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Comment by dmbche | Hacker News Reader

Design remings me of something...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidents_and_incidents_involv...

The Osprey has a reputation, for sure, but it's mid-pack. They called the F-104 the widow maker for a reason, for example. And the F-16 has a fairly high accident rate, too, slightly higher than the Osprey. Though I think the F-16's history is a bit more lopsided, they made some changes after early production airframes proved pretty accident prone.

Maybe the Osprey's reputation is due not only to the accident rate but also to the fatality rate. A fatal accident in a standard F-16 (not the 2 seater), assuming no one outside the plane is killed, means 1 death. A fatal accident in a V-22 with the same assumptions would have a minimum of 2 deaths (pilot and copilot) at a soft maximum of 26 deaths (2 crew + 24 passengers, possibly more if overloaded).

All flying craft that cannot glide by itself should have failsafe parachutes. If one engine goes out the other engine needs to stop too to prevent flipping. Parachute is easily acceseible behind a red lever with glass to break

The osprey has both engines tied together for this exact reason. One engine can turn both props. It's part of the complexity of the thing. It's just too complex.

This is correct.

In Turkey, F-104 was called “flying coffin”.

The Netherlands had problems with it too. The procurement of the Starfighter was also a huge corruption scandal. Lockheed was a very scummy company in the cold war.

> The Starfighter had a poor safety record, especially in Luftwaffe service. The Germans lost 292 of 916 aircraft and 116 pilots from 1961 to 1989, leading the German public to dub it Witwenmacher ("widowmaker").[0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter

That is because the Germans used it as all-weather fighter-bomber with more heavy load, in different airspaces, with different weather and terrain, as opposed to the initial, more air-superiority/interceptor concept. And had a different way of training their pilots. In masses. "Wo gehobelt wird fallen Späne. Ein bisschen Schwund ist immer da."

Other european airforces using them were more lucky, IIRC.

That aside, they could be seen as the exported rests of the bargain-basement of the MIC of the USA, when the USAF/Navy already had better options(seen as a whole weapon-system, not a few speed/climb/altitude records(for the initial, only lightly loaded version) which won't matter in real combat).

L PRGB CHIP BURN

Any time there are planetaries or splines attached to jet engines, it's a really weak spot. This holds for ordinary turboprops too.

The Osprey's accident rate is not that bad, and the US Army have ordered a new smaller tiltrotor, the v280.

They officially named it recently to the 'MV-75'.

The Wikipedia page says this will replace UH-60s, but I just do not see how that airframe is a direct comparable to what’s been a workhorse for decades. Maybe it means only in a long range reconnaissance role? But even then, that mission is primarily owned by UAS platforms now. Confusing.

I imagine UH-60 and variants will continue to serve (who knows, maybe with new airframes) along side the MV-75 for quite a while, in a similar way to how UH-1s continued to be in use well after UH-60s were deployed in large numbers. This Congressional Research Service summary of the FLRAA/MV-75 program states that the Army has plans to continue ordering UH-60s (on the order of 255 between 2027 and 2031) - https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12771

The key requirements that drive MV-75's downsides (size, complexity, cost) is the Army wants to play game in the Pacific. The UH-60 is deeply limited there.

For example, the MV-75's range should let it go (one-way) from Guam to the Philippines, straight from Okinawa to Taiwan (no need to island hop) - potentially as a two way mission. Same as Philippines to Taiwan.

The "comparability" is that the MV-75 and UH-60 can be delivery ~14 troops into an order magnitude similar size clearing.

Thank you! This context really clarifies what the use case is for this. The range difference matters.

What is so unbelievable about that?

Sure, its going to take decades to actually make the transition and the UH-60 will remain in service for decades more after that in less demanding roles. I expect by the time this finishes, the MV-75 will be considered another workhorse, if maybe slightly fuzzier and the UH will be an antiquated platform.

But ultimately they both solve the same problem, moving stuff from A to B in rough terrain fast. But with the ever increasing amount of reconnaissance assets, A needs to be further behind the frontline and so range and speed needs to increase beyond what you can manage with a pure helicopter.

The next generations of accidents are going to be even more looney-tunes in nature.

I was wondering why we’ve already give up on the harrier.

Well, it's a jet from the 60's, can only scrape mach 1 on the downhill, is in a CAS role, primarily. Cool jet, but it's old tech.

The Harrier is obsolete.

It was deafening too many pilots and Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop needed more money. /s

The F-35B can also do Mach 1.6 and the stealth thing.

Some country should give that Pepsi contest winner a demil Harrier in lieu of Frontier Airline miles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico%2C_Inc.

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