Potentially a new Groom Lake Ghost Squadron helicopter

When parked at the staging area for the Tikaboo Peak hike, I heard an approaching helicopter. It was flying just above the trees, following the road or what passes for a road. It eventually flew right over me and I fired off a few frames.







The marking on the tail is "20321", which doesn't match any of the known Ghost Squadron helicopters. At the moment, I haven't been able to find the complete serial number, but it should be of the form xx-20321, where XX is for the last two digits of the year when the chopper was ordered. The last photo was included so that there is no question the chopper was flying very low. The aircraft proceeded in the direction of Groom Lake, but due to terrain, it quickly left my sight.

Now there are no known devices to detect cars traveling on the road leading to Tikaboo Peak. Given the terrain, it would be hard for such a device to work wirelessly unless there was a relay tower of sorts. (Hint hint: there is a new tower in the range and you'll never guess where, but I will leave that as a tease for my next post.)

Thank you for having a real camera. My guess, you've actually got a decent DSLR.
If only more people would get away from the crappy phone cams and use a real camera, we'd have better photos, like yours, of all sorts of things, and probably less misinterpret-able dodgey stuff getting posted.

Thank you again for having a real camera.

As to the chopper, haven't seen one like that myself, and can't give any clues, but, thanks!

Hmmm....

I believe your culprit might be a Sikorsky MH-60K. Looking at the cahone hanging from under the nose, and the tailplane design, as well as the turbine intakes, that would be close. 100% sure it's a Sikorsky H-60 though.... Which Variant, that would be open to debate.

Dunno how to embed pictures, but if you run a search, the answers to your question, you will find.

Some MH-60K's have an aerial-refuelling probe, and some not (from what i could gather)

Hope that helps point you in a direction

From what I can tell, it looks too small to be a MH-60 variant though. Seems to have more in common with the Westland Lynx Lynx or NHIndustries NH90. (Dunno if they make a "snub-nose" version of the Lynx, but looking at the rotor and tail section...)

reply to post by pauljs75


It turned out to be 10-20321, a UH-60M. See page 14 of this PDF.
65.18.194.107...

That makes it a very minty chopper. Either it is being tested at Groom or Groom got a brand new chopper. There is no way to tell unless it is photographed periodically around the Nellis range. Unfortunately, few people have been capturing images of the Ghost Squadron lately. Just me and a few people who rather not be associated with their images. It's really a shame nobody from Alamo or Rachel snoops around the ranges. Or if they do, they certainly aren't sharing their work.

It may be a replacement for 90-26222. Bill Word of Tucson, Arizona, posted an image of 222 with the caption, "Sikorsky HH-60G Pave Hawk 90-26222 one of two Pave Hawks leading two Marine CH-46's on a mission." It was apparently taken in 2011, and nowhere near Groom Lake. It has a tail code that looks like ET or FT. The image can be found at:

azaerophoto.com...

In the early 1990s, the Ghost Squadron replaced their CH-3Es with the MH-60G. Some sources who worked with the helicopters refer to the UH-60L, possibly prior to conversion to MH-60G standard.

The photo is of a MH-60G Pave Hawk. Or HH-60G Pave Hawk. Hard to tell.

It looks like that particular aircraft has had it's refueling probe removed but the mounting hardware is still there to reattach it.

Now this type of aircraft usually only has a 5-digit tail number. Point in case, this one:

Number 26109

And this one:

Number 26010

However, on the other side of the tail, there is most likely a 2 letter location code above the USAF letters.

Either way it is an SAR bird, it has a recovery winch on it's side. Nice pics BTW

That's not a recovery winch. That's a mount for the fuel probe.

This is what he really saw.

reply to post by allenidaho


While the upper fuel mount and bracket is there there is also a recovery winch.If you look closer you can see the carbiner clasp SAR Bird...look at the winch placement
Trust me it is a winch.

I'll run the tail number tomorro on MCDS. See if i can pull the history from Redstone also.

I wonder if there are system triggers to that tail number??!!!! Will find out tomorro.


This might be a baddddd idea......... Lets see where it leads shall we... Lol

Wish me luck!

Nice photos by the way!

I got a request for all the photographs I had of that chopper. Someone is trying to figure out if it has unusual "stuff" attached to it. I cranked up the brightness to show detail on the aircraft, even though it makes the photograph itself kind of ugly.

I saw a odd helicopter myself the other day here in my small city, now what was really odd to me was the size for one it was on a flat bed and took up the whole thing and was spilling over the sides...

It was all black just like the belly of the space shuttle and had the same patchy look to it...

What is even more odd is that it had the same rear rotor design as the pictures of the seal team that raided OBLs compound that crashed... It also had no main rotor on it and although it was totally sunny I could not see into the huge side opening it was just blackness... I live in a small city in Canada never seen any military vehicle transported through here ever this helicopter looked very military to me... besides having no main rotor it had nothing else on it either no markings and no fixtures of any kind it was totally black except for the slight edges of the panels which where only a lighter shade of black if that makes any sense...

Anyone have any ideas what I saw? Well many saw it the multi police unit escort in front and behind the wide load trucks was rather odd too...

reply to post by gariac


terrible pictures and looks like a regular anyday military heli to me...thats all i can say

reply to post by 5StarOracle


Generally any oversize load has pilot cars associated with it. Police escort, at least in the US, is not as common, but not unheard of either. When transporting mining equipment, I have seen police escorts. They drive right in the middle of the road, and then weave when they see you approaching. Needless to say, it is quite unnerving to see a cruiser heading directly in your lane.

If the chopper was a secret, they would at least put a tarp over it, if not crate it.

reply to post by ApplesOnFire

I cranked up the brightness to show detail on the aircraft, even though it makes the photograph itself kind of ugly.

www.defenseone.com...

Kind of funny that they mentioned the Ghost Squadron.