Stealth chopper based in Nevada

Army Times on stealth chopper

During the 1990s U.S. Special Operations Command worked with the Lockheed-Martin Skunk Works division, which also designed the F-117, to refine the radar-evading technology and apply it to the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment’s MH-60s, he said. USSOCOM awarded a contract to Boeing to modify several MH-60s to the low-observable design “in the ’99 to 2000 timeframe,” he said.

The secret stealth Black Hawk Initial plans called for the low-observable Black Hawks to be formed into a new unit commanded by a lieutenant colonel and located at a military facility in Nevada, the retired special operations aviator said. “The intent was always to move it out west where it could be kept in a covered capability,” he said. USSOCOM planned to assign about 35 to 50 personnel to the unit, the retired special operations aviator said. “There were going to be four [low-observable] aircraft, they were going to have a couple of ‘slick’ unmodified Black Hawks, and that was going to be their job was to fly the low-observables.” SOCOM canceled those plans “within the last two years,” but not before at least some of the low-observable helicopters had been delivered to the Nevada facility, the retired aviator said. “I don’t know if it was for money or if it was because the technology was not achieving the reduction in the radar cross-section that they were hoping for,” he said.
In the meantime, MH-60 Black Hawk crews from the 160th’s 1st Battalion, headquartered at Fort Campbell, Ky., would rotate to Nevada to train on the stealthy aircraft, he said.

More info on the chopper in the article, but my intent here was to note the unnamed base in Nevada.

Niice. You deliver yet again geriac.
Thanks mate. I usually get stuck reading and looking for hours when you post this stuff. lol

Regarding the "hubcap" over the tail rotor, or more correctly the tail rotor bearing, it may not be strictly for radar. I watch a blacked out xH-60 flying around the Nellis range through night vision. The tail rotor is a significant IR (I presume) light source. There is no engine back there to generate heat, but maybe the rotor bearing heats up due to friction in the bearing or heat transferred from the blades.

I've only managed to see a blacked out xH-60 through NV once, so I am dealing with a "sample of one." Thus you really can't draw conclusions from this, but it is something to investigate.

Are you at all familiar with a Piaseki effort to silence the rotors by a pusher tail and large "spoilers" the 70s? There was a rumor of a Huey with large circular baffles floating around a while back a rancher claimed to see it during a cattle mutilation if my faulty memory is accurate.

reply to post by cavtrooper7


Piaseki has a website. The pusher scheme looks quite different from the stealth chopper. I'm not really sure how it works if the chopper is hovering.

There are all sorts of schemes to get rid of the tail rotor, but the tail rotor lives on. The shrouded tail rotor seems to be the only new design you see in volume production.

What might be interesting would be to surf the patent office for tail rotor tweaks.

Dude, this is such a great find!!! Yet another chunk of gold from Mr. Gariac!!!! I KNEW they had to be stored in and around the area of southern Nevada. I'd be very surprised if they weren't destroyed though, after being shipped back over here, from after the OBL raid.. Or if they were possibly destroyed over there. Whether they were dismantled/cataloged, physically destroyed, or what!