…I was looking at the dragonmodelsusa site and noticed DML is coming out with a model of the stealth Black Hawk used successfully in the raid on Bin Laden’s compound. …Is it realist? The tail section certainly looks familiar, Of course the cropped tail rotor, from the crashed Black Hawk used in the raid, is all most of us have seen . The rest is conjecture. The “black diamond” angular feature, suggestive of the F117, certainly looks believable for a stealth helicopter. Still, unless DML got excess to the real thing, I’m not sure how the could get the design a hundred percent accurate…The bad news is the kit is in 144 scale; released in a double set like an earlier conventional Black Hawk release a few years ago. It is possible a more detail friendly scale in the near future.
Its all guesswork on Dragon’s part. They coppied drawings off a few websites of what people think it could look like. There is no official admission that it even exists, let alone pics of it. I’m still not convinced it is really a helicopter and not part of a bigger deception operation.
It looks like it is a copy of this conjecture drawing thats been floating around the net.
I see that Italeri are releasing one early as well, I wonder how accurate it is?
Its the same as when everyone started releasing models of the “F-19” When everyone was speculating what stealth would look like.
Based on the box art Italeri seems to be re-releasing their special operations/Air Force rescue Black Hawk as one of the helicopters used in Bin Laden raid. With all of the pictures of the stealth tail section, out in the media, I’m not sure how well that is going to go over.
Thanks for confirming my suspicions, going to save my cash till a proper one comes out! Am looking to get back into a helicopter kit in 48 scale. Any suggestions?
The sketch posted above was actually the first impression by Mr. Crisponi for Mr. Cenciotti’s weblog. I then reworked his drawing a little which then looks like this.
Then Mr. Crisponi reworked his sketch which finally looks like this and comes close to the thing that Dragon now sells.
Best regards
Martin
Now, if only 160th SOAR would release a nice walkaround of the real thing… perhaps a “in detail and scale” book as well. After all, our right to know outweighs OPSEC.[;)]
I personally find it comforting to know that we still can hold an ace up our sleeve for use until it is needed at the proper time. And that it is not splashed all over the media beforehand allowing enemies and potential enemies to begin thinking up countermeasures.
Then this must be a [dinkywongo] large weed-whacker:
Or a large prop like I alluded to since it really doesn’t look like a real aircraft at all. Don’t believe every pic you see on the internet. I have seen all the pics and I’m still not convinced.
If you could apprehend all the plausible fictions that now are part of “history”, you would understand the world and all its mysteries. You might also never sleep soundly ever again.
Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.
George Santayana, as quoted in Quotations for Our Time (1977)
I guess the Blackhawk rotorhead (or what’s left over of it) inside the compound has also nothing to do with a real aircraft at all then? [;)]
I have it on good authority… Not very. I couldn’t get my source to say what was wrong with it, but he got a good laugh out of it.
Right, a normal-looking Blackhawk rotorhead, not some super-secret slealth helicopter from Area 51. [:#]
Nobody ever said it’s some super what ever thing. Talk was always about a Blackhawk with stealth features. If you ask me it’s more like a mod for an H-60 then a completly new type of helicopter.