Well, who'da thunk it?
We might do better to invest in big gyrocopters...
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About Me
- Brickmuppet
- I'm a 37 year old UPS employee, college student, Coast Guard reservist,amateur diver and general geek. I hope to study in Japan in a few years and I'd like to move to the overseas territories, especially Guam. I do lean a bit to the right politically.....but you knew that if you looked at my blog. I want to live long enough to walk on the Moon or Mars before I go. It is important to note that the views on this blog are my own and not those of UPS or the United States Coast Guard Reserve.
5 comments:
I don't quite understand just how a computer problem on V-22 indicates that a gyrocopter would be any better.
Actually, you are correct. A computer issue is not design specific, but the MV22 has been plagued with problems for almost 20 years.
I'm really worried that this thing is not fixed yet, is progressing on inertia and will kill a lot more of our people.
Airworthness Directives affect more conventional aircraft all the time. Every year something or other gets grounded, I don't even follow the stories... The last I remember was AH-64D grounded right in the middle of Kosovo war.
Russians built that gyrolifter thing (called "vintokryl"), and it didn't perform all that well. It has all the same issues with the airframe downpressure that a fixed-wing tiltrotor has, only worse because the area is greater, plus the rotor drag in the horizontal flight. Essentially it's the worst of both worlds combined.
BTW, there's a study (somewhat optimistic about flight dates, as usual), which lists higher speeds for a gyroplane:
http://www.cartercopters.com/ba_609.html
This is counter-intuitive, so worth noting.
Also, Coast Guard was making noises about accepting BA609 into the inventory.
Greeat blog I enjoyed reading
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