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Does Israel Have Stealthy Black Hawks?

Well, this is interesting. Former Pentagon senior policy analyst F. Michael Maloof claims there might be a lot more of those stealthy Black Hawk helicopters  – the kind famoulsy used in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden last year — out there than has previously been reported. The best part of his claim; the U.S. isn’t the only nation to operate them.

Israel is possibly using stealthy Black Hawks to ferry armed, 12-man teams of Iranian dissidents living in northern Iraq into Iran in order to collect intelligence on Tehran’s nuclear programs, writes Maloof.

With the help of recruited Iranian dissidents in Kurdistan, the Israelis are attempting to gather sufficient information to convince the United States and the United Nations that Iran is involved in using its nuclear development program to make nuclear weapons.

Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government officially has denied claims by Iranian officials regarding the missions. But various reports including a recent Times of London report suggest that Israel is using specially modified U.S.-supplied Black Hawk helicopters to carry 12-member armed teams with sensitive equipment to monitor radioactivity and the magnitude of explosives tests. The helicopters may be similar to the specially modified stealth Black Hawks which were used in the May 2011 assassination of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. Navy SEALS in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

One of those specially-modified helicopters crashed and was only partially destroyed, giving the Pakistanis access to the stealth technology which then was passed on to China, Iran and Russia, according to informed sources. In undertaking missions inside Iran, sources suggest that the commandos are dressed as members of the Iranian military and use Iranian military vehicles.

A quick Google search doesn’t turn up any of the media reports about Israel using stealthy Black Hawks to penetrate Iran that Maloof claims are out there. Still, this is a very interesting angle, since the most revealing reporting on the stealth chopper that crashed during last year’s raid to kill bin Laden stated that the stealthy-bird was one of only a handful ever made for the U.S. Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Now, given the fact that the stealthy Black Hawks are super secret, it would make sense to say that only a couple exist when the reality is far different. Still, what would happen if an Israeli-operated, U.S.-made stealth Black Hawk went down inside Iran? There’s also the possibility that Israel has figured out how to modify its Black Hawks on its own — remember, the tech supposedly used to modify the 160th SOAR’s Black Hawks was apparently introduced in the 1980s and 1990s, so it’s not impossible to think that the IDF has figured out how to copy it.

Image above via David Cenciotti.

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May 15th, 2012 | Air, Around the Globe, Bizarro, Cloak and Dagger, Iran, Israel, Rotary Wing, Spies | 83 Comments

Closing the Tech Gap: China’s Spaceplane

That’s right, the rumors appear to be true. Beijing is joining the United States as the only nations with reusable spaceplane designs that are actually conducting test flights. Beijing reportedly sent its Divine Dragon — or Shenlong — space plane aloft for a successful atmospheric test flight in January, 2011.

The U.S. uses its two X-37B spaceplanes for incredibly long missions doing super classified work in place, one can only guess that China’s Divine Dragon will be used for similar purposes.

Now, what’s the real news in this year and a half old story? Well, according to DT’s go-to China expert Andrew Erickson, its the speed at which China is closing the gap between the fielding of advanced technology compared to the U.S. Remember when then-defense secretary Robert Gates last year dismissed China’s new J-20 stealth fighter by saying that the PLA is about 20 years behind the Pentagon in terms of technology? The launch of the Divine Dragon less than a after the X-37B made its first space flight may be an indicator that China is closing that double decade technology gap, according to Erickson. (Notice how the Divine Dragon shown above looks remarkably similar to the X-37B? I would bet that plenty of useful info on the American program ended up in China as a result of cyber attacks — a key enabler to China’s ability to close the tech gap quickly.)

Here’s an excerpt from one of his latest analysis pieces on China’s military rise, titled Shenlong ‘Divine Dragon’ Takes Flight: Is China developing its first spaceplane?

Beijing may be entering the spaceplane era faster than many would have predicted. A similarly-militarily-relevant system appears to be emerging with the development of China’s own vehicle. Multiple Chinese-language media outlets state that on 8 January 2011, China completed a test flight of the Shenlong (神龙/Divine Dragon) spaceplane.

The test flight announcement from a Sha’anxi TV station came within a month of the U.S. X-37B orbital vehicle’s return to earth after its first test flight and come almost simultaneously with China’s test flight of its J-20 fighter prototype. This reflects China’s growing technical proficiency in the aerospace sector. It hints at China’s pursuit of space systems that can potentially switch quickly between civilian and military missions.

