Top Secret Stealth Helicopter Program Revealed in Osama Bin Laden Raid: Experts

[melm00se]

Source: ABC

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 Blackhawk helicopters that carried the SEALs into bin Laden's Pakistani compound grazed one of the compound's wall and was forced to make a hard landing. With the chopper inoperable, at the end of the mission the SEALs destroyed it with explosives.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/top-secret-stealth-helicopter-program-revealed-osama-bin/story?id=13530693

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if this was super top secret perhaps they should have done a better job of blowing it up

[octothorpe]

1. Totally setup to scare teh world leaders with top secret invisible black helicopters

I have no proof and I don't really believe it, but still.

[rug]

2. Even if true, they were built to be used, and were.

Secrets have a limited shelf life.

[Ian David]

3. It's the Shush-Copter from "The Nude Bomb." n/t

[Teaser]

4. I'm friends with a SEAL

Would you like me to put him in touch with you? I'm sure he'd love to hear your advice.

[DavidDvorkin]

13. An implied threat of violence in response to criticism?

[progressoid]

5. "Military secrets are the most fleeting of all."

--Spock--

[douglas9]

6. Mission helo was secret stealth Black Hawk

The helicopters that flew the Navy SEALs on the mission to kill Osama bin Laden were a radar-evading variant of the special operations MH-60 Black Hawk, according to a retired special operations aviator.

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.”

In addition, “in order to keep the radar cross-section down, you have to do something to treat the windshield,” he said. If a special coating was applied to the windshield it is “very plausible” that would make the helicopter more difficult to fly for pilots wearing night-vision goggles, he said. The helicopters carrying the SEALs arrived over the bin Laden compound at about 1 a.m. Monday local time. One crash-landed in the courtyard and was so badly damaged it was unable to take off again.

That crash landing might have been caused by a phenomenon known as “settling with power,” which occurs when a helicopter descends too quickly because its rotors cannot get the lift required from the turbulent air of their own downwash. “It’s hard to settle with power in a Black Hawk, but then again, if they were using one of these , working at max gross weight, it’s certainly plausible that they could have because they would have been flying so heavy,” the retired special operations aviator said, noting that low-observable modifications added “several hundred pounds” to the weight of the MH-60, which already weighs about 500 to 1000 pounds more than a regular UH-60 Black Hawk.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/05/army-mission-helocopter-was-secret-stealth-black-hawk-050411/

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

7. It couldn't have been very stealthy

if some guy was tweeting, complaining about all the noise from helicopters.

Anyway, some poor pilot is probably spending a whole week getting yelled at and doing pushups. A "doh" moment if there ever was one.

:hi:

[Thor_MN]

8. The tail rotor is more about radar stealth than audio stealth

The only picture was of the tail rotor, but all the text was about sound. The vast, vast majority of sound comes from the main rotor. IIRC, as the rotor transistions from adding the forward velocity of travel to the air speed of the rotor tip to subtracting it, noise is created. It occurs to one forward side of the helicopter, the side where the rotor tip is moving towards the rear of the craft. before composite materials, they used to talk of rotor "Slap". With stiffer materials, they can remove flex and they probably have spent billions of off the books dollars on designing a rotor that is quieter.

Making the body radar stealthy should be old hat, but we probably spent billions there as well.

When the hell do we get to put the MIC on a budget diet? It's probably the only fucking place where supply side economics actually work (but only to the benefit of the owners of the companies). If you stimulate the military industry, a use for the weapons will be found, causing a war, causing more weapons to be needed and starts a never ending cycle of spending. It doesn't work that way with the rest of the economy as giving money to companies that don;t have enough buyer of their products solves no problems. Are they going to hire back laid off workers to make more product that they can't sell?

[GeorgeGist]

9. Change you can believe in.

Only yesterday AP reported that the helicopter "its blades clawing at hot, too-thin air, had to put down hard".

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

10. Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk...

... it was reported in several news reports that the assault was led by Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_HH-60_Pave_Hawk> helicopters. I read the wiki page a few days ago while interested in following up on just what a PAVE Hawk is/was. I found it very interesting that the description says they are operated/developed by the U.S. Air Force.

Some interesting links:
<http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2011/05/air-force-pararescueman-earns-distinguished-flying-cross-050111w/>

<http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/03/obama-pushed-for-fight-your-way-out-option-in-bin-laden-raid/>

[FailureToCommunicate]

11. Was the backup "safety" Chinook modified also?

[eppur_se_muova]

12. Meh. Saw these demonstrated on network news years ago.

Probably CBS evening news. Cameras were filming from the choppers as they passed low over *sailing* boats (no noisy engines on the boats, it's unbelievably quiet on the water at night!) in the Persian gulf. Sailors didn't look up as choppers hovered low enough they could have thrown rocks and hit them.

Any country with the manufacturing know-how to make helicopters can probably work *most* of this out for themselves by now. There are bookshelves full of technical studies on reducing propellor and rotor noise, mostly to reduce noise at airports. Many are NASA Technical Notes and Reports, found in libraries worldwide. I doubt there's much left that's secret.