Obviously you didn't actually read what I wrote.
Let's just leave it there .

Except that it couldn't.

Agreed.

Haraka

If you imagine that Pakistani help would have been possible or welcome, then you really are in tinfoil hat land.

Can you imagine trusting their security services with this sort of information?!?

Far too much riding on it.

The helicopter incident seems such a long time ago now, with little new info.

The interesting thing for me was:

1. it was clearly an accident, given the context of the raid
2. it clearly had a completely standard burnt out blackhawk main rotor head. It may have had some sort of stealth covering that may have been burnt off, but the main rotor head mechanics were identical to a standard blackhawk. There are clear photos of this.
3. the tail was unburnt - having collapsed the other side of the wall. this was clearly unlike any known helicopter at all - and clearly nothing like any known standard blackhawk derivative.

This proves that the helicopter was real, and an unknown type, likely based on a blackhawk, with significant modifications related to stealth.

The US has a long history of trying to build silent helicopters going back to vietnam. Much of this is online.

I don't see the need for any conspiracy theories - its just a bespoke special ops helicopter that is still classified for reasonably obvious signature reasons.

I'm looking forward to seeing one for real, but won't be surprised if its 10+ years before its made public, if ever.

Within the reality based community, a far more interesting question to me than any of this is: Why is the horizontal stabilizer (is it a stabilator like the conventional Blackhawk?) forward swept?

Same reason all stealthy aircraft have funny angles and no square corners?

Or is it because it looks cool?

You assume that there is such a cohesive element as "their security services" in a country being supplied American military and financial assistance and with a complex record of affiliations and relationships., many of which remain deliberately obscure.

Could you therefore give us any grounds for your assumption?

Which is a very interesting mix of helicopter history and conspiracy theory - which has absolutely nothing to do withe the subject of the thread....

My fault ORAC for initially comparing the provenance of a somewhat suspect artist's impression of the "B-21" with a sequence of even more unlikely artists' impressions of a hypothetical helicopter, derived from imagery of a bit of tail pylon assembly.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/jet_fuel.png

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/conspiracy_theories.png

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/semicont...demolition.png

Regarding the OBL raid helicopter, I seem to remember a report not long after which quoted a 'source' as saying that the type wasn't classified per se, just that it was never flown/exposed in circumstances where anyone who wasn't supposed to see it would have access.

I guess, in the same way that the Manhattan Project wasn't classified - they just didn't tell anyone about it that didn't need to know.

B-21 Raider
 

Its official now, named the Raider

cheers

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


http://www.airforcemag.com/DRArchive...21-Raider.aspx

I am fascinated to see zero links to the RotorHeads thread on the stealth Blackhawk topic.


@Chopper2004


As to the B-21 Raider, Julio Douhet's wet dream once again inflicts itself upon the DoD budget cycle. The bomber that "will always get through."

ORAC,
Not only this but there is a thread in JB that deals with 9/11 conspiracy theories. It went dead and I was hoping it would stay that way...

B-21 Bomber Estimate By CAPE: $511M A Copy

".....Walden also made clear the Air Force will probably pursue a deep penetrating fighter to accompany the bomber to heavily defended targets deep inside a country. He didn’t say it but my understanding is war games have shown the B-21 is incapable of making it to western China to destroy the missile and artillery units there.........."

A "deep penetrating fighter" is the dream of a lot of fighter jocks, and has nothing to do with aircraft. :p

My prediction: B-21 will be unmanned. Saves tons of weight. The tech is already here.

Shades of the D-21.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21
Maybe the PCAP will be unmanned - flying in formation with the B-21.
Or maybe they just need to build an updated version of this. ;)

The other one
 

It's interesting that there is still no further information come to light, about the aircraft spotted at high level over Texas, which clearly had no central 'duck-tail'. Wonder where IT fits into the future plan?