Not even a reverse engineered Chinese copy.
I still say it was a red herring to let Pakistan off the hook for allowing the raid to go ahead.

All we know is this tail part was left.
https://images.app.goo.gl/g8r7DyFDqVcgixRZ6

I never got why the rest of the aircraft should be so close to some pretty standard Blackhawk? If it is intended to be stealthy wouldn't the entire airframe need to be designed in some more radical way?

Do you have anything beyond your opinion to back this?

It's a good probability that they've been buried in the desert by now and replaced with something else.

I don't think so. I have a friend who saw two of them in a hangar in Afghanistan in the hours leading up the mission.

China’s take
 

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...FA8xOWWB3YN4b8


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....da4e148ae.jpeg

Some details of the stealthy Black Hawks from a new programme on Sky History channel.

Title:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14574560/

Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden

Lead Planner and Captain, US Navy SEAL.

"As the briefs went through the chain of command there was a sensitivity expressed on exposure to radars and discovery of the helicopters as the force was infiltrating. That shifted the conversation to using the Black Hawks that had some of the capabilities to defeat radar."


Command Master Chief, US Navy SEAL Team Six

"Very early on when we got out and saw them fly they were unstable, particularly when they came into hover and I said with all due respect I don't think that we should use these helicopters. The time to try something new is not on the most important raid arguably since WW2."


Lead Planner and Captain, US Navy SEAL.

"Another one of the factors that we had to take into account was that the aircrews flying the Black Hawks had been separate programme and didn't have a lot of time flying overseas."


Admiral McCraven, Commander Joint Special Operations Command

"..... those particular crews had been taken out of the fight for quite a while and really had just been part of research."

Absolutely not.

:}:D

Sounds like some of the lessons from Eagle Claw which I just re-read were weighed and considered as acceptable risk, or forgotten. Two of the six or so major lessons from Eagle Claw were not to use helicopter crews that had not been part of, or well integrated, into the team beforehand, and not be overly complex.... Guess stealth/surprise was deemed more important than some lessons. Salute to the folks that carried it out.

And any hard evidence to demolish Tashengurt's Occam's razor assessment? ( and mine from 2011 incidentally)

More here on the stealth specials - there were two - air quality inside the compound affecting lift available - pilot that managed to do the heavy landing had 6,000 hours on UH-60s

There was a forward refueling area in Pakistan for the return leg and that's where the backup helo for the extraction came from.

From 6:50 here:

The forward refuelling area was visible on google maps for a while - with resident US helis of various types. I think it's safe to assume 160th SOAR and their friends were familiar with it.

https://www.sandboxx.us/news/airpowe...k-helicopters/

https://www.sandboxx.us/wp-content/u...S-1024x541.jpg

cheers

Which Syria raid is that?

In the posted picture, the 2014 "Syria raid" silhouette suggests that the stealth Blackhawk has retractable gear.
Interesting, if true, although that may simply be a bit of artistic license.

I think all the images of the ones used in the OBL raid also had retractable gear - pretty much stealth 101 I’d say.

The only 2014 one I can think of in the public domain was the attempt to rescue James Foley