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Modified Stealth Helicopter in OBL raid

Manticore

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Modified Stealth Helicopter in OBL raid

Hello, I’m a British journalist and was at Bin Laden’s compound yesterday. I picked up a bit of the broken helicopter from a field by the house. By chance it had a serial number on it. No idea if it’s of any use / interest to you, but here goes:
SCFV12A107-3 next line: REV – next line: 6-25-09 (a date maybe?)

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Exclusive: Black Helo down – serial number found on a piece of the broken helicopter « David Cenciotti's weblog


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Pakistan did utilize the fallen dud Tomahawks that fell in Pakistan during the Clinton Era Attack on OBL Camps to design Babur Cruise Missiles.
 
.............and whilst you built it you must install very loud speakers to play the AIrwolf theme song when it flys.


 
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There is still one discrepancy ... if two helis were the 'new' stealth version.. then what about the two chinooks .. were they also stealth ? how did they get in undetected .. Chinook is quite big and noisy..
 
Hi, I had posted this a day ago in the thread "Air space violated..." However that thread has been deleted for some reason.

Bin Laden Raid May Have Exposed Stealth Helo | AVIATION WEEK

/*******************************************/
Bin Laden Raid May Have Exposed Stealth Helo
May 4, 2011
By Bill Sweetman william_sweetman@aviationweek.com

A previously undisclosed, classified stealth helicopter apparently was part of the U.S. task force that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 1.

The exact type of helicopter is unknown but it appears to be a highly modified version of an H-60 Blackhawk. Photos disseminated via the European PressPhoto agency and attributed to an anonymous stringer show that the helicopter’s tail features stealth-configured shapes on the boom and the tail rotor hub fairings, swept stabilizers and a “dishpan” cover over a five-or-six-blade tail rotor. It has a silver-loaded infrared suppression finish similar to that seen on V-22s.

See AviationWeek.com/ares for some photographs.

The aircraft was damaged during the mission and abandoned. The mission team destroyed most of the airframe but its tail section landed outside the wall of the target compound and escaped demolition.

Stealth helicopter technology is not new and was applied extensively to the Boeing/Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche, cancelled in 2004. Compared with fixed-wing stealth, more emphasis is usually placed on noise and infrared signatures.

Noise can be reduced and made less conspicuous by adding blades to the main and tail rotors. It can also be reduced by aerodynamic modifications and flight control changes that make it possible to reduce rotor rpm, particularly in forward flight below maximum speed. Infrared reduction measures are crucial - the Comanche had an elaborate system of exhaust ducts and fresh-air ejectors in its tailboom.

Radar cross-section (RCS) reduction measures include flattened and canted body sides, making landing gear and other features retractable, and adding fairings over the rotor hubs. It usually is not possible to achieve the same - you can’t make a helo as radar-stealthy as a fixed-wing airplane, but helicopters generally operate at low altitude in ground clutter. Reducing RCS also makes jamming more effective, whether from the aircraft itself or from a standoff jammer.
 
Hi, according to this TIME article, Pakistani radars were jammed. That seems more plausible on why the PAF could not do anything. The first paragraph of this article mentions this. Sending in the Chinooks at the end did not really matter, as surprise was the key element and that had been achieved. By then, the PAF could not scramble in time anyway. The first paragraph of this article mentions this.

The bin Laden Raid: Pakistan Feels the Heat of U.S. Mistrust - Yahoo! News

Pakistan's military establishment only learned of the raid when it was too late, according to government and military officials. U.S. helicopters were able to swoop in from Afghanistan undetected, as Pakistani radars had been jammed. The Pakistan government, in a statement, tried to explain this away by saying, the choppers took advantage of "blind spots in the radar coverage due to hilly terrain." By the time Pakistani fighter jets set off to pursue them, it was too late.

The raid was a combination of possibly the following:

- Stealth helos..
- Extensive jamming.
- Weak radar coverage of the western border by the PAF.
 
Hi, only the tail rotor was recovered. However, it should still be interesting to dissect.


Could the bin Laden Raid Have Revealed a Secret New Helicopter? - Yahoo! News

Could the bin Laden Raid Have Revealed a Secret New Helicopter?
By MICHELLE TRAVIERSO Michelle Travierso – Wed May 4, 5:40 pm ET

A picture of the tail rotor of the chopper that the Navy Seals' Team Six detonated revealed unfamiliar features. Reports say it could be a new, secret helicopter.

When the Team Six members reached Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad one of the choppers made a "controlled but hard landing," according to reports, probably due to higher than expected temperatures.

Temperatures affects the density of the air, and low density makes it harder for the rotor to sustain the weight of the chopper, especially if it was near its maximum weight (being packed with soldiers and fuel to fly in from Afghanistan). Abbottabad is about 1200 meters above the sea level, and altitude also affects air density. (Inside the Osama bin Laden Strike: How America Got Its Man.)

So what machine exactly experienced the hard landing described above? Short answer: we don't know for sure. Long answer: It seems that the tail rotor visible in the picture belongs to a highly modified version of the H-60, the chopper of choice of the special forces for more than 30 years. Aviation Week doesn't beat around the bush, claiming: "A previously undisclosed, classified stealth helicopter apparently was part of the U.S. task force that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 1."

Stealth technology on helicopters is not itself new, but the fact that a previously unknown machine was used in this raid is yet another proof of the degree of importance that this mission had for U.S. commanders. (Watch President Obama's announcement of Osama bin Laden's death.)

Aviation Week then goes techie and explains what we can see from that picture: "Photos disseminated via the European PressPhoto agency and attributed to an anonymous stringer show that the helicopter’s tail features stealth-configured shapes on the boom and the tail rotor hub fairings, swept stabilizers and a 'dishpan' cover over a five-or-six-blade tail rotor. It has a silver-loaded infrared suppression finish similar to that seen on V-22s."

Low radar visibility was essential, for the Pakistani air force would have either scrambled its jets if an unknown threat to its airspace (and near the country's best military academy!) was detected, or fired its surface to air missiles. It's possibly more proof of the fact that Pakistan really knew nothing about the mission - or at least its first wave of attack - until it ended. (See pictures of Osama bin Laden.)

This would explain why the Seals wasted critically precious time to blew up the mysterious helicopter and why many experts had problems identifying its remains. It's unclear what Pakistan could have made of the downed chopper, but growing ties between Pakistani and Chinese armed forces could have made the destruction of such new machine a must. China and Pakistan, over the past two decades, have developed a multi role combat aircraft called JF-17 and an advanced trainer, the JL-8.

The Navy Seals usually fly in the famed Sikorsky UH-60, popularized by the movie Black Hawk Down, in which two UH-60 were shot down in Somalia, resulting in the death of 18 men.

Black Hawk Down was a scenario, insiders say, that together with first attempt to rescue the hostages held at the U.S. embassy in 1980 in Iran, that's been evoked constantly in the planning phases leading to the May 1 raid, as examples of potentially disastrous outcomes. (Via Aviation Week)
 
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