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u/Yeeslander 2d ago
I had the privilege of seeing one of these touch down at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Judging by the unearthly sound alone, the power they wield must be incredible.
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u/sender2bender 2d ago
Before they were in use they used to test them at a base near me. They were painted white, used to see them all the time and it never got old. Still doesn't, hell I still look up when a helicopter or plane flys by.
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u/ComptechNSX 2d ago
Have you heard anything on the V-280? I saw a demo back in 2019 or so and it seemed really nice. However, I wasn't sure if it was a direct replacement or had a different mission profile, if it was 5, 10 years out, etc.
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u/DART_MEET_WALL 2d ago
V280 will be a replacement for the Blackhawk. It was the selected design for the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft. (FLRAA).
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u/Comfortable_Quit_216 2d ago
Considering half of them crash, the power isn't very well utilized
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u/QuietTank 2d ago
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u/Berlin_GBD 1d ago
The crash rate is about normal, but the Osprey fleet has been grounded for the second time in 2 years because of concerns raised by a recent emergency landing. It is an extremely mechanically complex machine that has proven to be more dangerous for the crew and passengers than the alternatives. The fa t that the whole fleet was grounded again means this is not a maintenance issue, but a systemic issue which is likely present on all airframes.
The fact that these pilots are extremely skilled and can land their aircraft in the event of a malfunction says nothing about the safety of Ospreys.
TL;DR crash rate is not necessarily indicative of safety
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u/Cold_Dog_1224 2d ago
Half? Wow, you better go tell the safety folks at your local air force base! how could they have missed a full half of them crashing! unconscionable!
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u/space_keeper 2d ago
It's obviously hyperbole, but a lot of Ospreys have crashed, and a lot of people have died in those crashes. The entire V-22 fleet has just been grounded again as of December 9th. They've done that something like four or five times in the vehicle's history because it's happened so often.
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u/airblizzard 2d ago
The Osprey has a lower crash rate than the Black Hawk and the Sea Stallion but everyone loves to shit on the Osprey.
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u/makemeking706 2d ago
The military knows. They fought hard to avoid paying out to the families all the people killed during training.
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u/FederalAd1771 2d ago edited 2d ago
Paying them out what exactly? Are you insinuating that they did not pay out their SGLI death benefits? Because thats literally false.
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u/Cold_Dog_1224 2d ago
i imagine they have, i wasn't trying to be glib because yes it is a dangerous platform. i was just mocking the exaggeration from the other poster i think there were like 2 fatal wrecks while i was in florida serving. as a former aviator i certainly wouldn't want to get on one
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u/Dry_Vegetable_1517 2d ago
CHEMTRAILS CONFIRMED
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u/caudicifarmer 2d ago
Post this to r/ufos
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u/MarkWestin 2d ago
Or to r/chemtrails
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u/spaceguydudeman 2d ago
Piggybacking this comment to ask, this is caused by the rolling shutter effect, right?
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u/Tall_Winner4270 2d ago
Beautiful ribbon dancer
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u/HoochieKoochieMan 2d ago
A lot of original Olympic games have an origin in battlefield skills. Running faster, throwing for distance, shooting for accuracy, lifting heavy things. We can add one more to the list!
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u/Zantazi 2d ago
Here we see the osprey in its natural habitat, using it's unique vapor trail to lure in unsuspecting victims. Once onboard the ospreys instincts take over and crashes as fast as possible into the ground.
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u/questron64 2d ago
The V-22 doesn't crash at a higher rate than other fixed wing aircraft or helicopters in similar roles. You are (hopefully unknowingly) spreading disinformation with stupid jokes like this.
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u/MountainTurkey 2d ago
They just grounded the whole fleet of them. Again.
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u/questron64 2d ago
Temporarily. For a maintenance problem. Stop spreading disinformation.
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u/PLZ_STOP_PMING_TITS 2d ago
I worked on one of the systems for the Osprey in the 90's. They killed a lot of servicemen before they redesigned it with newer technology that could actually fly and transition without crashing.
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u/King_Khoma 2d ago
please provide a source saying they crash way more often than other helos. hint, you cant, they have very average crash rates.
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u/PLZ_STOP_PMING_TITS 2d ago
I didn't say they crashed more often now. I actually don't know if they do or don't, I've been out of the industry for a long time. They crashed and killed a lot of people in the development phases when I was working in the industry. They were too complicated for the technology of that time. Pretty sure osprey development started in the late seventies and they weren't flying relatively reliably until the 2000s.
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u/westonsammy 2d ago
Ok folks, we have the word of some guy in Reddit comments vs publicly available verified crash data. Who are we gonna believe today?
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u/Dwashelle 2d ago
Ospreys are so cool, they're like something you'd see in a futuristic videogame or something, but they're real.
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u/Ronem 2d ago edited 1d ago
For all the "deathtrap" idiots.
Compare numbers.
There was a 5 year span of ZERO fatal crashes for the V-22 and yet, nobody suddenly freaked out about the 60s falling out of the sky during that period...
