Osprey vs. Harrier

John Halliwell wrote:

:In article , Fred J. McCall
writes
: Now, the mechanical rate shouldn't come
:as a surprise to anyone with two neurons to rub together, given that
:the AV-8 is older technology, more mechanically complex to begin with,
:and only has a single engine so any engine failure pretty much toasts
:you.
:
:VSTOL JSF has only one engine and is even more mechanically complex.

Yeah. I know. The claim is that reliability has improved so much
over the past decades that it is now perfectly reasonable to adopt
Naval aircraft with single engines.

Needless to say, I'm not convinced. I'm even less convinced about
that whole lift-fan drive train for the -C version. It may make
transitions and hover easier - but only up until the first non-perfect
moment of the hardware has. It strikes me as a smoking hole waiting
to happen.

But then, I don't design airplanes and I'll never have to fly in the
thing....

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

In article , Fred J. McCall
writes
Yeah. I know. The claim is that reliability has improved so much
over the past decades that it is now perfectly reasonable to adopt
Naval aircraft with single engines.

The single engine obviously makes the loss of the aircraft more likely,
especially in naval ops where you're basically limited to vertical
landing. The real problem is engine failure in the hover, where the
pilot has very little time to react and has no option to save the
aircraft (makes his decision a bit easier, his only option is to pull
the handle).

The attitude with the Harrier seems to be, if the engine stops, your
trained military pilot pulls the handle and wins a Martin Baker tie.

With multi-engined VSTOL, losing an engine in the hover usually has the
same result, except the aircraft may not fall in a stable fashion,
making escape harder. If you cross-connect two engines like the V-22,
you always need twice the power you actually need. With a tilt-rotor,
the last place you want big engines is on the end of the wings,
especially if you're trying to tilt the whole mass of the engine. Better
to put the engines in the middle and take the drive to the props.

VSTOL JSF has the worst of both worlds, a single engine and two lift
mechanisms.

--
John