The New Yorker: Getting bin Laden

stupid question -- why did they need 25 minutes to refuel to get over the border? Why wouldn't they put a lesser amount in just to get over the border and refuel then?

 

From what it sounds like, they were refueling several helicopters from one refueling point. From empty to full takes about five minutes under normal refueling conditions. I could imagine this was quite a bit slower than that.

 

I didn't want to let pass without calling out perhaps the single most insulting thing I've read on here at least since Fenian bailed.

 

Clearly, you know more about this than I do, but I also had the thought that you wouldn't just give the chopper "a splash of gas," because combat conditions are unpredictable and you don't know with 100 percent certainty how long you're going to be in the air. It better be full every time you take off, right? It's not like a NASCAR race where you might pit for fuel with 10 laps to go or whatever and only get a partial tank.

 

Yeah. No splash. Unless my helicopter is too heavy to take a full tank of gas, which happens some times, fill 'er up.

 

The Georgetown professor who wrote the piece attacking The New Yorker account loses me precisely right here:
"First, many Muslims across the world fundamentally doubt the events of the Bin Laden raid. Some believe Bin Laden is still alive. Others believe he died long ago. Others believe that the events of May 2 were staged to allow the Obama administration to make an exit from Afghanistan. As Mr. Schmidle’s is the first (and so far only) account of the drama, these problems cast a pale of doubt upon the events that transpired that evening."

Yeah. Sure. Whatever.
Her initial problem with the piece is that she met the author in 2006 and was unimpressed.

 

Thanks, 160th, for handing secrets to the Chinese.

Well done, Night Stalkers.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/15/reports-pakistan-let-chinese-inspect-u-s-stealth-copter/?hpt=hp_t2

 

New book out about the raid: