Israel May Be Dropping Spies In Iran Using Secret American Stealth BlackHawk Helicopters

Gizmodo

Former Pentagon senior policy analyst F. Michael Maloof claims that Israel is using the same ultra-secret stealth H-60 Blackhawk helicopter that US Special Forces used to hunt down bin Laden. How is this possible?

These helicopters are highly modified versions of the Blackhawk. The regular version is manufactured by Sikorsky for the American military as well as the Republic of Korea's Army, the
Colombian Armed Forces and the Turkish Armed Forces. This highly modified version, however, is not available to anyone but American special forces. It was supposed to be an exclusive transport for the Navy SEALS.

Or at least, that's what we thought until this report by Maloof for Joseph Farah's G2 bulletin, a global intelligence newsletter. He claims that Israel has these the stealth Blackhawks too. According to him, they are using them to transport Iranian dissidents from the Sunni Kurdish portion of northern Iraq into Iran. The teams are groups of 12 armed man trained to gather intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program. Apparently, they are dressed as members of the Iranian military using Iranian military vehicles:

With the help of recruited Iranian dissidents in Kurdistan, the Israelis are attempting to gather sufficient information to convince the United States and the United Nations that Iran is involved in using its nuclear development program to make nuclear weapons.

Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government officially has denied claims by Iranian officials regarding the missions. But various reports including a recent Times of London report suggest that Israel is using specially modified U.S.-supplied Black Hawk helicopters to carry 12-member armed teams with sensitive equipment to monitor radioactivity and the magnitude of explosives tests.

One of these stealth Blackhawks was shot down during the operation that ended in the death of Al-Qaeda's leader Osama bin Laden and its following burial at sea.

Ares' writer Bill Sweetman at Aviation Week described this helicopters as highly modified versions of the H-60 Blackhawk. Its tail "features stealth-configured shapes on the boom and tip fairings, swept stabilizers and a "dishpan" cover over a non-standard five-or-six-blade tail rotor. It has a silver-loaded infra-red suppression finish similar to that seen on some V-22s." Sweetman also pointed out that this secret version nobody knew about included aerodynamic and flight control adjustments that allowed less rotor speed and less noise, as well as a reduced radar cross-section.

It's not known if these secret stealth aircraft are on loan from Pentagon or units sold to Israel. 

Drones gone wild? Mystery craft over Denver

Aviation authorities are scratching their heads over a mysterious flying object in the skies above Colorado that almost caused a mid-air crash.

The object was sighted by a private jet pilot, who claimed to air traffic controllers that some kind of flying craft got too close for comfort on Monday.

In a transmission that appeared on LiveATC.net, the operator of the Cessna Citation 525 CJ1 says: 'A remote controlled aircraft, or what?

Something just went by the other way ... About 20 to 30 seconds ago. It was like a large remote-controlled aircraft.'

A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, Mike Fergus, told 9News that it is working to get some answers, and that if the pilot’s story is true, such an object can be extremely dangerous.

 The object reportedly came dangerously close to the private jet, but it never appeared on radar

The mystery object was spotted by a pilot high above the city of Denver, Colorado, seen here

A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, Mike Fergus, told 9News that it is working to get some answers, and that if the pilot’s story is true, such an object can be extremely dangerous.




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Panetta wants raptor fixed!

ABC NEWS: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has demanded the Air Force take measures to make America's most expensive fighter plane, the F-22 Raptor, safer for its pilots in light of an ongoing, potentially deadly problem with the plane's oxygen system, a Pentagon spokesperson said today.

As a recent ABC News investigation found, for more than four years pilots for the F-22 Raptor have reported at least 25 incidents of experiencing "hypoxia-like symptoms" while at the controls of the $420 million-plus-a-pop jet. Hypoxia is caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain and is characterized by dizziness, confusion and disorientation.

READ ABC News Investigation: Fatal Flaws With the F-22 Raptor

Among other precautions, Panetta ordered the Air Force to expedite the installation of an automatic emergency back-up oxygen system to the planes, spokesperson George Little told reporters.

