Black Project in the Light of Day Because of Bin Laden Raid

[Kyler]

Well it is finally being picked up by the bigger news agency's but Sunday's raid to kill Osama Bin Laden has shown a little light on what is obviously a top secret "Black" helicopter. As reported a 160th Nightstalker MH-60 was damaged beyond repair during the raid and subsequently destroyed by Seal Team Six. A large section of the helicopter's tail rotor survived because it was on the other side of the retaining wall. When the first photos of the remains of the helicopter were published by the media, the internet began to buzz like crazy because of aviation enthusiasts interest in whats was different from a regular MH-60.

From the published pictures and quick minded people adapting the public information we can easily tell the helicopter destroyed was no regular MH-60. The tail rotor design is very different from the standard H-60. The Nightstalkers helicopter tail encompasses rarely seen design features that are only similar to the canceled RAH-66. The tail rotor is five bladed compared to the standard 4 blade design plus the rotors hub is in a shape never seen before even further to having a rotor cover not featured on any other type of H-60 known. What these design elements are for no one is quite sure, but there are some theories. Obviously the design probably incorporates some type of stealth. It was noted the Pakistani military did not detect the helicopter force. The design elements probably add some type of radar &/or sound stealth. Helicopters are much harder to hide with stealth than aircraft, but the the 160th is considered by many to have the best helicopters pilots in the world. So a combination of low level flying and stealthier helicopter helped insure the raid was successful.

There are some question that this maybe be a completely new helicopter, but I side with that the helicopter is an advance stealth offshoot of the MH-60. The tail design and shape is too similar to probably be a different type of helicopter. I have actually seen a standard MH-60 & it's big brother the MH-47G in person since I used worked at an airport near where the 160th is based in KY so that's one of the reason I am siding with the modified MH-60 side.

Since questions have begun to run wild on the web, plus the wildly available pictures, we may actually see the first manned black aircraft in years go public.

Here are some pictures and links to show the differences and provide some better information.
Link 1
Link 2



Huge picture 1

Huge picture 2

[weemadando]

I posted a link in the main thread about this where there'd been a bunch of talk. Wired's Danger Room had a bug article about it.

[Mr. Coffee]

They had to have made a fairly major redseign of the tail rotor if those are pics of the ass-end of a burned out MH-60. From every pic of an MH-60 I can find on google image search it looks like the MH-60 still has that funky angled tail rotor.

[weemadando]

It's not from anything currently in official US inventory. It's smooth surfaces, no rivets or anything and composite blades with a hub designed either to minimise noise and/or radar. The basic layout is roughly blackhawk-ish which is why a stealth-hawk varient is the most common guess.

[Sidewinder]

What do you think are the chances we'll this tail rotor reverse-engineered and mounted on a Z-10?

[Jaepheth]

How much can Pakistan get for it, and who will be the buyer? Russia? China? India? Iran?

Could the US apply sufficient political pressure to get it returned?

I'd guess it'll be like the spy plane that got returned to the US after being thoroughly analyzed.

[Sidewinder]

How much can Pakistan get for it, and who will be the buyer? Russia? China? India? Iran?

India: Hell no- in case you forgot, the two nations fought a war VERY recently, and India blames Pakistan for launching terror attacks on its capital.

Russia: Hell no- it's a close ally of India.

Iran: Possible, but Tehran is unlikely to outbid the following nation.

China: Likely- it's a Pakistani ally, and the two nations have cooperated on military projects (see the JF-17 fighter and the Al-Khalid tank).

Could the US apply sufficient political pressure to get it returned?

Possible, but I wouldn't place any bets on this. As it is, the Pakistani government is probably howling mad the US violated its sovereignity by conducting the raid.

[Phantasee]

How much can Pakistan get for it, and who will be the buyer? Russia? China? India? Iran?

India: Hell no- in case you forgot, the two nations fought a war VERY recently, and India blames Pakistan for launching terror attacks on its capital.

