Could the bin Laden Raid Have Revealed a Secret New Helicopter?

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Could the bin Laden Raid Have Revealed a Secret New Helicopter?

By 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.

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.

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.

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.