Comanche over Kentucky

[Bell212]

Hi I am new to this forum, and came here looking for some answers. I am not a pilot, but I am in loaw enforcement and have been a helicopter enthusiest since I was a kid. As far as Identifying helicopters I can Identify most of the the models of Cobras like the AH1-z to the AH-1w by just looking. Same with Apache and the Bell Utility helos ect.

What I am about to ask is going to seem off the wall and is not going to make any sense at all. Last Friday March 13th(yeah I know), At around 1400 hours I was sitting in my home in West KY, when I heard a strange humming sound. I walked outside and looked off the bluff where I live and couldnt believe my eyes. I saw what is undisputably a comanche helicopter coming from the direction of Ft Campbell, heading west toward Missouri crossing the Mississippi River. I am not confused, and I KNOW what I saw. By the time the thing passed over head, The sound from the rotor blades could barely be heard at all. What doesnt make sense to me is 1- I thought the Comanche program was cancelled, and 2- I thought the only Comanches in existence were prototypes. I am trying to figure out where it was going and why. I figured someone on here probably has better resources than I do in finding out whether the program is back up and running or what the heck is going on.

Thanks.

[apiaguy]

It was Barack's personal ship spelled out in the bail out package page 540,000. News is just slow to have found out about it, AIG co-sponsored it.

[USAR153D]

It was Barack's personal ship spelled out in the bail out package page 540,000. News is just slow to have found out about it, AIG co-sponsored it.

I needed a laugh

[Bell212]

Thats hilarious. Dont get me started on Obama, I dont want to bring politics to this site and tiick anyone off. Lets just say Im not the head of his fan club and leave it at that. . Maybe Obama is doing like clinton did and selling the chinese our military technology under the table. But seriously this still remains a legitimate question. I know what I saw. My neighbor seen the same thing.

[RagMan]

The RAH-66 program was axed years ago, as the program was excessively over budget, as well as there being too many problems with the aircraft that were arising. Fort Campbell's 160th aviation regiment operates numerous black scheme painted aircraft out of Campbell Airfield, however, none that could even look like a RAH-66, or come close to. As well as the government does not operate any RAH-66, and if they did (lets say they resumed testing for some stupid reason), it would be out of a secure testing facility, probably down in Texas, or on the upper East Coast. You are probably mistaken on the aircraft you saw.

 

Some things to consider :

 

Did it have a fan tail rotor?

 

Did it have a narrow structural design (kind of like a Cobra, or Apache)

 

What color scheme was the aircraft?

 

Did it have wheeled landing gear, or skids?

 

Any visible weapon systems? Nose mounted cannon, wing pylons with rocket pods, etc?

 

 

 

The only other aircraft I've seen fly out of Campbell, other than 160th and Army helicopters, have been the Clarksville life flight, which is a white/black colored Ec-145. They do some medevacs out of the base every so often.

[RagMan]

edit : duplicate post

Edited March 20, 2009 by RagMan

[USAR153D]

Unfortunate they stopped the RAH-66 program. Those things were sleek looking! I wonder if they're developing any other armed reconnaissance helicopters with stealth technology?

[dnall]

Unfortunate they stopped the RAH-66 program. Those things were sleek looking! I wonder if they're developing any other armed reconnaissance helicopters with stealth technology?

They suck! You don't need to spend a gillion dollars making a helicopter less visible to radar when the bad guys barely have any (especially after the AF gets done) and you're flying under 200ft the whole time anyway. It's stupid. That's like spending a hundred billion right now on better tank killing technology or better anti-aircraft missiles. That's just dumb.

 

The ARH was supposed to happen, but a lot of those units are rescheduled for Longbow Block II. Ultimately I think they will scale back the amount of attack platforms & UAVs will come on big to replace the scout capability we had with 58s.

[Bell212]

The RAH-66 program was axed years ago, as the program was excessively over budget, as well as there being too many problems with the aircraft that were arising. Fort Campbell's 160th aviation regiment operates numerous black scheme painted aircraft out of Campbell Airfield, however, none that could even look like a RAH-66, or come close to. As well as the government does not operate any RAH-66, and if they did (lets say they resumed testing for some stupid reason), it would be out of a secure testing facility, probably down in Texas, or on the upper East Coast. You are probably mistaken on the aircraft you saw.

 

Some things to consider :

 

Did it have a fan tail rotor?

 

Did it have a narrow structural design (kind of like a Cobra, or Apache)

 

What color scheme was the aircraft?

 

Did it have wheeled landing gear, or skids?

 

Any visible weapon systems? Nose mounted cannon, wing pylons with rocket pods, etc?

 

 

 

The only other aircraft I've seen fly out of Campbell, other than 160th and Army helicopters, have been the Clarksville life flight, which is a white/black colored Ec-145. They do some medevacs out of the base every so often.