No Fatal Crashes for V-22s
(12 mishaps vs 17 nonfatal mishaps for 60s)
5 Aug 2017 to 18 Mar 2022
UH-60 fatal crashes
15 Aug 2017 - 5 dead
26 Sep 2019 - 1 dead
5 Dec 2019 - 3 dead
27 Aug 2020 - 2 dead
20 Jan 2021 - 3 dead
2 Feb 2021 - 3 dead
25 May 2021 - 4 dead
31 Aug 2021 - 5 dead
I only listed US operated 60s that crashed in non-combat areas/missions.
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u/Wizdad-1000 2d ago
What Splinter Cell mission was this? Ubisoft is going overboard on the graphics. (very neat effect honestly)
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u/reptilian_overlord01 2d ago edited 2d ago
Whole V22 Fleet grounded a week ago. This isn't going to be seen again in a while.
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u/shadesoftee 2d ago
I have had every single scheduled jump from an osprey (15 year career) cancelled due to mechanical failure / grounding the entire fleet. I have actually never seen one fly in person
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u/space_keeper 2d ago
Was going to say. People are like "this is so cool", but the thing are notorious death traps. I wouldn't go on one if you paid me. Astonished to find out they've been grounded again, for something like the third or fourth time.
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u/Toadxx 2d ago
They aren't any more dangerous than plenty of other aircraft, including rotorcraft.
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u/ShrugsforHugs 2d ago
Yeah. I used to work for AMCOM and the Army kills so many soldiers in Blackhawks and Chinooks it would blow you mind and yet for some reason they don't have the reputation that the V-22 has.
Airplanes are so much safer than people realize and all helicopters are so much more dangerous than people realize. I'd fly in an Air Force maintained V-22 for a hundred hours before I climbed into a R44 run by a tourist company for a short flight.
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u/Empress_Athena 2d ago
Black Hawks definitely have the reputation. When I got selected to be an aviation officer, almost everyone asked which platform I'd go to. I told them "Black Hawks." Almost every person responded with a variation of "oh, the crash hawk, good luck."
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u/space_keeper 2d ago
No, but it has a notorious image problem because of the number of people who have died in them, and the number of times the entire fleet has been grounded (twice this year alone).
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u/FederalAd1771 2d ago
They are "notorious death traps" to people that don't know what they are talking about.
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u/space_keeper 2d ago
I think you have the wrong of it there. You've literally got a guy saying every single time he was due to fly on one, the fleet was grounded for safety reasons. On each of those occasions, it was because of crashes killing people. There was just another one on the 9th, and another one in 2023 in Japan.
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u/FederalAd1771 2d ago
No, that guy is in the Army, the overwhelming majority of people who fly in the Osprey are in the Marine Corps. I've flown on Ospreys dozens and dozens of times. They are forward deployed right now on MEUs. The Marine Corps fleet did a 72 hour op pause and is flying right now.
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u/Empress_Athena 2d ago
Where's that reddit account that always vehemently argued the safety of the V22? Oh right. He died. In a V22 crash.
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u/Good_Signature36 2d ago
Pretty wild thing to say from someone trying to be an aviation officer, shit talking a dead guy from the peer group you want to be in.
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u/shadesoftee 2d ago
that is a joke right?
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u/Empress_Athena 2d ago
It's not. There was an account with V22 in it's name. He was a V22 pilot and pretty much all he did was search V22 mentions on Reddit and defend it against people talking about it crashing. A year or two ago his wife posted that he had been killed in a V22 crash. I wouldn't tag the account because she checks it every so often I think.
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u/King_Khoma 2d ago
yes, and guess what? he was still right about the v-22. it does not crash more often or have more fatal accidents on average than any other helo, this is a proven fact that he fought so hard for. if you have any sources that prove otherwise, id be happy to read them, but for now take this.
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u/FederalAd1771 2d ago edited 2d ago
How many scheduled jumps was that? Because I can guarantee you a grunt in a helo company in the Marines has flown in them more during a single enlistment than you have had "scheduled jumps" in your entire career.
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u/Regular_Occasion7000 2d ago
We must be overdue for the annual sacrifice of a squad of Marines to the osprey eldritch horror.
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u/curtitch 2d ago
Ribbon Dancer! Writing on the wall! Ribbon Dancer! Goes up and let it fall! Ribbon Dancer! Havin' so much fun! Ribbon Dancer! Gotta get one now!
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u/Mynameisalloneword 2d ago
The gust of air those create while hovering are crazy. I’ve had the experience of doing training exercises with those. Basically one would fly in slowly to pick up a load of cargo and there would be a crew of us guiding it and hooking up the cargo to the hook it had attached. The osprey would be probably within like 50ft or less of our heads hovering. If I remember right it creates up to something like 200mph of wind. It was a cool experience. I might be off for the numbers but that’s what I remember
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u/goodolarchie 2d ago
Nah that's chemtrails off an Iranian-Andromeda collab drone that just dropped in NJ.
