So, there's all sorts of speculation as to what type of secret chopper crashed at Osama bin Laden's house on Sunday. Some say it's merely an MH-60 with some design tweaks others think it might be a brand new helicopter. The photo above offers some tentative evidence that the bird might be based on the H-60 design. Look at the similarities in the rotor assembly of the wrecked helo and a standard Black Hawk and judge for yourself.
Thanks to commenter YanniT for providing the image.
Many other questions remain, in Sean Naylor's great Army Times piece yesterday quoting a former special ops helo pilot saying this was a highly modified Black Hawk the pilot claims the stealth Hawks still had the mini guns found on regular MH-60s. Wouldn't this compromise stealth, especially in a packed helicopter with little to no room to stow the guns internally? Furthermore, wouldn't the landing gear need to be retractable? Meanwhile, the front sections of the fuselage and main rotor were likely modified as well. How would all of this impact the flight characteristics of the aircraft? I mean, the tweaks we've seen to the tail section alone (with the forward-swept stabilizer) likely impact flight performance. All these changes might even require more powerful engines. Maybe the chopper was based off the H-60 design but this many changes lead to an almost new aircraft.
