting of the stealth hawk was posted and caused a ruckus amongst the members. Maybe,  just maybe,  someone slipped up and possibly started to let the cat out of the bag.

As far as retractable gear,  Sikorsky already has RG helos in its inventory. The technology is already there. I'm sure alot of info was gleaned from the RAH-66 program.

Personally, I'd love to have a 1/35 scale stealth hawk. It would be cool to build whether it's real or not!

 

Tim

OK Tim, you got me intrigued....  Any screenshots of this or if not, did you see this one yourself?   

 

With regard to retractable gear, I'm just curious why everyone thinks that the helo on this raid was a Blackhawk in the first place?  As you mentioned, there are other options out there.   Maybe this would have been a better starting point for adding all those other features:

 

Image result for sikorsky s-76

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Low Radar Cross Section/Stealth helicopters have been in development, in some form or another, since the early 1970's.

 

  • It looks like the Air America Hughes 500P might have had composite rotor blades which help it attain a lower RCS. Hughes did some work on a composite tail rotor blade in the mid-70's and, apparently, also prepared a Low RCS-shaped OH-6A fuselage for static testing (I am trying to get more info on this one at the moment).
  • In the mid-70's Sikorsky did a design study based on the UH-60 that featured various Low-RCS fuselage designs. 
  • The ACAP helicopters flown by Bell and Sikorsky in the early 80's were early attempts at flying helicopters with certain stealthy aspects to their designs.  Drawings released into the public domain show further ACAP designs with some fairly radical Low-RCS fuselage shapes.
  • The aforementioned EH-60 with Low-RCS shaping flew in the late 80's.
  • Bell also had a Low-RCS kit for their OH-58D Kiowa and a few photos are on the web showing it's modifications.
  • Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine ran an article on Low-RCS helicopters in February 1995. This hinted at two different stealthy rotorcraft and one of these might have been a program using the project name "TEK". Both were possibly McDonnell Douglas projects.  MDHC have run at least one unacknowledged special access program in collaboration with the USAF but it is believed that this was a technology demonstrator only. What exactly the technology being demonstrated is unknown but I'd guess that it was low-observable technology. 
  • The RAH-66 Comanche apparently had a ridiculously small RCS.
  • A Low-RCS Apache kit was also possibly test-flown in the early 1990's.
  • The photos from the aftermath of the Bin-Laden Raid appear to indicate the existence of a stealthy troop-transport helicopter. 

 

I've sometimes wondered if that tail section was some kind of counter-intelligence plant, using an elaborate mock-up left behind at the scene to fool China and Russia and others into believing that the U.S. possess a secret helicopter.  I think the Special Forces guys had enough to do to get in and out of Abbatobad unscathed, having dealt with Bin-Laden, without having to worry about bring in a fake helicopter or part of one with them.  

 

The big aviation publications and noted aviation journalists seem to have spent all of their time chasing stealthy fixed-wing aircraft but have paid little attention to researching Low-RCS helicopters. There appear to be a few classified stealthy helicopters, past and present, that remain secret at this moment in time. Hopefully some of the older Low-RCS helicopters that employed earlier technology might be declassified at some point in the near future.

 

LD. 

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If I remember the remains of the helicopter that was inside the compound showed clearly it was the main rotor of a UH-60. 

 

It's obviously possible, but in todays age of everyone having a cellphone with a camera, I have a hard believing they could have built, tested, trained and deployed that aircraft without someone getting a picture that hasn't leaked.  Sure makes you wonder what else we have in our inventory that hasn't been leaked.  

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44 minutes ago, Tgoetz said:

 It's obviously possible, but in todays age of everyone having a cellphone with a camera, I have a hard believing they could have built, tested, trained and deployed that aircraft without someone getting a picture that hasn't leaked.  Sure makes you wonder what else we have in our inventory that hasn't been leaked.  

Given the enormous number of "black" aviation programs currently going on, with absolutely zero leaks, I'm surprised that you'd feel that way.  When the government really wants to keep stuff secret, they do a pretty good job of it (at least keeping it secret from us taxpayers, no idea how sucessful they are keeping it secret from the Russians or Chinese). 

 

With regard to "Stealth Hawks", here is an interesting article that gives you some idea of what that machine might look like.  Pretty much shows that even three decades ago, the Army was seriously interested in this technology.   I see no reason to believe that in the 30 years since those studies, they weren't able to fully develop and deploy this helo. 

 

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/25890/origins-of-stealth-black-hawks-date-back-over-33-years-before-the-bin-laden-raid

 

 

Edited by 11bee
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6 hours ago, Tgoetz said:

If I remember the remains of the helicopter that was inside the compound showed clearly it was the main rotor of a UH-60. 

 

Yes, what Tgoetz said. The remains were of a H-60 rotor head--4 blades at that and not 5. As for the pic, yes I have it, but don't want to post it.

 

Tim

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1 hour ago, 11bee said:

I’ve seen plenty of pics of helicopter wrecks but haven’t seen many that show such complete destruction.    It’s like the entire airframe just melted away.   Very strange.   

 

Come on now 11bee, there is nothing strange here and it's common practice to destroy material via the trusty and true Thermite grenades or hit it with an air strike even. I would say the ground element did a much better job than you see here courtesy of Sappers at Bien Hoa AB in '68. Melting airframes are nothing new. The SEALs are reported to have packed the downed helicopter with explosives and blew it up. This after the pilots and aircrew, destroyed avionics and coms prior to their exfil.

 

s-l1600.jpg

Edited by snake36bravo
Vortex Ring Stall and a compound wall
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41 minutes ago, snake36bravo said:

 

Come on now 11bee, there is nothing strange here and it's common practice to destroy material via the trusty and true Thermite grenades or hit it with an air strike even. I would say the ground element did a much better job than you see here courtesy of Sappers at Bien Hoa AB in '68. Melting airframes are nothing new. The SEALs are reported to have packed the downed helicopter with explosives and blew it up. This after the pilots and aircrew, destroyed avionics and coms prior to their exfil.

 

s-l1600.jpg

Yeah I get that but it still seem strange that they used all that C4, and yet the nearby wall was completely intact.   Not going tinfoil hat here, just a random observation.   

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