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Crashed Helicopter Sparks Concern Over Stealth Secrets
Hugh Pickens writes "The crash of a helicopter involved in the raid on Osama bin Laden's Pakistani hideout has prompted intense speculation about whether the aircraft was specially modified to fly stealthily — and whether its remains could offer hostile governments clues to sensitive US military technology. Remnants of the helicopter, including a nearly intact piece of its tail, suggested that the aircraft involved in the raid wasn't the typical Black Hawk flown by special-operations forces. Aviation experts who scrutinized photos of the scene say the tail had unusual features that suggested the helicopter had been extensively modified to fly quietly, while appearing less visible to radar. 'The odds are fair — based on my knowledge of the subject area — the vast majority of the special MH-60s aircraft were purpose-built to make those aircraft as stealthy as they could possibly be,' says aviation expert Jay Miller, adding that the remnants of the aircraft suggested extensive use of nonmetallic composite parts, which reflect less radar energy. Experts also say the tail rotor's design suggested an effort to reduce the 'acoustic signature' (video) of the helicopters to make them fly more quietly."
Or a new design. That tail rotor is not from any know US or even NATO Helicopter. How much was compromised? Maybe some materials It will depend on if Pakistan gives it back or not. They will probably pass some parts onto China since they are working with them on new aircraft. Or we will sell them some more F16s cheap if they give back to US.
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The fact that civilian aviation experts were able to look at the pictures and say "gee, that's a so-and-so modification to reduce noise" suggests to me that this is hardly top-secret technology. Also, the fact that special forces have relatively stealthy helicopters is hardly surprising.
What next; controversy about a crashed police car 'revealing' secret tuning and suspension modifications?
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The key factor is that this mission was so important - even the President was personally involved in its planned - that the very best, most advanced technology available would have been employed. If there are secret helicopters and eavesdropping equipment and spy gadgets, then they would have been employed for this. I think the design (5 blade), material and aerodynamic shape of the tail rotors would be the biggest thing up for grabs after this incident. It also makes me wonder if China, Russia, etc, have their act together enough to quickly place buyers in Pakistan to purchase whatever photos, or even actual pieces of the wreckage, they can. One thing is for sure, China and Russia are very good at reverse engineering.
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That we have a stealth helicopter or that its 'secrets' might be out there now?
Concerns are irrelevant either way. We worked on a stealth helicopter design for a while (RAH-66) which failed to materialize, but it makes sense lessons learned from the project could be put to use. In regards to people knowing about it (or having access to its parts), well, if you use it in combat you might lose one, and then it's out there for everyone to see.
It must have been a Stealth Blackhawk in BETA - never seen before and bound to crash at least once.
All kidding aside, it is quite unfortunate that it's debut was the result of a crash in a country that has been known to export nifty knowledge and new technology they acquire (i.e. A.Q Kahn and nuclear weapons).
Helicopters are the opposite of stealth.
Naval Aviator: "You know how a helicopter flies?"
me: "uhh.. the main rotor, lift, drag, etc?"
Naval Aviator: "Wrong. They make so much goddamn noise the Earth gets away from them"
According the NYtimes the reason it crashed was not mechanical failure but lack of lift. two reasons were given 1) thin air 2) the walls of the compound created a vortex. So apparently just some modestly walls to guide air will reduce the lift enough to crash this thing. I wonder how it is supposed to land between buildings? I wonder if perhaps the noise reduction and stealth features came at a price of reduced performance.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The only image I could find was a drawing depicting what it might look like compared to the Blackhawk.
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That would have killed a lot of civilians, undermining the decision to use special forces in the first place.
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Open an enormous crater in the middle of a city? This is often understood as an act of war.
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Our good friends and allies, the Pakistanis, are just going to give us back the helicopter, and protect it's secrets from our enemies... right?
Actually just sending troop into a country is an act of war; it's also considered good etiquette not to announce to the world when you do, do it.
How did they fit 24 commandos, 4 pilots, a dog, a body, and retrieved materials into the remaining stealth Blackhawk? Did the military developed stealth midget commandos for this mission?
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The first time I heard about this whole mission, I thought, whoah, American helicopters managed to fly 150 km into Pakistan without being noticed? Pakistan isn't a slouch when it comes to military equipment: they've fought several wars with India, and are used to trying to track some of the finest military hardware in the world. Yet two helicopters flew in, invisibly. It sounds like they were supported by two Chinooks, that came in a bit later, and those *were* seen by the Pakistani air defense, but the first group in weren't seen. A lot of other countries are going to want to figure out how we did this.
There have been a lot of US projects in making low-observable helicopters, from the modified Hughes OH6 Loach used to surreptitiously place wiretaps on lines during Vietnam, that also used increased numbers of blades, and the cancelled RAH-66 Comanche, that was supposed to be quiet and have a vastly reduced radar signature. The ones used Monday are probably Blackhawks modified based on the stuff learned from the Comanche, but they could be completely new aircraft: the descriptions of the amount of personnel and material taken in are at the very edge of what two stock Blackhawks could carry, and adding lots of stealth technology adds a *lot* of weight.
