The tilt-rotor concept
seems like such a good idea, doesn't it?
Yes, Sans, in the July 2014 incident it was miraculous that the crew were able to recover from that upset and land the aircraft. And you're right, that event garnered zero publicity, and never would have come to light if the later, catastrophic one hadn't happened.
Ever consider that Bell got out of the program for a reason?
Heh. Considering that Bell initiated the tilt-rotor idea and concept in 1957, they must have felt proprietary of it. For them to get rid of the program in 2011 was immensely revealing. We can imagine that John L. Garrison (Bell's President and CEO at the time) must have had to stand up and (sheepishly) admit to the Board of Directors that they would probably never be able to make the 609 work, and even if they did, they would never, ever, ever recoup the development costs because the market simply doesn't exist and probably never will. So they sold it off to the Italians and said good luck. Then they issued the usual BS press release about how they want to focus on the V-22 and future tilt-rotor designs (Valor, I guess) blah blah blah. It's funny - There's a story on the HeliHub website in June of 2011 has the headline: "Finmeccanica sees 500 BA609 choppers sold by 2013." By 2013?? HAHAHAHAHAHAH! (Finmeccanica being the parent company of Agusta-Westland at the time.)
And so this brings us back to these new eVTOLs (Archer and Joby) that are supposedly "this close" to certification. Yeah. Right. I don't mean to be hopelessly skeptical, but just having certification rules in place doesn't mean that any particular aircraft will meet them. Archer CEO Goldstein thinks he's going to get his Midnight certified for commercial ops this year in time for the Olympics? BWAAAAHAHAHAHAH. Like Garrison did with the Bell Board of Directors, there are going to be some other high-powered CEOs that are going to have to face their Boards with egg on their faces about all the money they've dumped into these plastic fantastic eVTOLs. (Hey Goldstein! How does the Midnight handle a birdstrike from a big seagull?)