{"id":52396,"date":"2023-07-15T22:13:45","date_gmt":"2023-07-15T20:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=52396"},"modified":"2025-07-15T00:03:53","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T22:03:53","slug":"the-notable-advantage-of-two-of-the-spanish-military-helicopters-in-night-flights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/07\/15\/the-notable-advantage-of-two-of-the-spanish-military-helicopters-in-night-flights\/","title":{"rendered":"The notable advantage of two of the Spanish military helicopters in night flights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For years, night vision devices have given helicopters the ability to fly in little or no natural light.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/05\/01\/some-excellent-videos-of-spanish-army-helicopters-in-a-mountain-exercise\/\">Some excellent videos of Spanish Army helicopters in a mountain exercise<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/02\/02\/the-delivery-operation-of-a-ch-47f-chinook-helicopter-to-spain-with-an-american-c-17\/\">The delivery operation of a CH-47F Chinook helicopter to Spain with an American C-17<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p>This capability is especially important for military helicopters, since nighttime helps mask many missions. Precisely, the Spanish Army has just published a video in which it shows us images of the nine helicopters that have participated in the <strong>Night Flight Seminar I\/23 of the Spanish Army Airmobile Forces (FAMET)<\/strong>. In the video we see transport helicopters <strong>CH-47 Chinoook, NH90 and AS-532 Cougar<\/strong>, a utility helicopter <strong>EC-135<\/strong> and an attack helicopter <strong>EC-665 Tiger:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\u00bfTe imaginas volar de noche con gafas de visi\u00f3n nocturna en medio de una operaci\u00f3n aeroterrestre?\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Zv2RJPva1cQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There is a detail in the video that draws a lot of attention. Judging by what we see, <strong>the images have been recorded with an infrared (IR) night vision device <\/strong>. This detail is noticeable in the engine exhausts. Here an example:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53048004131_10ccde2c0d_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0; border:0px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Cougar has the exhausts located to the outside on the top of the fuselage<\/strong>, so they look like lights with an IR viewer. And they look pretty, as we can see in this other video capture:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53047421842_5e59b048c9_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0; border:0px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The same is true of the Chinook<\/strong>, as we can see in this image taken on the ground. The exhausts of the two nacelles of their engines are perfectly visible.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53048004076_9ff56a9835_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0; border:0px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Even in flight, <strong>the Chinook's engines give off a thermal signature well visible to IR scopes<\/strong>, as we see in this other image.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53048494338_f08ba31ccf_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0; border:0px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The same is true of the EC-135<\/strong>, a type of helicopter created by Eurocopter for the civilian market (mainly police and emergency services) and which some Armed Forces have ended up adopting. In this case, <strong>the exhausts are located at the beginning of the helicopter's tail<\/strong> and are also visible as two lights in the IR scopes.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53048190454_5f26b282a7_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0; border:0px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With the most modern helicopters developed specifically for military purposes something different happens. <strong>Here we see a picture of the NH90:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53048389475_4905d86990_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0; border:0px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As we can see, <strong>the NH90 has the exhausts of its engines behind the main rotor and oriented upwards<\/strong>, so that the air that moves the main rotor helps to dissipate the thermal signature of the exhausts, being very hidden in IR scopes.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53048389470_5350724af0_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0; border:0px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The extreme case is that of the Tigre, in which no light can be seen in its exhausts<\/strong>, also located behind the main rotor and oriented upwards, as in the NH90. <strong>The only thing that can be seen in the following images are the helicopter's navigation lights<\/strong>, which can be turned off if necessary:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53048389525_f97e9b8348_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; margin:10px 0 10px 0; border:0px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>This ability to dissipate the thermal signature of engine exhausts is very important<\/strong>, as on a night mission it can mean the difference between being detected by the enemy or going undetected. In addition, <strong>dissipating the thermal signature also makes it easier for the helicopter to target IR-guided surface-to-air missiles<\/strong>. That is why it is an important detail when considering the purchase of a helicopter dedicated to combat missions.<\/p>\n<p>---<\/p>\n<p><small>Main photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ejercitodetierra\/27013051747\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ej\u00e9rcito de Tierra<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For years, night vision devices have given helicopters the ability to fly in little or no natural light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19536,11544],"tags":[7490,1047,7148,6607,1048,10557],"class_list":["post-52396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-we-said-yesterday","category-army","tag-airbus-helicopters-h135","tag-boeing-ch-47-chinook","tag-eurocopter-as-532-cougar","tag-eurocopter-ec665-tigre","tag-famet","tag-spanish-army"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}