Back in action?
 

http://theaviationist.com/2015/05/17...pter-in-syria/

Cheers

chopper, the author notes that little is known, and then embarks on a pile of speculation.

/tongue in cheek
And as we all know, Delta Force doesn't really exist
/tongue in cheek

There's always the possibility in the OBL raid, that after the hit itself, a sizable piece of a redundant experimental helicopter was dropped on the site (maybe from one of the CH-47s reportedly involved in the raid) to:

1. Make an iconic photo opportunity of an otherwise pretty nondescript location.
2. Give other nations the impression that the Americans were further ahead with putting stealth helicopters into service than they really were.
3. Add a significant amount of 'wow-factor' to the story.
4. Establish the level of co-operation between the Pakistanis/Chinese and/or others, before the subsequent retrieval of the 'wreckage'.

The Americans would have been well aware that the wreckage would soon be inspected by knowledgable foreign parties, thus a film set type mock-up would have been rapidly outed. Whatever was left behind would have had to be pretty convincing.

@Lonewolf,

Lol, you mean the 303rd Logistical Studies Group led by Lt Col Tom Ryan a.k.a The Terminator with Snake Doctor, Betty Blue, Cool Breeze, Dirt Driver.

@Mechta,

Ref your synopsis on the MH-47E dropping a nice tail rotor got one thinking and found another related link by the Aviationist, w.r.t related matter below

The Aviationist » The Stealth Chinook involved in the Osama Bin Laden raid and why the Stealth Black Hawk crashed in Abbottabad

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...pso5mbgnhp.jpg

Cheers

Google earth has some interesting past images at the Tarbela Dam airfield, some 60 clicks SW of Abbottabad. (Should Pakistan ever be implicated in assisting the raid and that the raid was announced prematurely after the loss of a helo during the op.) :hmm:

What, nobody going to deny, ridicule?

I'm more than willing to ridicule if I had any idea what you are on about.

Type with clarity and add links, and I promise to ridicule as requested.

I apologise for my lack of clarity, your Google must be broken.

Ah, right. You give us a job and we all immediately rush off and do it to your satisfaction.

Seems fair enough.

I'm willing to ridicule, but not interested in expending any effort in the process.

Seems like I'm in the majority.

Chopper2004,

Thanks for the type correction (MH-47E).

I'll believe there is such a thing as a 'stealth Chinook' when I don't hear it.:}

As an idle thought, would a fuselage stretch to prevent the front/rear blade overlap, reduce the distinctive 'thump, thump, thump' that the Chinook produces?

Worth a read perhaps?
 

Book Reveals New Details About Stealth Black Hawks Used In Bin Laden Raid

cheers

Making the Wokka Stealthy is easy....try doing that for the Huey!

Mechta, as the tread has been resurected, you don't so much as hear a CH47 as feel it.

Same with the other big 'uns. Used to watch cattle vacate a target area long before you could see the helos.

1978 Technical Report
 

Thanks for the update. Tyler must have done his homework, so good for him.

Stealth helo has been around for a while.

https://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/23...n-vietnam.html

Thing looks like a flying Zumwalt!
With a cross section like that - no wonder it handles like a pig...!

Low Observable Little Bird
 

On this day 8 years ago
 

And STILL no sign of the Stealth Blackhawk :)

That's kind of the point, no?

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/y...he-first-time/

Exclusive: Legendary special operations aviator reveals bin Laden mission details for the first time

I still think it was a handy excuse for Pakistan allowing the raid to happen.

Thanks for that, ORAC. Very impressive.

From the article .....
I suspected as much. I am both glad that my guess was correct, and disappointed that stuff like this is being discussed in open sources.

",,,,,,,and STILL no sign of the StealthBlackhawkhttps://www.pprune.org/images/smilies/smile.gif"
see my #181
And yet another year goes by................

Over 20 years since the last flight of the SR-71 and no sight of the TR-3 or the Aurora or whatever made the soap-on-a-rope contrails far above the airways off the West coast...

Salute!

A great point, frequent poster. Been 9 years since the UBL raid, so guess there's been no effort to develop and field new, improved systems for covert and not so covert missions. We don't even know the exact configuration of the choppers used back then.

I wonder why the Guardian or Sun or NYT or WaPo doesn't have accurate scale diagrams of every bend and curve and angle on the platforms that the U.S. or any other country wishes to remain "secret". /sarc

And then the DuPont company or 3M could have their patent for their new, improved RAM coatings that have been developed and fielded since the late 70's and early 80's when one country seemed to have made a quantum leap in LO technology. Huh? Oooops, shouldn't have mentioned "quantum"....... Now waiting for the visit from men in black, sheesh....

Gums sends...

I could tell you, but then I'd have to use a horrible old cliche from a movie about shirtless male beach volleyball that had some airplanes in it.

What I learned over many years is that the Gummint is very good at keeping certain things secret. Also, given the rather large piles of cash that have gone into such things, compared to the visible results we have seen, either something else was produced that we don't know about or somebody's got some splainin to do about where the **** that money went.

The size of the money is hard to keep stealthy. The shapes it goes into can be several orders of magnitude harder to see.

Salute!

Enjoying the banter, today. But let's not forget the meaning of the holiday, huh?

'Follow the money". Yep, that's how the Aurora thread got started, wasn't it?

The best bet to see where a neat project was in progress was to follow the construction $$$ at Tonopah in early 80's. Maybe not easy to find in the annual budget, but all those trucks and semi-tractors loaded with stuff had to be a clue if you had a trailer park closeby, huh? Groom Lake was well known by all of us by then, but we didn't know exactly what the platforms were flying there (except for the saucers), and only knew a few of the pilots. We also knew many of the Constant Peg folks and some of us actually flew against them to "learn" some things. The heavy traffic was at Tonopah for both Constant Peg as well as the F-117 outfit. Some folks thot Michael AAF at Dugway couild have been a player, but not me. I was flying in that area then and can tellya that the strip was bare bones and nothing was going on. Not so with Tonopah.

I still haven't figured out how you can make a helo "stealthy". Guess the wizards have been very successful last 30 years since I was close to the business.

Gums sends...

:cool: :cool: :cool:

Indeed.
One fact remains.
That tail-rotor, stabilator and the colour of them wasn't like anything in the current inventory at all.
The tail rotor boss was clearly aimed at reducing radar reflectivity - anyone seen anything like that on a helicopter before?
And the photo wasn't a fake.
As Gums points out - many, many people knew something was going on at Tonapah quite early in the piece.
But images of the F-117 didn't make it into the media for a long time.
And today - we all know there's something called the B-21 being built - the iron bird's been finished for a while.
But can anyone yet show me a real photo of it yet?
I have no doubt that there is some kind of LO Blackhawk or something similar - albeit in very small numbers...

I always found this to be the most likely preview of things to come.

Flying doritos more like LRS-B fly off a.k.a L-M and Boeing tad annoyed with decision to purchase Northrop B-21 Raider

cheers

Salute!

Don't think so, Fonz....

If you can see it and get a photo, then it must be intentional subterfuge, and we have to keep folks looking for ghosts. Huh?

Gums sends...

Thing is though laughingly about Aurora, it was few years ago L-M announced SR-72 development

https://www.airforce-technology.com/...-71-spy-plane/

https://www.businessinsider.com/sr-7...18-1?r=US&IR=T

Then retracted the idea..

https://www.flightglobal.com/singapo...127007.article

I still think that they were just mod-heavy uh60s, maybe with a completely different tailboom as that would be relatively easy to change out.

Define what you mean by 'relatively easy' about UH-60 Tail boom replacement.