Shenlong’s test also reflects a shrinking time gap between when the U.S. first reveals a prototype military system and when China publicly shows a system comparable in type (if not equivalent in capabilities or immediately operational). For previous aerospace developments, China typically revealed its systems’ existence at least 15 years after the U.S. first showed its analogous platforms (Exhibit 1).

The immediate implication is that in some areas of space operations, China may be attempting to emulate the U.S. and develop advanced capabilities that could give it strategic advantages; as well as to reveal selected development efforts in order to further patriotism at home and deterrence abroad. Given the high U.S. reliance on space-based C4ISR capabilities, Chinese space platform developments such as Shenlong warrant close attention.

Exhibit 1: Gap in years between first unveiling of select U.S. and Chinese weapons systems

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May 14th, 2012 | Around the Globe, Balance of Power, China Rising, Future Wars, Money Money Money, Space | 96 Comments

Video: China’s Two J-20 Stealth Fighters

 

Happy Monday. Let’s start this week off with a new video showing China’s two J-20 stealth fighters sitting side by side on the ramp at Chengdu, China.

Click through the jump to see the video of good ole J-20–2001 and J-20–2002.

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May 14th, 2012 | Air, Around the Globe, China Rising, Fast Movers | 97 Comments

Threats the White House is Watching

DT and some other members of the Military​.com team had the opportunity this morning to sit down at the White House with Deputy National Security Advisor, Denis McDonough, and pick his brain for about 45 minutes.

While much of the conversation focused on the strategy surrounding the fight against al Qaeda (he’s the guy in the blue shirt sitting next to Hillary Clinton in the famous photo above), he did list out what he sees are the future threats facing the world beyond terrorism.

Topping his list of future threats is the problem of nuclear proliferation followed very closely to the threat of Iran getting its hands on some of that prolifered (is that a word?) nuclear material.

“We’re very focused on a test case on [non] proliferation, namely, Iran,” said McDonough. “The President has always entered this through the door of saying, Iran with nuclear weapon, and even an Iran with an illicit nuclear weapons program, is a threat to a whole host of U.S. national security interests, first among them, the global non-proliferation regime and agreement that’s served the world… we see it obviously as a big and grave threat.”

He added that counterproliferation and preventing Iran from getting nukes are worked on daily in his office.

He’s also concerned with “making sure that we’re watching the near-term developments as it relates to new weapons including cyber.”

“Those would be the three [issues] that we spend a lot of time on, Iran gets a lot of attention generally,” said McDonough. “I think the other two [proliferation and new weapons tech] don’t get an amount of public attention commensurate with the amount of time we spend on it or commensurate with the potential impact on the U.S. national interest.”

(I’ve got to say, maybe the general public doesn’t pay a ton of attention to new weapons tech but DT readers sure do.)

McDonough also mentioned possible conflicts over natural resources, and he’s wasn’t talking oil; he was talking about “coming challenges on natural resources including, for example, water in a lot of places, but that’s more a meta or longer term challenge.”

 

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May 11th, 2012 | Around the Globe, Balance of Power, Future Wars | 41 Comments

Hurry Up and Save This Newly Discovered P-40!

Happy Friday. To kick this weekend off early check out this video of a newly discovered RAF Curtis P-40 Warhawk that has sat undiscovered in near perfect condition in the Sahara Desert in Egypt since crash-landing there during World War II.

The American-made P-40 was being flown by its RAF pilot, a 24-year old Flight Sgt. Dennis Copping, to a British base in Northern Eygpt for repairs when it suffered engine trouble and Copping made a crash landing 200-miles from the nearest town. Poor Copping tried to repair the engine and shelter himself from the deadly sun with his parachute, but his efforts were to no avail and he died somewhere in the desert.

The plane, one of thousand of P-40s made for the U.S. and its allies, was discovered recently by a Polish oil company worker and it’s remarkably intact. The video below shows the cockpit and ammo looking almost new, certainly not 70 years old.

Now, the P-40 is supposedly going to be shipped to the RAF museum in the UK but museum officials had better act quickly since scavengers are already beginning to remove parts from the aircraft!

The P-40 was a late 1930s-vintage design and was becoming obsolete by the time Copping crashed this one in 1942 — the type would soon be replaced in U.S. service by the more capable and legendary P-38 Lightning,P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang. While P-40s are most famous for their American service it was with the British Commonwealth’s Desert Air Force in North Africa and the Middle East that the plane first saw combat.

Click through the jump for the video.

Via Gizmodo.

Click here to see more pics.

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May 11th, 2012 | Air, Old Skool, Video Lounge | 52 Comments

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