(Tony Williams) wrote in message

As a matter of interest, how does that compare with the accident rate
experienced with conventional naval/marine planes flying from
carriers?

And how do USMC accident rates compare to UK accident rates in their
respective harrier fleets? I don't think the RAF or Royal Navy Fleet
Air Arm lose that many aircraft.

What we do know is that the harrier replacement (JSF) will incorporate
innovations to reduce v-stol pilot workload currently under
development here in the UK. A Harrier prototype has been fitted with
fly-by-wire controls and a flight management computor capable of
practically landing the plane automatically - the most dangerous
regime of v-stol flight. Controlling parameters like nozzle angle,
thrust, pitch, speed, landing gear etc the computor can land the
aircraft from approach configuration with one button push from the
pilot. Maybe this kind of thinking could be applied to the V-22?

Benjym