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Stealthy helicopters and the still-secret RQ-170 Sentinel, a stealthy unmanned or optionally piloted, tailless flying wing, may have played pivotal roles in the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 1. U.S. officials twice declined to confirm for the record the type of helicopter that carried U.S. Navy Seals to the compound.

Photographs of the tail wreckage of one helicopter, which was destroyed by the Seals following its crash into the compound, show significant differences from U.S. Army Sikorsky MH-60K Black Hawk helicopters that are used to insert special forces. These include a disc covering a five- or six-blade tail rotor; modified tailboom and tailplane and a silver paint finish.

Pakistan was not alerted to the raid, and may not have detected the airborne approach of the night-raiding team. On-the-record accounts of the raid have contained contradictions, including whether mechanical failure caused the crash.

From off-the-record briefings quoted by The Washington Post and Time magazine, it seems that the raiding party flew to and from Abbottabad via Bagram airbase in Afghanistan in two helicopters, described as Black Hawks in these accounts. The helicopters might have originated from the USS Carl Vinson operating in the North Arabian Sea, to where Bin Laden’s body was removed for analysis and subsequent burial at sea.

One or more Boeing Chinook helicopters, presumably MH-47Gs, also flew into Pakistan with back-up forces, and one of these recovered from the compound those special forces members whose helicopter was destroyed. The RQ-170 might have provided communications and imagery relay during the raid.

It might also have previously flown into Pakistan airspace undetected, to provide video imagery of the compound, which could supplement surveillance from reconnaissance satellites and covert ground observations. The RQ-170 has been seen periodically at Kandahar airbase since 2008.


Text: courtesy of ainonline.com

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Gizmodo has an interesting artist impression of the secret chopper by David Cenciotti

http://m.gizmodo.com/5799027/is-this-th ... e=true&s=i

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a few Pams...

That's a very interesting link.

I guess we will have more info in the near future and that is only because of the downed chopper, guess they didn't have enough time to destroy it as they should have done. If I remember correctly, the B-2 was kept secret for years before the Pentagon acknowledged its existence, after which not only did we have more info, but it was, ultimately, present in air shows.

Who knows? Maybe we'll get to meet Stringfellow Hawke and Dominic

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Breanach78

A Few Breitlings.

Thanks for posting that breanach.

It proves that the Seals really had no option but abandon the downed chopper and judged that blowing it up was too risky or that the loot they managed to pick up was of more value.

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- This is Ghost Rider requesting a fly-by. - Negative Ghost Rider. The pattern is full.