Among other interesting things I've read and observed: the stock Blackhawk is manufactured with sheets of aluminum riveted together along the edges, like most planes. The pictures show rivetless construction, and in one picture it looks like there's a long weld seam that appears to have been done by hand rather than machine, making me think there are a very small number of prototypes of this. I also saw a link somewhere, that I can't find now, to a press release by a company who was adding small servos into the collector linkages that added continuous slight variance to the blade angle, to minimize noise by distributing it across different frequencies, which seems pretty cool. I've even seen a few claims that the whole aircraft was covered in material that could emit low levels of light, to blend it visually against a lighted sky (a technique used back in WWII by putting headlights on the leading edges of aircraft wings so that they could dive-bomb submarines without being seen until it was too late for the sub to dive. This was distinct from the british Leigh lights, that were used in after-dark attacks along with radar.)
I'm betting a whole lot of people are bidding on the wreckage that was recovered -- which is, itself, surprising, at least to me, because it sounds like the commandoes were able to completely destroy the whole main fuselage, leaving just the tail. Under the hurried circumstances that's pretty surprising. (I wouldn't be surprised to find out they actually hooked it to one of the Chinooks and dragged it out along with them.)
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Two stealth helicopters got them in; they had two helicopters in reserve to get them out.
paintball
I wonder if the world would have heard of this event if that helicopter hadn't have crashed. When that helicopter crashed and left a section of somewhat identifiable wreckage, the US lost capability for plausible denial. They had to tell the world.
I also have to wonder if, given the number of helicopters (two modified Black Hawks and two Chinooks), the original mission was just a capture mission. With this kind of carrying capacity, they could have removed everyone in the compound that wasn't killed in the initial raid. They would have landed the SEAL team first with the stealth Black Hawks, pulled out the Black Hawks and then followed that up a while later with a Chinook or two to pull out captives and the SEAL team. With no-one alive in the compound, the US would have had some degree of plausible deniability. On top of that, they'd have a large number of presumably senior al-Quaeda members to interrogate.
Instead, the crashed helicopter would have taken out a large chunk of the LZ (leaving no landing space for a Chinook), it would have taken up crew to dispose of the wreckage and tend to any wounded from the crash. Combine this with an already limited timeframe and being stuck with only one aircraft to remove the SEAL team and Bin Laden, and this may have suddenly become a kill mission.
Well Osama was found in a populated city filled with Pakistani Military and Spy agency personnel and by all indications he had been there along time. That leaves a few possibilities :
1. The Pakistanis are completely incompetent at security, and therefore could not be trusted to protect our bird.
2. The Pakistani Government knew where Osama was and was protecting him from us, they are therefore not actually or allies but an enemy who has been playing us, and therefore could not be trusted to protect our bird. The jury is still out.
3. Parts of the Pakistani Government and or Military leadership are disloyal and were protecting Osama from the rest of the government and us. From and operation standpoint we can't know who can and cannot be trusted therefore none can be trusted, and we had to scuttle the bird.
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seal team 6 is going back in to assassinate whoever has the parts and taking them back
Or maybe Apple's lawyers.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
"Doesn't make a sound, "
Except for all that wind being blown around by the ginormous fan.
Hmm honey, why suddenly is all the dust in the alleyway being blown around like a tornado just hit?
Even if they could do silent, you're not going to be within 1000 feet of your target without them knowing exactly where you are.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
the author from the blog where I found the image of what could be the "stealth hawk" have a interesting theory: To ensure they got to the house without being noticed by the Pakistanis, it is possible that the Chinnoks were also stealth versions.
Standing off some distance and being more easily detected would also have been something of a diversion.
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Another view is that by the time the military is allowing "advanced tech" to be seen in theater or in public, it is already far enough along the lifecycle that we don't care if it is divulged. I.e. the F-117 was already an obsolete machine when it was lost in Serbia, and perhaps this helicopter was also similarly obsolete before it got picked for a very high profile mission.
We probably wouldn't risk exposure of real secret stuff unless our backs were against a wall, and long-term strategic release of info is no longer a basis for decisions (think World War 3, not anti-terror skirmish #582). But recall, even in World War 2, the lore says that tactical losses allowed to fail in order to protect strategic secrets... there is rarely a situation so dire that strategy is off the table.
That twitter guy who became famous for live-tweeting the raid when he was annoyed by a helicopter certainly seemed to have heard it.
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Any kind of mechanical device, out out in the real world, will eventually make it into the hands of the "enemy".
There have always been technology transfers via this mechanism.
If it was so damn important, it shoud never have been put into the field.
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