 

Well I already know everything you are saying here. Trust me it confused the crap out of me because most everything I have ever seen fly from Campbell has been UH60's, CH47's, OH58's, and OH6's, and occasionally some AH64's. What I seen was without a doubt a comanche. It makes no sense I know, but I am 100% sure of what I seen. The aircraft was dark in color, like a slate black. There were no skids or wheels visible. The tail rotor was enclosed. There were no pylons visible. Although the design was some what narrow, it looked wider than the Cobra. As it flew over I could see that the sides come out wider right in the middle of the airframe, almost in a diamond shape. If you dont believe me thats fine. I have nothing to gain fom lying and neither does my neighbor. I am not trying to publicize anything. It just really sparked my curiosity, and I thought i would ask someone better equipped to understanbd whats going on.

[Pogue]

Might it have been something like this?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawasaki_OH-1

[Linc]

The ARH was supposed to happen, but a lot of those units are rescheduled for Longbow Block II. Ultimately I think they will scale back the amount of attack platforms & UAVs will come on big to replace the scout capability we had with 58s.

Did you mean "a lot" of the ARNG units that were slated for ARH? I am unaware of any active component units that were slated for ARH are looking at Longbow Block-anything.

 

It would be a shame, and I believe a strategic blunder, to "replace" scouts with something that doesn't actually do any reconnaissance, because there is a seriously widespread doctrinal misunderstanding that surveillance is the same thing as reconnaissance. On the other hand, I've always thought that UAV technology would be much more efficiently used to replace lift assets.

[CharyouTree]

On the other hand, I've always thought that UAV technology would be much more efficiently used to replace lift assets.

 

I'm not only saying this because I'm a lift pilot, but...I don't know that I would trust 12 people in the hands of a UAV.

[Linc]

I think we're all agreed then, that we don't trust UAVs to be able to adequately accomplish the missions that we do in manned aircraft.

 

I don't care if they're remotely piloted by a human or controlled by a computer, until they build sensors that provide the depth of perception that one human has, or two humans have together, the situational awareness will not be adequate to replace humans in aviation operations.

[dolphindriver]

I think we're all agreed then, that we don't trust UAVs to be able to adequately accomplish the missions that we do in manned aircraft.

 

I don't know how you can agree to that seeing that we already have UAVs accomplishing missions that we do in manned aircraft. I would agree it cannot do all of the jobs, at least not yet. But UAVs have already proven they can safely provide surveillance, launch ordnance and even hover. It isn't too far fetched to believe that cargo could easily be delivered via UAVs and could even move personnel if the stigma of a non piloted aircraft could be overcome. I will tell you that I won't be the first one in line for that flight. However, we have many aircraft that are nearly fully automated already. Again, it is not too far of a step to the next level.

Edited March 27, 2009 by dolphindriver

[dnall]

Yes... most guard units that still have the Alpha model (ie mine) were going to get ARH (this is in line with our state's transition from an heavy division to light infantry). However, with the shutdown of the ARH program, we are now slated to get longbow block IIs.

 

Far as UAVs, that's a matter of time & intent. If you can put two guys in a full motion simulator with 360 degree visibility, then why can you not attach the output to a UAV out in the real world instead of a computer running a simulation? The answer of course is you can, we could do that right now if we wanted to. In theory you can do a lot more than a couple guys inside the airframe are capable of.

 

And there's a pretty good case to be made for it. We were putting F117s & tomahawks into airspace circa 91/2 that no other airframe could approach. We operate helos under a couple hundred feet at night looking out of one eye (NVS) or tunnel vision on nods at a hundred miles an hour dodging stuff & maneuvering to avoid getting shot while also engaging the right targets on the ground... all while trying to track with information overload from outside so we don't get pegged with an arty round or shoot too close to good guys. And helos aren't all that dependable in the first place (compared to fixed wing). We lose plenty airframes just flying. We lose a lot more when people shoot at us.

 

If you can show me an airframe that's smaller & has more armor over vital spots cause it isn't carrying a couple dudes, but still carries the same ordinance with as good or better endurance & has even close to as good a situational awareness. I can't argue we have to take a long look at that. If it's cheaper to operate too, that's even better.

 

The problem with UAVs right now is what happens when you lose control over them & them not running into other air traffic, especially in/around congested areas like airports.

[Linc]

I refuse to sway anyone from their delusions. I will say that we've been forecasting the takeover by UAV for at least 10 years now, and it still hasn't happened. The reality of technology integration lags the good idea fairy by at least 20-50 years. Just read past issues of Popular Science if you need a lesson in how that works.

[Justin DBC]

I think we're all agreed then, that we don't trust UAVs to be able to adequately accomplish the missions that we do in manned aircraft.

 

I don't care if they're remotely piloted by a human or controlled by a computer, until they build sensors that provide the depth of perception that one human has, or two humans have together, the situational awareness will not be adequate to replace humans in aviation operations.

 

 

Heh... From a ground perspective the most useful (yet screwed up) application I saw from UAVs in Iraq was battalion using them to find out when we were holed up in an abandoned factory having a smoke break instead of trying to get blown up by an IED.

 

Some of the man-portable ones are great because they give real-time data to units on the ground, but when data has to get passed through a higher element, you end up chasing people to points they were at 5 minutes ago. The Predator is pretty neat as an attack platform though due to the fact that it's much harder to hear coming than an Apache.

 

As far as for hauling PAX? You can try to replace my job with a robot if you want... But try to find one grunt that's not going to s*** his pants when he gets into an aircraft with no pilot.

 

J-