The loss of what was variously reported as an MH/UH-60 Black Hawk during the raid on OBL’s compound triggered some synapses in the Something-Ain’t-Right portion of my brain…
Anybody who’s ever flown a helicopter in combat is aware of one simple truth: “There’s no way you’re gonna sneak up on anybody in a helicopter.”
Over the years, the boffins have attempted to relegate that truth to the same historical dustbin I now occupy, with varying degrees of success – but never complete success.
It all depended on which aspect of “stealth” they were working on. There are a half-dozen ways of accomplishing IR suppression of the engine exhaust plume to less than 20% of its original temp, and the late, somewhat-lamented Comanche had a decent reduction in radar reflectivity of its fuselage. Back in the ’70s, there was the Invisible Loach, which used rheostats, a wiring harness, and little white Christmas lights to reproduce the ambient light over the fuselage – it worked. I watched the li’l beast hovering at about 50 feet AGL over one of the test ramps. The pilot activated the system (i.e., he flipped the switch) and one each OH-6A vanished from sight. I could still hear it, but even though I *knew* where it was, I couldn’t see it. And sound suppression is a big problem – everything that makes a helicopter fly produces noise. You can play with rotor blade designs and configurations, muffle the engine(s) somewhat, and baffle the structure around the transmission, but you pay a power penalty, either directly, through decreased engine performance, or indirectly through an increase in weight.
It appears the boffins are still looking to give me company in the dustbin.
Look at the pix of the vertical tail – that ain’t from any Black Hawk mod I’ve ever seen, kids. It bears only the most superficial resemblance to the tail and stabilator of a UH-60, and the streamlining has vanished, probably to support the polygonal box at the top, which I’m guessing held one or more additional countermeasures suites in addition to containing the tail rotor gearbox. The round shieldlike affair over the tail rotor hub is an airflow diverter, designed to eliminate the turbulence around the rotor hub, making it more efficient, and probably has a secondary effect of reducing the noise of the tail rotor by making it directional. The t/r blades themselves appear to be somewhat smaller and in a different configuration, which would allow them to turn at a reduced rate (thus also reducing the noise signature) without sacrificing antitorque / directional control.
The aircraft skin is interesting – scroll down to the pix of the crane recovering the tail – it’s perfectly smooth, and I have a nagging hunch it’s something I’ve seen before, back in the late ’80s. Essentially, it’s a variation on the Invisible Loach – a light-emitting appliqué film which, coupled to directional cameras, will exactly reproduce the light and color patterns on the opposite side of the aircraft. Think of the aircraft as being made of glass, or Predator’s light-bending combat suit, and you’ll get the idea of the effect. Back in the day, the film was too fragile for aircraft applications, but I think they found a way to mylarize it.
The Brits seem to think that the aircraft took an RPG hit and crashed, rather than suffering an “engine stall” as originally reported, or crashing due to the air temperature over the compound miraculously being 17 F higher than that of the surrounding atmosphere, as is the current excuse coming from Foggy Bottom. I might buy off on pilot error, misjudging rate of closure while simultaneously going nose-high to induce settling with power, but that’s a rookie mistake, and no one in his right mind would have stuck a rookie in this particular aircraft — I guarantee you, the pilots flying that aircraft had been flying it for a while, and knew it inside-out.
Look at it this way: If you were DoD or CIA or any of a dozen other Three Letter Organizations and had spent a kazillion bucks over the course of decades on a helicopter touted to have high-tech, gee-whiz, Star Trek all-aspect stealthiness, and it got waxed on its first operational debut by a bad guy who heard it and saw it *at night* and nailed it with a low-tech weapon essentially unchanged for 1,000 years, which story would you push?
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