Message posted by Griffon_314 on May 04, 2011 at 8:50:47 PST:
They did destroy it - mostly. But total destruction of an airframe takes more time and materials than they had available, I'm sure. The tail rotor "cover" is definitely not armor. You can see a very similar object on the main rotor hub of the RAH-66 Commanche - it's a LO measure, shielding all the sharp edges of the rotor hub from radar. Another point to consider - some are discussing how the helicopters "penetrated" Pakistani airspace. But it has been established that they took off from *within* Pakistan, at Tarbela Ghazi Air Base. That's only 30 minutes' flight from the compound, over relatively flat terrain. US aircraft land and takeoff from Ghazi regularly. The exfiltration to Afghanistan, however, is still an open question. They may have returned to Ghazi and loaded back onto transport aircraft, or flown directly to Afghanistan.
In Reply to: Re: Helicopter used in raid posted by OldThudMan~!!~ on May 03, 2011 at 21:12:56 PST:
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