# Super-Quiet Helicopters Used By U.S. Special Forces

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-quiet-helicopters-used-by-u-s-special-forces/84253>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 28, 2001, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-quiet-helicopters-used-by-u-s-special-forces/84253 "2001-09-28T03:22:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![excitableboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@excitableboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excitableboy)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2001, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-quiet-helicopters-used-by-u-s-special-forces/84253/21 "2001-09-29T02:35:07Z")

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Until about a year ago, I lived in a rural area near Fort Smith, AR. Every couple of months, I’d be mowing my yard, or something silly like that, when I’d see a sight that would give me chills. (The “cool” kind, not the oh, crap kind)  
Three Blackhawk helicopters would be coming toward the house and they were very quiet (yes, I turned the mower off). They would fly at only a couple of hundred feet and make a kind of whooshing noise. A couple of minutes later, seven hueys would fly past at not too much above tree level, and would make a window shaking racket.

So I can say that there are quite quiet helicopters out there, not only in respect to other helicopters, but pretty quite period.

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**Author:** ![Race\_Bannon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Race\_Bannon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Race_Bannon)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2001, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-quiet-helicopters-used-by-u-s-special-forces/84253/22 "2001-09-29T04:44:12Z")

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Just to nit pick, in the interest of fighting ignorance - there is no “Blackhawk”. The Black Hawk is officially two words.

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2001, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/super-quiet-helicopters-used-by-u-s-special-forces/84253/23 "2001-09-29T14:10:52Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Just to nit pick, in the interest of fighting ignorance - there is no “Blackhawk”. The Black Hawk is officially two words.

Interesting. I didn’t know that. I had assumed that “Blackhawk” was the name of an indian tribe (since the army names its helis after tribes), and that it was one word. But sure enough, [the Sikorsky Product Page](http://www.sikorsky.com/programs/blackhawk/index.html) has it as two words. Interestingly, the Navy and coast guard variants are single words: Seahawk and Jayhawk.

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