An odd airplane

PJH · Jan 12, 2019

for my neighborhood.

I think it was an Osprey. It was a twin engine prop plane, with the engines right out on the tip of the rather stubby appearing wings. The propellers were very big. It was noisy and seemed rather slow, flying at a somewhat low altitude. I walked out of the shop to see what was making the racket. It flew directly over our house here in Southern Illinois yesterday, heading due east. The first one I've ever seen. Neat!

It had a tail like this one, but of course the props were vertical for forward travel.
Maybe?

Ronnie Budd · Jan 12, 2019

Yep, it's an Osprey. Those things are amazing in what they can do. I never got tired of watching them perform at Oshkosh.

C.Amick · Jan 12, 2019

Yes, that seems correct. I see them fly over our property occasionally. Very loud and slow.

Janicholson · Jan 12, 2019

That bird is a compromise made with a wish list. I "kinda" like them, but they crash. Inter rotor air turbulence and ground effects are the primary cause of crashes. A Chinook is less dramatic, but My choice of the twin rotor VTOL flock. Jim

showcrop · Jan 12, 2019

Helicopters take a lot of maintenance to keep the air worthy. Ospreys need a lot more than others.

jeffcat · Jan 12, 2019

Back in the early 80s the development work was being done by Boeing Vertal outside of Ridley park just south of Philadelphia. I serviced one of their big copy machines. I couldn't walk through the drafting room to the machine until they coverd up everything with sheets. They had a full size cabin mock up in the room. It was all made out of wood. From what I have read those had a couple of computer glitches and also some kind of air compression or unstable vortex stuff that would compound stability problems. They also were doing referb update work on the C-47 Shinook choppers. More like total rebuilds. Couple of smart @ss test pilots were out with a newly rebuilt chopper and TRIED to do and inside loop with one. They didn't have enough altitude and unded up doing ONE HALF of a loop right into the marshes on the Jersey side of the river. Complete 180 wheels up in the air. Kinda flat.

1948CaseVAI · Jan 12, 2019

The Osprey continues to improve as the computer code gets better. The early crashes were the result of buggy code. No human has the reaction time and sophistication to manually fly the thing so the computer runs the details. However due to the vast (many millions) number of lines of code there were bugs and things for programmers to learn.

Interesting fact though - the Ford GT has 10 million lines of code which is several million more than a Boeing 787 (from digitaltrends dot com).

An odd airplane

PJH

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Ronnie Budd

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C.Amick

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Janicholson

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showcrop

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jeffcat

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1948CaseVAI

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