MAC Forum

There has been a long discussion at the Diecast Hangar Pub forum on this subject:
http://tdhp.49.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=212&t=7782 one needs to sign-up as a member to have access. The thread title is "What helicopter was destroyed on the ground ?"

You now when i saw the wreckage I was amazed, I follow military aircraft and I have never seen anything like that system. So I set an email to all my VN helicopter squadron mates asked asked if they knew anything, several are still in the service. No one had ever seen it before, but the guys still serving would have said that that anyway. Secrecy and all that.
Apparently those choppers only flew at night and away from prying eyes. It was a very well kept secret!

The secrecy of this project was remarkable! I know the Comanche program included a lot of focus on stealth technology. I'd guess a lot of the lessons learned from that program came to fruition in this new aircraft...

Remember when the F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter hit the scene following the Gulf War? Perhaps there will be a more public display of this new new helicoter now that the "cat's out of the bag..."

I wonder if those stealth Blackhawks use the same/similar radar absorbing materials that the F-117 and others use/used. I recall that during the NATO operations one 117 was shot down and in one of my news sources/forums there was photo showing Serbs dancing on the wreckage of wings in bare feet. The caption mentioned something like, 'Dance now, for tomorrow you will be dead'. Apparently the material is highly toxic.
A helicopter like a Blackhawkis low to the ground and easily touched{ plus the doors slide open and all} so I wonder?

Near my place in florida there is a secret base in the Avon Park bombing range (not so secret, really, because you can see it from the limits of the restricted airspace when flying even at low altitudes, but it is not on the charts and no radio contact info is provided). Local pilots refer to it as Macdill Two.
Anyway in the middle of the night you can often hear helicopters flying to it and from it overhead, but no lights so they can not be seen.
Apparently these new stealthy variants also have mostly silent tail and main rotors so I have to will pay more attention.
The Comanche program was publicized during development and I recall seeing many photos of the flying prototype, and even emailed the test pilot back and forth for a while- he loved the ship.
I have a superb, all plastic, topping-like, clear canopy, 1/50th scale or so 'manufacturer's' model of it made before the program was canceled. All the model production was sold to one of the US distributors of those Philippine wood models. If you go to their websites look for the clear canopy Comanche- that is the actual manufacturers model made for sikorsky. Worth obtaining if they still have any.

The F-117 was first used in Panama where we deposed our set-up dictator, Noriega. Gulf War use came later.
The F-117 is quite vulnerable during the day - you can see it! The Serbs were quite clever as they used a low wave VHF antenna to spot it - not a high tech, high band military radar. The 117 doesn't have any defense armament (that I know of) and isn't a fighter at all...it's an attack bomber.
I betcha there's a lot of developmental aircraft (and helos) out there with classified specs - nothing amazing or way out there, but faster, quieter and more invisible none the less.

I didn't know that, Michael.
I looked up the airplane at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk

BTW I was amazed to note that 50% of the accidents of the F-117 were determined to be the result of spatial disorientation. Never knew any aircraft that had that problem. Strange.

grwebster wrote:
BTW I was amazed to note that 50% of the accidents of the F-117 were determined to be the result of spatial disorientation. Never knew any aircraft that had that problem. Strange.

It might have a lot to do with the fact that these aircraft are actually flown by computers. The pilot tells the computer what he wants the aircraft to do and the computer tells the flight control system what to do to achieve that. These "things" must be extremely unstable from an aerodynamic/flight mechanics point of view so the computer is constantly imputing flight control commands to keep it aloft. I imagine that these constant inputs generate constant g-pulls in all three axes that can really upset the pilot spatial awareness and cause disorientation when there are no other external visual references (this is a night creature).

"Wobblin' Goblin"