The mysterious helicopter involved in the Osama Bin Laden raid

[bugkill]

All I can say is that at this point people should not trust anything coming out of the media and wait until the CENSORED breifing comes down from DoD to get a better idea of what went down. This was a black operation and I feel (just my opinion) that there is far more to this story than just the Seals flying into the compound and doing the work. Things are not adding up and it is best that the WH and DoD say and show as little as possible.

I have no idea what that helo was, but it sure as hell does not look like a piece coming from a MH-60. Then again, maybe it was not one of the transport choopers that crashed in the first place and a drone may have crashed. The facts are changing each day and I'm telling everyone that we will never get the full story of how this was done. This OP was different than when we got Saddam because a large force (4th ID supported the SOF team) was involved in that operation and it was in a country that we were occupying. The bin laden hit was done in a sovereign country and was extremely politically sensitive and that is why I do not think we will ever get the full story or the details. The way this thing went down is highly sensitive and my feeling is that certain tactics were used that will be closely guarded.

Nobody is going to talk about this OP and only vague details will be released for a long time. However, i do hope I am wrong and there is a video released, lol.

[shinraiden]

The NASA docs posted some pages back point out some crucial details worth noting.

Adding more rotors (eg tail to 5) and having certain non-uniform angles can depending on the airframe result in audio profile reductions of up to 10db (in the public data PDF) in the crucial up-range approach at the cost of deceased load/range. We've seen that the tail had 5+ blades, and quite feasibly irregularly spaced angles. NASA's opinion is that the same can be done to the main rotor, but unfortunately we don't have pics of it, and *if* bits were left (BHD site et al) it would probably be difficult to determine blade angle with a stealth fairing and/or ashes.

There's really only two mechanical engineering reasons why it might not be a mod kit tail for XH-60BDP:

1. There's no destinctive H-60 'blister' at the top of the tail, meaning that portion of the mechanics is radically different.
2. The tail stabs can't join like a normal H-60 due to the elongated fairing (rather large for just LoDrag, ECM maybe?) so the stab controls (which could fit inside the fairing) would need a custom rocker arm or something new to actuate.

BTW, one of the news pics, Wall Street Jounal set iirc, shows some skid lines or something indicating that the stabs are not fixed, but are intended to rotate. +1 for H-60 there.

Now as for the mechanical failure, the rumormongers said it was having mech problems inbound but not due to hostile fire. A speculative possibility is that the lift effect harmonic of an irregularly spaced main rotor caused problems, or stalled on the wall or any of the other common maladies associated with 'flight' by beating the air into submission.

[usa320]

id say the aircraft in question is either a highly modified MH-60 variant or a variant of the H-92.

[SoftLion]

Purposeful crash on one side of the compound as diversion, insertion on the other. Mocked up something or other to keep the ISI on their toes.

That funny smell is my ass talking.

[C.Puffs]

I'm more curious as to what the president was doing with the PS2 controller and what he was interfacing with?

Posing for Photoshop is what he was doing.

[California Joe]

I'm really pissed that I'd know the answer if I was back at my old job.

[T3ngu]

I'm more curious as to what the president was doing with the PS2 controller and what he was interfacing with?

[boone]

I'm not 100% sure on the model, but it's a product of Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems. You can tell by the shade of paint and number of rivets visible.
I'm leaning towards YPS- Arapaho or the armed variant that goes by designation "Cree"

[KEEPER0311]

I lolled. Used to play Socom2 way back in the day.

[Skutatos]

I'm not 100% sure on the model, but it's a product of Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems. You can tell by the shade of paint and number of rivets visible.
I'm leaning towards YPS- Arapaho or the armed variant that goes by designation "Cree"

Any word on whether or not Captain Kirk was piloting it?

[usa320]

another possibility- would be a variant of the UH-72 lakota.

[Mountain Man]

The NASA docs posted some pages back point out some crucial details worth noting.

Adding more rotors (eg tail to 5) and having certain non-uniform angles can depending on the airframe result in audio profile reductions of up to 10db (in the public data PDF) in the crucial up-range approach at the cost of deceased load/range. We've seen that the tail had 5+ blades, and quite feasibly irregularly spaced angles. NASA's opinion is that the same can be done to the main rotor, but unfortunately we don't have pics of it, and *if* bits were left (BHD site et al) it would probably be difficult to determine blade angle with a stealth fairing and/or ashes.

There's really only two mechanical engineering reasons why it might not be a mod kit tail for XH-60BDP:

1. There's no destinctive H-60 'blister' at the top of the tail, meaning that portion of the mechanics is radically different.
2. The tail stabs can't join like a normal H-60 due to the elongated fairing (rather large for just LoDrag, ECM maybe?) so the stab controls (which could fit inside the fairing) would need a custom rocker arm or something new to actuate.

BTW, one of the news pics, Wall Street Jounal set iirc, shows some skid lines or something indicating that the stabs are not fixed, but are intended to rotate. +1 for H-60 there.

Now as for the mechanical failure, the rumormongers said it was having mech problems inbound but not due to hostile fire. A speculative possibility is that the lift effect harmonic of an irregularly spaced main rotor caused problems, or stalled on the wall or any of the other common maladies associated with 'flight' by beating the air into submission.

Couldn't the tunnel be molded into the pannel since it's carbon fiber? Kinda like bondo-ing the lines of a car to make it smoother.

[fisheyestudio]

I'm not 100% sure on the model, but it's a product of Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems. You can tell by the shade of paint and number of rivets visible.
I'm leaning towards YPS- Arapaho or the armed variant that goes by designation "Cree"

"Everyone needs see Buckaroo Banzai..."

No matter where you post...there you are...

[An_Braz]

I am not an expert of US helos, but it seems to be based on Black-Hawk helo tail...

looking at the picture, the tail rotor seems to be a 5-blade rotor :
- look at the noise reducer : it has blades notches at 90°
- The blade that you can see touching the ground is clearly broken and out of tis angle
=> Usually, this is used as noice reducer
(refer for example to the 5-blade main rotor of the French Eurocopter helo "Super Puma")

S92 ?
No way.
S92 stabilizer has a a handle mounting fixing it to the pylon, under the tail rotor.
As we can see on the following pictures, it is not the case of the crashed helo :



With this kind of design of stabilizer, I (currently) know only 2 helo :
H-60 Back-Hawk design
AH-64 Apache design

May be a AH64 ? Why is it possible :
Usually, this kind of operation is backed with at least 1 armed helo
(... After saying that, as I said, I do not know US helo enough)

[An_Braz]

No Lakota.

UH72 Lakota is a light helo with a stabilizer design which is completely different of that.

And, at the current moment, there is no armed version of this helo.
The armed version might be the AAS72 (if the US gov' sign for)