Mumbai is not the capital of India. New Delhi is.

Possible, but I wouldn't place any bets on this. As it is, the Pakistani government is probably howling mad the US violated its sovereignity by conducting the raid.

They won't howl much, they are in a pretty dicey spot at the moment. Pretty much everyone is convinced bin Laden was staying in Pakistan as a guest of the ISI.

[Elheru Aran]

Yes... at the moment I imagine Pakistan is holding its cards close to its chest and hoping like fuck the Americans don't have a shotgun under the table pointed at their nuts. Probably all the US has to do is ask politely and they'll happily turn it over quickly... after taking it apart, photographing it thoroughly, maybe scraping off samples of whatever paint and materials are new, and putting everything in deep secure storage for future action.

Classified vehicles have fallen into enemy hands before; the Serbians downed a F-117 in Bosnia, after all. Will the US reveal details of this helicopter just because of this? Maybe, but it's anybody's guess right now.

[Broomstick]

Yes... at the moment I imagine Pakistan is holding its cards close to its chest and hoping like fuck the Americans don't have a shotgun under the table pointed at their nuts.

>snort<

I'm pretty sure the US does have a shotgun under the table pointed at their nuts, the question now is whether or not the US will pull the trigger.

Obama didn't say jack shit about the obvious - bin Laden HAD to have had local help, and that means military/government help. He let everyone else draw the conclusion, which, really, is more effective than simply announcing it. He's made the point that yes, the US CAN simply go into Pakistan any time it wants, after anyone it wants, and the only reason it doesn't happen more often is because.... well, why don't they? I'm sure there are some folks in Pakistan right now wondering that, and also wondering when the Stealth Helicopters will be coming for them.

Truth is, that sort of effort won't be expended for most enemies. But, obviously, it can be done.

The Pakistanis are now in a position that they know the US knows more than just what is carefully fed to them. No doubt they are also cognizant of the calls in the US to withdraw all US aid and support from Pakistan, which, if I recall, is worth something like $22 billion a year at current levels. Oh, that would suck, wouldn't it?

Maybe the US government is waiting to see what the Pakistanis will do, say, or offer?

I just wish Obama was this effective at dealing with domestic issues, but that's not a concern of most on this forum.

[Sidewinder]

Yes... at the moment I imagine Pakistan is holding its cards close to its chest and hoping like fuck the Americans don't have a shotgun under the table pointed at their nuts.

>snort<

I'm pretty sure the US does have a shotgun under the table pointed at their nuts, the question now is whether or not the US will pull the trigger.

Obama didn't say jack shit about the obvious - bin Laden HAD to have had local help, and that means military/government help. He let everyone else draw the conclusion, which, really, is more effective than simply announcing it.

I stand corrected.

He's made the point that yes, the US CAN simply go into Pakistan any time it wants, after anyone it wants, and the only reason it doesn't happen more often is because.... well, why don't they? I'm sure there are some folks in Pakistan right now wondering that, and also wondering when the Stealth Helicopters will be coming for them.

I think the problem was Pakistan was a US ally, and the Presidents (Bush as well as Obama) knew if they regularly violated an ally's sovereignity by launching such strikes in its territory, the US would quickly run out of allies- hence, handling bin Laden with kid gloves for a decade. What changed? I imagine a lot of people simply ran out of patience for Pakistan's double-dealing, especially with the 2008 Mumbai attack demonstrating a "Let's start a nuclear war, for the lulz! It doesn't matter if millions of our people die, as long as we kill millions of infidels!" level of recklessness.

[Broomstick]

Well, one thing that changed was who was President. Apparently the first thing Obama told that CIA was that getting bin Laden was going to be the priority. That, and personal relationships or understandings between the Bush administration may no longer exist under an Obama administration.

No, the US - or any nation - isn't going to make it habit of violating other nation's sovereignty, but it's not like that sort of thing hasn't happened before, and of course not just by the US. (Israel going after Nazis, DPRK kidnapping foreign nationals, etc.)

