Oops, that is 900 ftlbs in static conditions. It would be much less at any significant transition speed but still, I think the transition can be done without much of a zoom up. There have been all electric and 'similar aerodynamics' transition models built before and the videos I have seen of their transitions did not show much of a pull up but of course each design is different.
Bumper, yes vortex ring state conditions are possible. I believe that that risk can be reduced by adding some forward translation when you let down and by staying away from other vlift vehicles. Once near the ground of course you need to slow all movement down.
These conditions we are talking about the need for testing, just highlight why I am building a 1/4 scale model right now, not the full scale.
Didn't the Osprey put some sort of restriction on landing in close proximity to other Ospreys as an acceptable risk reduction for this issue?
Interesting to note that this condition only became apparent, years into the multi billion (I think billion) dollar program. Glad we all can take advantage of their experience.
Rotax failure results in the need for airbags if you are in transition or hover. Since all these failure we are talking about are for hover or neaar hover conditions, they would all happen close to the ground where the likelihood of a whole vehicle 'parachute' letdown or ejection seat failure would be very high. Having survived a very high rate of descent sailplane accident, where trouble began at a very altitude, I can say that, at least in my case, I believe that cockpit air bags would have greatly reduced my injuries.
For the past few years I have toyed, as many others have, with the idea of manned 'multirotor' designs. The keys to having a design with 'acceptable risk' failure modes is spending most of the flight time in aerodynamic flight, using more than 3 or 4 rotors for hover, redundant motor controllers and hover controllers (yet to be worked out) and airbags I also considered just doing transitions over water (it is softer with a landing pad of waters edge, which is funny at first but may be a good practice for risk reduction whenever possible.