ok, saw my first "unmarked black helicopter" this weekend.

[Lerkfish]

First of all, I'm familiar with military helicopters, apaches, etc. and this was not like any I've ever seen. My wife saw it also, and my son pointed it out while we were driving.
I said to my wife "hmmm...unmarked". and she shot me a glance. My son is 7 so I didn't explain further.

It was all black, no markings, more of a guppy shaped body than a military attack body. No weapons systems. The structure that supports the top propeller was twice as tall as for a normal helicopter, looked quite odd.

Is this the type others have seen?

[Virginia Dare]

1. Did it make much noise?

The ones I've seen don't. The drones are pretty spooky as well. We see them alot over the D.C. area.

[Lerkfish]

3. No, it flew right over us and unless my son had pointed it out, I would

not have noticed it.

[jpak]

20. Some special ops Blackhawks are extremely quiet.

I worked on a island off the Georgia coast several years ago.

We had Custom Service BHs buzz us all the time - and you could easily hear them coming from a long way off.

One day, a special ops BH was operating on the island. It was DAMNED quiet overhead and at 2-300 meters away it could not be heard above ambient noise...quite "spooky" actually...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. You'd think if they didn't want people to see it...

they'd paint it blue.

[Ravenseye]

4. Did it look like this

http://ufologie.net/htm/blackheli.htm

[MADem]

6. Ha!!! Great minds!!! n/t

[anarch]

8. meh...you both beat me to it

[Lerkfish]

9. no it was more like this

if you could elongate the body some, flatten it out to look more sleek, and extend the column that supports the top rotor to be about 4 feet taller.

your picture does have a taller rotor column, but its too thick.

[anarch]

23. maybe a Robinson R22?

:shrug:

[Jara sang]

25. Like this?

[Lerkfish]

27. close, now combine that body with the rotor support from post #21.

and make the cabin larger.

[anarch]

30. how about this one:

or this:






Finding helicopter pictures is fun!

[Lerkfish]

31. no, the best is to combine body of #25 and rotor of #21

but thanks for searching these out.

[paparush]

35. MMMMMMmmmm!! HELOS!!! : -)

The little boy in me just cannot resist!

[Beelzebud]

28. kinda like this one:

Or perhaps one of these?

[JuniperLea]

29. I saw about a half dozen of these near Long Beach, CA

over this past weekend, beginning Friday night.

And there were a couple of the bigger ones with the giant guns and, oh God, I'm going to show my ignorance here, what the heck are they? Missile launchers? They look like giant squarish cans with four holes in the front. Some choppers had two on either side.

Anyway, the last time I saw this many out in force in this area was just before Desert Storm.

[MADem]

5. You see them all the time if you've lived near FT Belvoir...

Did it look like this? Pilotless???


This kind of unmanned crafts are intensively developped and tested by the US military in the recent years, and will probably be deployed for operational use between 2000 and 2025, depending on budget considerations.

As these crafts generally have no identification marks, they might -or might not- be the famous "black helicopters".

Due to their small size, they might appear to the naive observer as "UFO manoeuvering at high speed in the distance". But on the other end, they are not at all silent, and you can be confident that tests of such crafts are not conducted over populated areas but rather over desertic dedicated test ranges.

These crafts are also quite recent: there was no informatics capacities in the last decades to get an aircaft of any kind to fly in a stable manner under no human control.

In few word, when a flying device is observed near a military test range these days, it is more and more difficult to discriminate between human or possibly non-human crafts. But such craft cannot be used to dismiss cases of the past decades, particularly if the UFO case is reported as "unexplained" by the military themselves.

http://ufologie.net/htm/blackheli.htm

[Virginia Dare]

7. Yep, I'm right in the flight path between Belvoir and D.C.

that's why I see them quite alot. They do give you the creeps.

[Lerkfish]

13. nope, that's not it. It had an windowed cockpit and was manned.

edited to change "open" to "windowed", more accurate

[MADem]

18. A cobra, maybe?

[Lerkfish]

19. no, I"m familiar with a cobra. the body was guppy-like, smooth

no weapons. the column supporting the rotor is very tall, unusually so.
I've done a google search and have yet to find one that looks exactly like it.

for the record, my wife and son also saw it, so I didn't imagine it.

without getting into what I do for a living, I can tell you I've drawn cobra to detail, and this wasn't one.

[Ravenseye]

22. maybe an old russian military?

Not a Hind or anything, but one of the older ones. I seem to recall a guppyish russian military transport helicopter with a really tall rotor. I can't find an image of one online though.

[MADem]

24. Cayuse, Comanche?? Here's a link to a load of pics, maybe you

can find it on this page.

http://tri.army.mil/LC/CS/csa/aaphoto.htm#OH6

[seabeyond]

10. huge ass plane that flies low and slow over town about 12

two three times a week. all kinds of things hooked up on it. i WANT to KNOW what it is and what it is about. gonna get a picture and let you all tell me. no one around here considered. i always say, bush is an asshole. bush is a liar, depending if a kid is with me, in case it is a listening plane, lol lol

[0007]

11. Was this in Colorado?

[Lerkfish]

12. no, dayton, ohio.

[mod mom]

15. Probably from Wright-Patterson?

[Lerkfish]

17. I'm fairly familiar with what flies out of wright pat.

this didn't look like it.
Admittedly, there's no way I could say for sure I know all the things that fly out of there, but lets just say I've been to airshows and the AF museum. Its nothing I"ve ever seen before, not exactly.

[dave29]

14. no you didn't

and you are feeling very sleepy.

[Lerkfish]

16. "just look into this flashy thingy"

LOL.

[seriousstan]

21. What about this picture?.....

[Lerkfish]

26. That's almost it! only it was much larger than that.

I was roomy enough for 4 or 5 people. your picture looks like a one person job.

but the rotor support is right on the money.

[Liberal In Texas]

32. It's probably a Robinson R-44 civilian helicopter. (Raven II)

Perhaps with an all black paint scheme.
http://www.robinsonheli.com/color44.htm

The R-22 is 2 person, R-44 is 4 person.

[Lerkfish]

38. DING DING DING! WE have a winner! that's the exact copter.

only it was all black and with absolutely no markings.

[meisje]

33. I saw it too, here is a pic?

[Liberal In Texas]

34. That's funny...and scary. n/t

[paparush]

36. The Herbie Complex!!

Or maybe that should be the Herbie's Simplex Complex

[shanti]

37. i've seen one too

but the one i saw had gun mounts.