To Fly Silently In The Night

New declassified but HEAVILY redacted CIA article from 1985 about quiet helicopters and who knows what else.

www.foia.cia.gov...

Interesting that they even released it considering most of it is redacted. Considering that 'The Quiet One' is talked about, maybe a kind of 'confirmation/admission' that they do have other craft of this type, though we already know that from the Bin Laden raid.

Someone who didn't take the time to notice is going to give you a hard time because you didn't mention it was a pdf file.
It's pretty heavily redacted.

Here's a good article on the Loach noise-reduction efforts specifically, with other related items like FLIR development being mentioned. It has quite a bit more detail and isn't as heavily redacted for whatever reason.
PDF

a reply to: BlackDog10

Lolololol.... "The high tech boom of the 1960s and 1970s left in its train hundreds of gadgets"

I wonder how many gadgets are laying around from last year?

a reply to: _Del_

What's wrong with .pdf?

I also saw that a few days ago and think it makes this even more interesting, because if that wasn't released it could be speculated that maybe a lot of the redacted parts of TFSITN are to do with 'The Quiet One'. Guess not

a reply to: BlackDog10

It sounds like yours had more in the way of operational details, as opposed to technical details. I'm guessing that is why it's heavily redacted.

Hell, I've been around Little Birds that were so quiet you didn't hear them until they were right on top of you. Even with the wind blowing just right, you had to strain to hear them father than 7-800 feet away.

a reply to: _Del_

For more detail on the technical aspects of the Hughes 500P "Quiet One" there is this report:

www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD0753646


For some reason, the CIA still redacts material regarding the quiet helicopter's operational mission even though it has been known for some time:

www.airspacemag.com...

Well hell - even Blue Thunder had silent-mode.