Osprey vs. Harrier

Brian Allardice wrote:
These damned things [Osprey} have been fluttering around for better than 30 years. How
long do you have to flog a dying concept for it to loose the "revolutionary"
label. Is that simply another way of saying "It doesn't bloody work yet"?
When was the last time someone called the Harrier 'revolutionary'? Of course,
the Harrier does work.....

Cheers,
dba

Very poor choice of plane to compare it to.

To quote a recent article:
"They know this drill all too well because the Harrier is the most
dangerous airplane flying in the U.S. military today.

Over the last three decades, it has amassed the highest rate of major
accidents of any Air Force, Navy, Army or Marine plane now in service.
Forty-five Marines have died in 143 noncombat accidents since the corps
bought the so-called jump jet from the British in 1971. More than a
third of the fleet has been lost to accidents.

The toll has been little noted by the public and the media because the
Harrier tends to kill pilots one at a time. In contrast, the V-22
Osprey, a problem-plagued troop transport plane, has killed as many as
19 Marines in a single crash.

The Harrier and the Osprey are the first two planes the Marine Corps has
acquired in pursuing its long-range vertical vision. A third plane is
under active development and several others are being conceived."
- http://www.latimes.com/news/specials...ier-day1.story

Please note I'm not knocking the Harrier.

Anytime you develop a totally new type of aircraft and have to also
develop new operational concepts you get fatal accidents. Go back and
review the early days of everything from the Harrier to the early jets
and helicopters.

Also note the operational requirements are inherently more dangerous
than, say, circumstances where you rarely, if ever, fly below several
thousand feet.

It's not that the Osprey is more dangerous or has resulted in more
fatalities than many of the older planes, it that we've become less
tolerant of failures during R&D T&E.