An M3s Tele Lens photo of an unmarked Black Military Copter That Landed at My Local Private Airport. Is it a Black Hawk? Looks New.

[Don Testme]

The M3 Tele lens does an incredible job taking this photo at 28x from over 3000ft away of this unmarked helicopter, what I suppose is military, at my local public airport. Now that's an impressive chopper! The Tele lens did a great job. The photo came out great, even at 28x. This was taken with the updated firmware that listed an improvement in detail of tele lens photos.
View attachment 142642

 

[F00Man]

It almost looks like a detailed model of it versus ...cannot tell if it is real really

 

[Don Testme]

It almost looks like a detailed model of it versus ...cannot tell if it is real really

it's real

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Yes, a Blackhawk, good detail for sure at what must be quite a distance.

 

[Meta4]

The M3 Tele lens does an incredible job taking this photo at 28x from over 3000ft away of this unmarked helicopter

You need to improve your distance estimation.
If the photo was taken from 3000 ft away, you would have had to be 2700 ft up to get that angle on the helicopter.
But you weren't that high.
The photo is taken from approx 1630 ft away from the helicopter.

 

[zeusfl]

He probably was on top of a 1230FT mountain. Well.....

 

[Meta4]

He probably was on top of a 1230FT mountain. Well.....

The distance from the helicopter was 1630 ft.
I know how high the drone was, but all I'll say is that it wasn't 2700 ft.

 

[brett8883]

The distance from the helicopter was 1630 ft.
I know how high the drone was, but all I'll say is that it wasn't 2700 ft.

Well if you know how high the aircraft was and we have 1630 ft as a lateral distance then with a little trigonometry we can deduce that the hypotenuse was about 2,200 ft. That's honestly not a terrible estimation. I don't know that I could do any better.

 

[Vic Moss]

3000' away with a 45° angle?

Color me skeptical. That puts the drone at 1500' +/-.

 

[Meta4]

3000' away with a 45° angle?

Color me skeptical. That puts the drone at 1500' +/-.

If it was 3000 ft away, with a 48° the drone would have been 2700 ft up.
But as explained above, it wasn't 3000 ft away.

 

[BigAl07]

He probably was on top of a 1230FT mountain. Well.....

I see what you did there LOL

 

[Deleted member 154956]

You need to improve your distance estimation.
If the photo was taken from 3000 ft away, you would have had to be 2700 ft up to get that angle on the helicopter.
But you weren't that high.
The photo is taken from approx 1630 ft away from the helicopter.

Yeah, those pesky trigonometric calculations always seem to get in the way of a good story...

 

[Flycaster]

What were you doing flying a drone over the airport?????

 

[spamgnome]

Yeah, those pesky trigonometric calculations always seem to get in the way of a good story...

Elementary, my Dear Euclid! I'm not as good at math as the others on this forum, but yeah, even just looking at the photo the drone was more above the helicopter than away from it. But we still don't know what kind it is!

 

[Meta4]

But we still don't know what kind it is!

Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[spamgnome]

Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That's what's I said, "It's definitely a Blackhawk"

 

[zeusfl]

Maybe one of those modified Blackhawks, the same used in the Bin Laden killing operation? By judging the blades does not look like regular BlackHawk. I have a friend that was an F15 spy pilot and he used to fly a white F15 with no signs or logos. Just naked like that Blackhawk. He mention there are not supposed to be pictures of that airplane since was secret. I don't know too much about it but the fact that Blackhawk does not have anything outside let me think.

 

[Vic Moss]

If it was 3000 ft away, with a 48° the drone would have been 2700 ft up.
But as explained above, it wasn't 3000 ft away.

Pre-coffee math on my part...

OP said 3000' away though.

 

[brett8883]

3000' away with a 45° angle?

Color me skeptical. That puts the drone at 1500' +/-.

GPS data does put it at ~1400 MSL. The airport is basically at sea level so that puts the drone on top of a 1000 ft mountain. The little known Gatorian range in Florida I presume. Very elusive, no known maps exist.

 

[eEridani]

GPS put the drone about 1300 feet from the apron the chopper was on, and the angle is around 40 degrees. A reasonable math guy can find the actual distance based on the FOV of the 630 mm lens equivalence. Altitude of 430 m is also in the file, which puts the drone at 1300 feet MSL and matches the expected elevation angle. So busting rules is what this is about.

And no - that isn't one of the Bin Laden type aircraft - it looks like a generic but newer Sikorski 60 series.