Comment by wffurr
3 hours ago
Aren't VTOL aircraft significantly more complex and riskier to operate than fixed-wing prop aircraft? There's certainly many fewer moving parts and tricky transitions from hover to airfoil flight regime.
3 hours ago
Aren't VTOL aircraft significantly more complex and riskier to operate than fixed-wing prop aircraft? There's certainly many fewer moving parts and tricky transitions from hover to airfoil flight regime.
A quick search of Osprey Class A mishaps puts it slightly ahead (better off) than Blackhawk or Super Stallion.
But a way worse record when compared to the fixed-wing C-130.
Both comparisons are per 100k flight hours.
Some of that risk can possibly be mitigated with a rotating engine, but fixed wing, similar to the Bell Valor. Possibly, because AFAIK, the Valor is the only plane like this and it's just a PoC.
And there’s that whole pesky problem of not being able to glide to a safe landing when something goes catastrophically wrong.
that varies with the design (they could have small fixed wings). Beta have full-airframe ballistic parachutes i believe. That is feasible at least for smaller aircraft.
IIRC, the fastest and heaviest plane with a ballistic parachute system is the Cirrus jet, which is both lighter and slower than a typical commercial twin-engine turbo-prop (looked at the King Air and the Dash 8 to cover small corporate and larger commercial workhorse).
Not saying a parachute couldn't be designed to work, but there isn't an existing option today.