This Folding 'Killer Egg' Helicopter Goes Where America's Black Hawks Can't

Probably familiar to players of "Call of Duty" or "Battlefield," the Boeing AH-6 "Little Bird" — a variant of the MH-6 that's affectionally called the "killer egg" due to the shape of its fuselage — is a light multipurpose military helicopter with many tricks up its proverbial sleeves. One of those tricks is the ability to fold its rotors up for quick transport and deployment, allowing it to be more clandestinely moved from place to place for mission staging compared to the much larger UH-60 Black Hawk and its variants.

Using only four people and hand tools, the AH-6 can be assembled and prepared to fly in as little as seven minutes, according to Boeing. This gives military forces the ability to deploy it from anywhere they can fit the fuselage. Once it's in the air, the Little Bird can fly upwards of 145 miles per hour and stay airborne for 2.1 hours and cover a range of 202 miles before it needs to refuel. Big helicopters like the Apache or Viper are sledgehammers; the Little Bird is a scalpel.

Despite its size, the AH-6 is not defenseless. It can be equipped with rotary Gatling guns or rockets if it needs to fulfill an anti-armor role. Boeing states that the Little Bird is "Configured for light and precision attack, anti-armor, close-combat attack, reconnaissance, security and escort, troop insertion and extraction, and combat search and rescue." Really, it does whatever the military wants it to do.

The AH-6 was reportedly used during the U.S. military's successful rescue of a downed F-15E Strike Eagle Weapons System Officer during the country's war with Iran. Reportedly, the AH-6s in the operation were flying with the 160th SOAR (Special Operations Aviation Regiment), also called the "Night Stalkers." If you look at a Little Bird and think the silhouette is familiar, it's because later versions share a platform with the MD 500E, a common utility and civilian helicopter that's been used for everything from forest management to VIP transport and even law enforcement.