4 ms·

according to the guy that was live tweeting the event.. it wasn't that quiet

jonah 15y ago
More likely Radar and IR stealth than silenced. It was the trip in from Afghanistan they concealed. By the time they were over Abbottabad it was too late to do anything about it.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  > By the time they were over Abbottabad it was too late to do anything about it. It could be too late to prevent the strike, but it wouldn't be too late to shot down the surviving choppers. Of course, in that situation, the F-22s would have protected them.
- cop359 15y ago
  This brings up another good question. Can a helicopter really fly all across Pakistan and back to an aircraft carrier? Could they even make it to Afghanistan? I was under the impression that helicopters don't exactly have a whole lot of range
  - jonah 15y ago
    I assumed they returned to Afghanistan and transfered the body to a plane.
    - thematt 15y ago
      They did. Some of the supposed pictures of Osama are from in the hanger at the Afghanistan airfield.
      - hugh3 15y ago
        That's also where (as I understand it) they did all the DNA testing and so forth. The final stage in which the body was flown to the aircraft carrier was just for disposal (a decision I think was sensible -- rather than allowing "the body" to become a rallying issue for terrorists it's better just to dump it in the sea before anyone knows you've got it).
  - duck 15y ago
    Not sure about these modified ones, but a normal Black Hawk can refuel midair.
  - unwind 15y ago
    According to Wikipedia, the standard "ferry range" of the UH-60L Black Hawk is 2,220 km (1,380 miles).
lucasjung 15y ago
Stealth is all relative. There's no stealth technology that renders you completely undetectable, just technologies that decrease the effective range of particular forms of detection. For example, if a normal Blackhawk can be heard approaching from a distance of x miles, while one of these modified helicopters can only be heard from a distance of x-c miles, then the enemy has that much less warning to respond to your approach.
InclinedPlane 15y ago
It looks like he didn't live tweet the insertion operation so much as the cleanup operation (backup helicopter, destruction of helicopter, etc.) The explosion he heard was almost certainly the destruction of the downed helicopter, which would have occurred after the backup helicopter had arrived. The backup helicopters were seemingly of a different type. http://tweetlibrary.com/damon/osamaraidlivetweets http://tweetlibrary.com/damon/osamaraidlivetweets
astrodust 15y ago
Stealth jets are generally quiet on the approach and noisy as hell once leaving as they direct the vast majority of the sound rear-wards. Once they've dropped their bomb or showed up on the scene there's no hiding them, so why try? It's eerie how quietly a stealth jet can creep up, and crazy how loud they are when going away, an effect obvious at air-shows with stealth-modified aircraft.

jonah 15y ago

More likely Radar and IR stealth than silenced. It was the trip in from Afghanistan they concealed. By the time they were over Abbottabad it was too late to do anything about it.

rbanffy 15y ago
> By the time they were over Abbottabad it was too late to do anything about it. It could be too late to prevent the strike, but it wouldn't be too late to shot down the surviving choppers. Of course, in that situation, the F-22s would have protected them.
cop359 15y ago
This brings up another good question. Can a helicopter really fly all across Pakistan and back to an aircraft carrier? Could they even make it to Afghanistan? I was under the impression that helicopters don't exactly have a whole lot of range
- jonah 15y ago
  I assumed they returned to Afghanistan and transfered the body to a plane.
  - thematt 15y ago
    They did. Some of the supposed pictures of Osama are from in the hanger at the Afghanistan airfield.
    - hugh3 15y ago
      That's also where (as I understand it) they did all the DNA testing and so forth. The final stage in which the body was flown to the aircraft carrier was just for disposal (a decision I think was sensible -- rather than allowing "the body" to become a rallying issue for terrorists it's better just to dump it in the sea before anyone knows you've got it).
- duck 15y ago
  Not sure about these modified ones, but a normal Black Hawk can refuel midair.
- unwind 15y ago
  According to Wikipedia, the standard "ferry range" of the UH-60L Black Hawk is 2,220 km (1,380 miles).

lucasjung 15y ago

Stealth is all relative. There's no stealth technology that renders you completely undetectable, just technologies that decrease the effective range of particular forms of detection. For example, if a normal Blackhawk can be heard approaching from a distance of x miles, while one of these modified helicopters can only be heard from a distance of x-c miles, then the enemy has that much less warning to respond to your approach.

InclinedPlane 15y ago

It looks like he didn't live tweet the insertion operation so much as the cleanup operation (backup helicopter, destruction of helicopter, etc.) The explosion he heard was almost certainly the destruction of the downed helicopter, which would have occurred after the backup helicopter had arrived. The backup helicopters were seemingly of a different type. http://tweetlibrary.com/damon/osamaraidlivetweets http://tweetlibrary.com/damon/osamaraidlivetweets

astrodust 15y ago

Stealth jets are generally quiet on the approach and noisy as hell once leaving as they direct the vast majority of the sound rear-wards. Once they've dropped their bomb or showed up on the scene there's no hiding them, so why try? It's eerie how quietly a stealth jet can creep up, and crazy how loud they are when going away, an effect obvious at air-shows with stealth-modified aircraft.