okinawa police remove anti osprey protesters

rt.com...

it seems that the locals arent too keen on those helicopter/plane thing's landing on their heads.......
cant blame them really id be the same those things aint got the best record have they?

reply to post by jerseychannelislands


The Osprey safety record is actually quite good. They have changed several features of the aircraft that have made it safer. But no one cares about that, or about its current record. All they see is the early failures, and crashes that occurred, and they scream about how deadly it still is. All of the recent crashes have been tied to pilot/crew error. There have been several emergency landings, but they have resulted in very few if any injuries, and no fatalities that I'm aware of.

reply to post by Zaphod58


thank you for the input i wasnt sure hence why i had the ? at the end they do look rather impressive i must say.
i can imagine the vibrations in them is mental tho

reply to post by jerseychannelislands


The rotor wash on them is so bad, that when they're flying in formation, they have to maintain a 250 foot horizontal separation. They're saying that the rotor wash is what caused the crash at Eglin AFB, in Florida this summer. All four crew members survived that incident.

how lucky are they then ay.
have they been working on these for a while then?
i know fall bout all this stuff.
could they not of used some sort of jet type engine on instead of rotors

reply to post by jerseychannelislands


They've been in development for a long time, but then so has every other military project lately. It's an extremely difficult concept to develop, making an airplane/helicopter.

They could have used jet engines, but the problem is that the exhaust would have a tendency to cause a power loss at very low altitudes, due to the exhaust going back into the engine. This has been known to happen with the Harriers when they are almost on the ground.

thank u for all this info ur a very knowledgeable member.

reply to post by jerseychannelislands


I live and breathe this stuff. I'm happy to answer any questions, if I don't know the answer I usually know either where to find it, or someone who does.

i took this photo at the air display over here

reply to post by jerseychannelislands


Very nice! B-52H. She just turned 60 this year.

The locals in Okinawa have been complaining about the US-owned aircraft for years. Especially those located near Kadena air base. Mostly, they just hate the noise of the fighters landing and taking off every single day.

While I was stationed in Sasebo on the mainland, they had a huge protest because one of the nuclear carriers wanted to pull in to port. The Japanese police were out in full riot gear blocking both base gates. It was a big show.

The kicker was that a lot of the protesters were paid to be there. At least, that's what they told me when I asked a few of them why they hated nuclear carriers so much.