Another Osprey bites the dust
- Thread starter srfdude
- Start date
“Too big to fail”
Writing is on the wall. I'm sure someone is working on a replacement.
Military Quietly Stops Buying Ospreys as Aircraft Faces an Uncertain Future
New budget documents for the three military branches that fly the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft show that none has plans to buy any additional airframes, a sign that the Pentagon isn't prioritizing growing the fleet.
It’s a costly and complex platform. While the idea was bold, a helicopter is more feasible.
Wait until the Marine Corps F-35s start crashing.
Wait until the Marine Corps F-35s start crashing.
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2021
- Messages
- 1,204
Class-A mishap rates per 100,000 flight hours as of September 2017, published by Breaking Defense - https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/v-22-osprey-crash-history/
It has climbed slightly since 2017 though: https://www.safety.af.mil/Portals/71/documents/Aviation/Aircraft Statistics/V-22.pdf
7 Class A mishaps per 100k flying
Just an awful tragedy for that intrepid crew.
They fly night ops from MCAS New River frequently low and slow over my beach house in the summer. This is constantly on my mind.
They fly night ops from MCAS New River frequently low and slow over my beach house in the summer. This is constantly on my mind.
Last edited:
KISS 
The US Navy is retiring the C-2 in favor of the Osprey. I heard that transitioning pilots has been interesting since most aren’t helicopter pilots.
Looking at it as an engineer, if almost anything fails, the aircraft goes down.
Brilliant
There are a multitude of redundant systems.
Are you an aerospace engineer?
Rated pilot on a complex, multi-engine aircraft?
Familiar with the systems on the Osprey?
I am familiar with the fact it crashes a lot, that if either engine fails its unstable, and if the rotation system malfunctions you also have instability.
I worked in heavy industry, and investigated many failures of large scale equipment. Resulting in catastrophic failure, notwithstanding "redundancy".
It is brilliant.
Supposedly one of the advantages is in emergencies. One important mission is medical evacuation, where some might not be amenable to the violent takeoffs using a catapult. Another is that it can be used when there are no catapult or landing crew working.
Got it - so, no aerospace experience on which to draw your conclusion - only the reliance on media hype to decide that it "crashes a lot".
Yet, the post above showed that the Osprey crash rate was below average for military aircraft, with a lower crash rate than the C-130, which has been in production for over 60 years and is considered one of the safest and most reliable transports ever built.
All multi-engine aircraft have "instability" when one engine is lost. The Osprey is no different. You don't have the power for a VTOL when operating on one engine - but you can fly and land the airplane.
I guess if you never designed a car, you have no basis to conclude that running into a concrete wall at 100 mph is dangerous.
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2021
- Messages
- 1,204
He meant brilliant as in the transitioning pilots not being helo pilots and having hard time adjusting. Lol
If I'm not mistaken, they were or are considering adding one of these to the Presidential fleet of aircraft. So they can't be that bad.
In fact I think Melania Trump flew on one when she was First Lady.
In fact I think Melania Trump flew on one when she was First Lady.
Last edited:
That is an utterly false equivalence, and you know it.
Nobody is discussing whether or not hitting a wall at 100 miles an hour is dangerous. We all know that.
You are judging the likelihood of hitting the wall without understanding how a car is built, or how it is driven, since you’ve neither built, nor driven the car.
You’re not in a position to judge the likelihood of the “wall hitting” as a result.
You were trying to tell us that this is a bad airplane, but you don’t know how the airplane is designed, how it is operated, and you haven’t examined the crash rate, or the likelihood of mishap.
So your critique is nothing more than giving in to sensationalism.
When you can explain a vortex ring state, and under which conditions that becomes dangerous, then, perhaps, I’ll listen to your opinion. We lost a lot of osprey early on because they encountered a vortex ring state.
That’s something Osprey (and helicopter) pilots avoid, but before they knew how to avoid it, it was a risk.
The risk has been mitigated through pilot training and on board warning systems. The airplane has gotten a lot safer since its introduction.
We have also stopped buying the C-17, one of the most successful, and safest, air lifters ever built, so the end of a procurement cycle doesn’t mean that the airplane was bad, it simply means that the requirement was fulfilled.
Last edited:
I believe I read 15,000 men were killed in training accidents in WW2, to put that in perspective 26,000 were killed in action in the 8th air force. War is a dangerous business. I am not a Veteran or a pilot but from what I read these pilots fly in extremely hazardous conditions. I am pretty sure this plane does things any other aircraft cannot. May these brave men RIP.
