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

Factual Questions
21

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.

22

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

23

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 has it as two words. Interestingly, the Navy and coast guard variants are single words: Seahawk and Jayhawk.