Currently, pilots who believe they're experiencing oxygen problems have to manually reach for a ring in a cramped corner of the cockpit to activate the emergency back-up system. The activation ring itself was already such a problem that the Air Force recently re-designed it for the entire fleet to make it more accessible.

In one fatal incident in November 2010, the Air Force said one of its pilots, Capt. Jeff Haney, had been too distracted by trying to activate the manual back-up system after a malfunction cut off his primary oxygen completely and he accidentally flew his plane into the ground.

TEHRAN -- Iran on Tuesday hanged a man convicted of playing a key role in the 2010 murder of a top nuclear scientist and of spying for Israel, the official IRNA news agency reported, quoting Tehran's prosecution office.

"Majid Jamali Fashi, the Mossad spy and the person who assassinated Masoud Ali Mohammadi, our nation's nuclear scientist, was hanged Tuesday morning," IRNA said.

Local media reported August 28 that Jamali Fashi was sentenced to death after being "convicted of Moharebeh [waging war against God] for placing a bomb-laden bike and blowing it up in front of martyr Ali Mohammadi's home, in collaboration with the Zionist regime and Mossad."

Jamali Fashi stood trial as the main suspect in the killing of Ali Mohammadi, a particle physics professor at Tehran University who was killed in a bomb attack outside his home in January 2010.

Jamali Fashi also faced charges of cooperating with Israel's spy agency Mossad and of receiving $120,000 for passing on intelligence to its agents.

The Islamic republic has blamed the Jewish state and the United States for the killing of four of its scientists and nuclear experts since 2010.

Western powers and Israel suspect Iran is seeking an atomic weapons capability under the guise of its civilian nuclear and space programs -- a charge Tehran vehemently denies.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/iran_executes_alleged_israel_spy_Eb4moEZDF46huyLf9aFuKL#ixzz1uxwLaanO

Is the F-22 toxic?

By Larry Shaughnessy CNN

Even as the Air Force searches for the reason pilots are getting sick flying the F-22, a new mystery about the troubled stealth fighter jet has come to light: Why are mechanics on the ground getting sick in the plane as well?

The Air Force has been looking into a number of reports that pilots experienced "hypoxia-like symptoms" aboard F-22s since April 2008. Hypoxia is oxygen deficiency.

The Air Force reports 25 cases of such systems, including 11 since September, when the service cleared the F-22 fleet to return to flight after a four-month grounding.

The fleet was grounded in May 2011 so the service could check the hypoxia reports, but the order was lifted in September under a "return to fly" plan, with equipment modifications and new rules including daily inspections of the life-support systems.

"Early on in the return to fly we had five maintainers that reported hypoxia symptoms," Gen. Daniel Wyman, command surgeon for the Air Combat Command, said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday.

The maintainers are mechanics on the F-22's ground crews who sometimes have to be in the cockpit while the jet's engine is doing a ground run.

"The maintainers, when they are doing their ground run, are not on the mask, they are in the cockpit," Wyman said.

The problem with maintainers getting sick while on the ground throws a wrench into some of the theories about why at least 25 pilots have suffered hypoxia symptoms.

The Air Force experts trying to figure out the cause of the problem have pointed out that the F-22 flies higher and faster than its predecessors, the F-15 and F-16.

There has also been speculation that there perhaps could be a problem with the system that feeds oxygen to the pilot's mask while in flight.

Asked what is causing the symptoms in maintainers on the ground, not wearing a mask, Wyman said, "I can't answer that at this time."

Sunday, two F-22 pilots told CBS's "60 Minutes" that they would not fly the jet any more. One of the reasons they gave was that there is a problem with the carbon filter built into their mask to help remove contaminants from the air they breathe.

Wyman said that "a black dust was noted in some of the breathing hoses near the filters. We analyzed this dust and found it to be activated carbon."

But no activated carbon was found in "30 pilots who had their throat swabbed for testing."

Activated carbon is an inert form of charcoal that has been used in air filters for years.

Nonetheless, the Air Force has decided to remove carbon filters from the F-22 pilot masks.

The Air Force said Tuesday that no disciplinary action will be taken against the pilots for taking their concerns to "60 Minutes.