Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Posted by David Cenciotti...he's got a serial number from the downed helo!


You have got to go to David's Blog to read the story on this.  His reporting on the air war in Libya is second to none and his coverage of this 'stealth' helo ranks up there as well.

MASSIVE HAT TIP TO YOU DAVID! 
Posted by at

7 comments :

  1. cbdWednesday, May 04, 2011 5:36:00 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. cbdWednesday, May 04, 2011 5:37:00 PM

    Sol,
    Semi-official confirmation...from Army Times

    http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/05/army-mission-helocopter-was-secret-stealth-black-hawk-050411/

    Just noticed that the URL has a typo in 'helicopter'.

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  3. RohanWednesday, May 04, 2011 9:27:00 PM

    Sweet looking bird, too bad about the loss, the tail section and assorted bits will probably end up in a PLA Lab by the end of the month...we really do need to start picking our 'friends' more carefully

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  4. JeffreyThursday, May 05, 2011 6:27:00 AM

    From an interview with an ex-SEAL floating around, it was apparently one of four prototypes based on the UH60 from a program canceled 2 years ago. That seems to match up with reports that serial numbers on a part from the wreckage was manufactured in 2009. They were apparently canceled because they couldn't meet some undisclosed requirement. I'd guess the retrofitted stealth added too much weight and probably contributed to the mechanical failures of the crash. It makes you wonder what else is out there... who know's maybe someone's using those commanche prototypes as well.

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  5. PolyteknikThursday, May 05, 2011 10:43:00 AM

    I was wondering what type of new PAVE Hawk was being used, based upon the Reuters photographs released days ago which showed the remnants of the tail rotor hub and stabilizer assembly (with the stubby rotors).

    On a related note, I live in Tampa and many of my buddies work at CENTCOM and SOCOM, in various capacities. One of them runs COMSEC and manages the IFF codes for the CENTCOM AOR. When I first heard the news of the crash, I sent him a quick text asking if he'd been awakened yet to distribute new codes -of course he had, many hours earlier.

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  6. USSHelmThursday, May 05, 2011 12:46:00 PM

    That helo looks a lot like a transport version of the RAH-66 Comanche. What a shame the ChiComms are going to get it.

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  7. SMSgt MacFriday, May 06, 2011 11:00:00 PM

    There's some actual configuration drawing/sketches for proposed variants on the Blackhawk here: http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=9714. I'd suspect the mystery bird closely resembled one of the sketches at the link as much as anything else.

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