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that "helicopter" ?

the mocked up MH-60k in pakistan used by the navy seals ?

could be ;)

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well lets just say it well be strange lol

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hey wait a sec ... they try to copy the copter from frontline : fuel of war

frontlines-fuel-of-war-20070727001815993.jpg

great job DARPA !

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I like the renditions of what people have come up with so far, pretty interesting

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Regarding the stealth helicopter.

Most of the good looking paintings don't seem very stealthy to me. Like, why alter the tail so heavily if you're still going to have all of the non-stealthy antennas and stuff hanging off the sides? There have been some interesting (albeit funny looking) design proposals posted in the Bin Laden thread. The write ups said they were too heavy but this is after all a fantasy or speculative build :)

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Regarding the stealth helicopter.

... The write ups said they were too heavy but this is after all a fantasy or speculative build :)

Use the right composite and its lighter (and often stronger) than metal... On average a composite of the same size and thickness weighs about 40-60% of the same metallic. it depends on what the helo was made of. But looking at the pics of kids picking up pieces of wreckage it was definately a composite.

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WO-AF486_COPTER_G_20110505210416.jpg

that's what i call a stealth copter ... *cough*

Are you kidding me, while you're all busy looking at its deployed decoy module it's flying away with all the gold :rolleyes:

Ultimate stealth copter if I ever saw one

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Are you kidding me, while you're all busy looking at its deployed decoy module it's flying away with all the gold :rolleyes:

Ultimate stealth copter if I ever saw one

Well there is a whole topic about it here :rolleyes:

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It's definitely not an RAH-66. The Comanche has a fenestron tail rotor, for starters. Then the horizontal stabilizers are on top of the vertical stabilizer.

From what a real life Blackhawk crewchief in my unit says, the drive shaft, of all things, to the tail rotor is definitely from a Blackhawk.

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From what a real life Blackhawk crewchief in my unit says, the drive shaft, of all things, to the tail rotor is definitely from a Blackhawk.

So it's a new stealthy Blackhawk or just a normal one:confused:?

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Use the right composite and its lighter (and often stronger) than metal... On average a composite of the same size and thickness weighs about 40-60% of the same metallic. it depends on what the helo was made of. But looking at the pics of kids picking up pieces of wreckage it was definately a composite.

Well, of course, it could be, but the things that came up in this forum (and I'm not an expert, certainly) did not indicate what the materials were.

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So it's a new stealthy Blackhawk or just a normal one:confused:?

It is also definitely not a normal blackhawk.

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Well, of course, it could be, but the things that came up in this forum (and I'm not an expert, certainly) did not indicate what the materials were.

It will be. And I do have a lot of experience of composite manufacture and aerospace applications. In this application I will guarentee it wont be a metallic skin with a coating. The F-22 was/is the only manned production aircraft that used alloy skin panels with a laminate of RAM on top. And they had lots of problems with it cracking due to stress factors which obviously ruins the stealth aspect of the aircraft.

It was supposed to be a cost saving measure. It was cheaper to make but cost 10x more in the long run due to repairs. Later production runs now have all composite wing skins.

But if you look at the wreckage, pics of people picking up debris and the tail itself. The damage is consitent with a composite skin. If it were metallic you'd see more dents, tearing and folding of the surface materials.

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I didn't mean to imply I was saying that the skin was/is/ought to be anything in particular. I was just saying that what seemed to be documents relating to studies suggested that the modifications would be too heavy.

You see, the details just said that the weight gain was too much, but it did not say where the weight came from or what materials they were using, so it's possible that they were using anything. The designs ARE from the 1970s, though.

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=9714

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I think we're probably going to need a new topic for this.

I didn't mean to imply I was saying that the skin was/is/ought to be anything in particular. I was just saying that what seemed to be documents relating to studies suggested that the modifications would be too heavy.

You see, the details just said that the weight gain was too much, but it did not say where the weight came from or what materials they were using, so it's possible that they were using anything. The designs ARE from the 1970s, though.

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=9714

Yes Ive seen those designs. But others have discounted them for fairly sound technical reasons. There are three (that i've seen so far) camps about the MH-X design:

  1. Brand New design - Something hidden since the 80's
  2. Bolt-on upgrade of an MH60K/L - Which would add significant weight.
  3. Evolved Design - Something based off a standard UH60 airframe but re engineered for stealth.

Personally and given the 'evidence' we have so far. Specifically the tail and other crash pictures I favour the latter. People have claimed the design dates from the 70's based off the timeline for the F-117 development and associated rumours of stealthy helos at the time. But look at what happened to that. The airframe was retired, due to expense fatigue and corrosion issue. I seriously doubt the 70/80's helicopter would have survived any better.

From what i've read there has also been lots of rumours about a new element of the 160th having stealth helicopters from 2000-2005 onwards. Between 4 and 8 airframes have been suggested. There was supposed to be more but the funding got cut post Iraq invasion leaving them with a very small number of aircraft based at Tonohpah Test Range. Having said all that and looking at the other stealth/low observable related aircraft projects I'd suggest its either the 2nd generation stealth helicopter of a new design. Or it's an evolved MH60. Given the time frame of the rumours and the cost of designing and producing any new airframe, "informed" logic dictates it's a redesigned H-60.

Looking at the wreckage it seems to use the standard 4-bladed H60 rotor head [1] [2] and engines, main frames and general layout. Best guesses are that its got uprated engines and a new design of quiet rotor blade with a shrouded hub ala A160 Hummingbird. One thing that everyone seems to have ignored is that the tail rotor is on the opposite side from the classic H-60. Which reinforces the idea of a redesigned or evolved airframe not just a bolt-on. And if it is re-designed specially for the purpose I'm willing to bet the farm that the designers thought about the weight issues and designed around it.

This is all just supposition of course. Just me guessing based on what we've seen on TV and I've read but I'm pretty confident about my conclusion.

EDIT - Nice video showing Kids collecting "composite sandwich" debris about 1.45

Edited by RKSL-Rock

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