The question now, of course, is whether Pakistan is really an ally or not. Or, from the Pakistani perspective, whether or not the US is still an ally.

[Sarevok]

The question of whether Pakistan is an ally or not a difficult one to answer. A large number of people in Pakistan do not want to give up their way of life once islamic militants take over. They would actively panic and feel betrayed if the US abandoned Pakistan.

Pakistan is a very divided nation as opposed to a largely monolithic entity playing games against US.

[Covenant]

They're certainly not a real ally given their activities, but they're on the same side as us on some issues and they're not all terrorist-hiding Snidely Whiplashes. There's a lot more room for cooperation in the grey areas of friendship than people give credit for. They don't need to be your ally to be worth talking with. If nothing else, keeping them from toppling into fundamentalism is good for us, so even if they're not our friends it does serve our interests (and does the world some good).

Sounds like not much has changed, a lot of people may just be shocked to learn how dark gray that gray area can be.

[Tanasinn]

Pakistan isn't an ally, it's a ball and chain left over from the Cold War. We should take this opportunity while we have it to cut off our "special" relationship or at the very least massively curtail it.

[Sea Skimmer]

Obama didn't say jack shit about the obvious - bin Laden HAD to have had local help, and that means military/government help. He let everyone else draw the conclusion, which, really, is more effective than simply announcing it. He's made the point that yes, the US CAN simply go into Pakistan any time it wants, after anyone it wants, and the only reason it doesn't happen more often is because.... well, why don't they? I'm sure there are some folks in Pakistan right now wondering that, and also wondering when the Stealth Helicopters will be coming for them.

It is worth pointing out that fairly early on in this war the Bush Administration said US ground troops would enter Pakistan if the target was Osama Bin Laden, and we did make at least one ground raid a few years ago, but it was up in the tribal areas which are utter war zones. The big problem is and remains the fact that Pakistan is clearly bullshitting its own population on a regular basis concerning just how much it supports the US war effort, in aprticuarl the basing of drone attacks out of the country, and its basically impossible for anyone not in the inner circle of the US or Pakistani governments to know how much cooperation is really going on. Everything Pakistan says in public is for domestic consumption; but that doesn’t always mean they aren’t serious.

[Rogue 9]

Pakistan isn't an ally, it's a ball and chain left over from the Cold War. We should take this opportunity while we have it to cut off our "special" relationship or at the very least massively curtail it.

As long as we have a massive military operation in Afghanistan, we need Pakistan to not be hostile. That's the heart of the issue; they could cut our supply lines into Afghanistan whenever they damn well please.

[Broomstick]

Perhaps a better way of putting it is that while Pakistan may be an ally of convenience they are not our friends.

[Sarevok]

In addition Pakistan too big and too important to be allowed to fail.

[Broomstick]

No, it's because it has nukes it can't be allowed to fail, right?

That's another incentive for nukes - forces the rest of the world to prop up an otherwise failed regime because of the fear of who would get those nukes.

[Sarevok]

Not just nukes. Pakistan has a population of over 150 million. It's technological and industrial base is quite advanced. It's not obviously anywhere near America or Europe but they can build their own supersonic jet fighters even. And they achieved it all without the quick and easy oil money of Gulf Arabs. Pakistan still has the potential to be an advanced and prosperous country. It would be a genuine tragedy if the story of Pakistan ended in sorrow.

[Broomstick]

I find it a genuine tragedy for any country to wind up a shithole, whether technologically advanced or not, whether high population or not.

[montypython]

I find it a genuine tragedy for any country to wind up a shithole, whether technologically advanced or not, whether high population or not.

All those things added just makes it more hazardous not only for the natives but the neighbors and everybody else for that matter.

[Broomstick]

True. There's a sharp limit to the threat, say, Sudan poses to the rest of the world. Pakistan is objectively more of a hazard if things go to hell.