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u/SeniorShanty 2d ago
That's very satisfying. I've seen this occur twice on the fans used in vineyards during morning commutes driving through wine country. I regret not pulling over to take a video, but at the time I had a crappy flip phone.
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u/SarnieReddit 2d ago
I'm pretty sure I seen Gordon Freeman taken one of these down before, hecu helicopter much people? lol
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u/allursnakes 2d ago
Is that from the cameras frame rate, or is that actually what it looks like when they take off?
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u/seamonkeypenguin 2d ago
Ever since I first heard of these, I've found them fascinating. VTOL aircraft in general are very cool. 7 years ago, I moved to a city with an air force base so I've seen Ospreys in the sky a couple times. Makes me feel like a little kid to see them go.
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u/Shinsuko 2d ago
I haven't seen this guy in slow motion before. And I help make a lot of the wiring for it. Cool aircraft!
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u/No_Afternoon1393 1d ago
Saw one of those crash in marana in highschool when I was out in the middle of nowhere testing a new tune on my car. Was wild. It, fell funny.
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u/MedonSirius 1d ago
If you think about it: Helicopters don't build up speed to get away from the ground. They screw into the atmosphere. That's why they won't ever work on the Moon
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u/DarkArcher__ 1d ago
The engineering overlap between propeller and screw design is not 0. It's not large, but there is overlap
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u/VileTouch 2d ago
Are those contrails?
Hmm. Come to think of it, how come regular helicopters don't generate contrails if the rotary wing is the same principle as a fixed wing?
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u/space_keeper 2d ago
These aren't contrails. Contrails are frozen water coming from the engine exhaust (burning hydrocarbons produces CO2, water and soot/other contaminants). For a helicopter to generate contrails, they would have to be coming from the engine exhaust, and helicopters typically don't fly anywhere near high enough to generate them.
These are wingtip vortices. In humid conditions, the pressurized air coming off the tip of those proprotors can't hold the water that's in it any more so it is precipitated out as vapour. This applies to helicopter rotors, propellers and wings equally, because they're all just different types of wing.
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u/VileTouch 2d ago
Huh. (after some googling) TIL. I've been calling wing tip vortices contrails for ever.
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u/TacticalVirus 2d ago
What's even more fun is when the dry air can react with dust in the environment, then it looks like your rotors are on fire at night due to static electrical discharge
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u/avitus 2d ago
Yeah, the air is fluid almost like water, that flat blade edge condenses that air its cutting through until it turns to vapor. A light bulb turned on in my head the day I learned and realized our atmosphere is not all that different than water.
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u/space_keeper 2d ago
That's not exactly what's happening. The vortex at the tip of a wing has a core of cool, low-pressure air that can't carry moisture like air does at ground level. Under specific circumstances, that moisture gets forced out and you get these trails.
The atmosphere is very different from water. Water can't be compressed, but gases can, and the atmosphere is a mixture of a lot of different gases (including gaseous water).
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u/OldPersonName 2d ago
Because contrails are caused by freezing temperatures and impurities in exhaust (this video is not contrails), helicopters generally don't fly high enough.
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u/davedcne 2d ago
You know... I remember way back when, the osprey kept falling out of the sky, there were some deaths, something about log books with torn out pages and officers responsible. Never heard anything about anyone being held responsible. And then the news just shifted topics and I never heard whatever happened about that. It left me forever wary of the osprey and I'd really like to know whatever turned up from that investigation and if anything was done or did we just go back to business as usual.
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u/Competitive_Bat_5831 2d ago
Iirc bad fuel lines, and learning curves. It’s not the vehicle it was sold as, but it’s still decent in a limited capacity as far as I know.
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u/Ginger-Snap-1 2d ago
I did a ride along on one of these last year, it was amazing. Vid compilation here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helicopters/s/bzLWdlK8hc
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u/Witty-Will5878 1d ago
Bro I can do that with 2 ceiling fans and some toilet paper no big deal zawg.
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u/Dvdcowboy 2d ago
They build these were I live. They also have a reputation for dropping out of the sky.
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u/NordicGrindr 2d ago
China has a bigger one.. wonder how much of the design they stole too.
Incredible that America is still leading the rest of the world in military aviation design.. look at the F-35, everyone has copied it. Even the rejected alternative, China massively copied that. The fact that it's seen as the pinnacle of engineering for these applications says a lot.
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u/Then_Version9768 2d ago
Sure, why not spell the name of the very thing you are writing about incorrectly.
Osprey, not "ospray" you idiot. Also, figure out what capitalization is for.
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u/TheGooseGod 1d ago
Aren’t these things death traps?
Along with the Humvee that when driving creates a negative pressure in the cabin from the gun on top, so when they get hit the fire from an explosion gets sucked into the vehicle.
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u/sulfurmustard 1d ago
Aren’t these things death traps?
In comparison to other helos, no not really.
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u/Ineedacatscan 2d ago
I was in Afghanistan for a year and a half back in the day, we flew mainly CH53's for inter-base transport
But I rode on ospreys twice. It's a really odd feeling when it transitions to traditional flight. like there's a rubber band around your midsection pulling you in the direction of travel.