Posted on 05/07/2011 1:13:53 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
It seemed an innocuous, catch-up phone call. Last year Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, the pseudonym for a Pakistani known to U.S. intelligence as the main courier for Osama bin Laden, took a call from an old friend.
Where have you been? inquired the friend. We’ve missed you. What’s going on in your life? And what are you doing now?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
In English no less.
If Bob Woodward wants to relive his Watergate glory days he needs to find out who barry really is.
Has anyone discussed in any kind of detail the nature of the helicopter malfunction? That seems like kind of a big big deal despite the mission’s success. That helicopter shouldn’t have failed.
Yeah, no kidding. Where've you been, Woodstein?
If Obozo was a Republican Supreme Court nominee, Woodstein would have been all over his citizenship issue like flies on dung.
The photos seem to indicate the tail section was sheared by the wall. Impossible to guess if damage/malfunction or pilot error got it to that point. By the way, helicopters are notorious for failing at the worst of times. Just ask a helicopter pilot.
I once had the opportunity to work with a “skunk works” group doing competitive analysis. Using commercially available aerial photographs, and with their assistance, I was able to determine the number of people employed, plant capacity, what was being produced,etc. That was 30 years ago.
And today, the CIA can’t tell the difference between a 5’8” man and a 6’8” man? How about the length of his shadow and simple trigonometry?
"The friend replied, “May God facilitate.”"
Relief for the armchair generals in revelation that the US Abbottabad safe house was mission purposed and not a longterm asset.
I saw an Aviation Week article being e-mailed around that said that it wasn't mechanical, or even pilot error really. It was supposedly a thermal anomaly right above the compound; for some reason the air above the compound (because it's hardpacked dirt?) was 15O F warmer than ambient temps all around the area, and the helicopter abruptly lost lift when they flew into it and the pilot couldn't get it back in time before they pancaked.
Why do you suppose they didn’t destroy the tail section? It looked pretty much intact to me.
And I agree. It looks like the pilot landed on the wall.
I read that the high walls blocked air circulation, created a vortex or something. Makes sense to me with little that I know, but they would not admit the truth if it was a pilot error or mechanical any way.
Not sure the pilot knew there were 7 or 8 foot tall vinyard tressels made of 1” or larger aluminum pipes in the area of compound he tried to abort land on, and it was a split second decision.
ON a aviation forum a BH pilot mentioned it is possible for the downwash on the BH to create voids at that altitude, and the modified BH was already laden with 500 to 1000 pounds of additional weight in the experimental design config, plus was at full load capacity with the SEALs team.
This pilot said looked like the BH crashed nose down and the tail slammed onto the wall after the blades hit the ground... due the the body being exceedingly close to the outer wall that split the BH apart, and the angle of separation on the tail section. Just a rumor 3rd hand, but sounded legit and the this pilot/forum poster had thousands of posts and no one called him out on it.
I’m thinking that the tail was on the outside of the wall, and the SEALS were on the inside.
Interesting on the hardpacked dirt with different thermal properties. Another thread said they had a full-scale mock-up to train on, and one of the other posters felt that with all of that training under the “exact” conditions they would know about the wind effects, etc.
I guess next time they will try to mimic the soil conditions as well if this report is true.
I still wonder if it wasn’t shot down by an AK47 or an RPG. But that would be bad press when it comes time to sell these things or renew our budget for more of these fancy stealth helicopters.
Regardless, amazing how the pilot got it down okay and they completed the mission.
And nobody heard that? A helo crash and no one called 911?
I have seen hundreds of Blackhawks landing and taking off under various conditions. I have never seen one fail like this. I’m not interested in blaming a pilot or a crew but it seems like something we need to learn from. Knowing our military, I’m sure they are in the process of learning from this; however, I think it’s definitely worth mentioning that this isn’t the first time a helicopter has malfunctioned on a super critical mission like this. As such, it needs to be a topic of discussion IMHO.
A SEAL could be over a 12ft wall in a second. I’m thinking they may have had company. Interrupted?
The locals heard it and were tweeting and talking about it on Facebook,
here’s a real time twitter report of the raid:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2713452/posts?page=12#12
Yes - that’s what I was thinking, what with the Pak military base just up the road. Although lob a few grenades over the wall might have helped damage it a bit.
I’ll have to go through that local guy’s tweets again. When he only talked about explosions I figured he was across town and that is why he didn’t hear the 20-minute fire-fight.
Of course now we learn that there never was a “fire-fight”. So maybe this guy WAS fairly close by. I recall he mentioned something about someone shooting down a UFO with an RPG or some such. He was only half-way joking about the “UFO” - he didn’t know if it was a plane, copter, etc. at the time!
Thanks
He seems to think it was shot down. But he is just speculating.
Reeeach out! Reach out and touch someone!
Regards,
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