I went out to walk my dog this morning and found I had been teleported to Wales as all the police around were called Heddlu.on every junction, every entrance to the RMA-backed up with a lot of fire power of the blue and cammo kind there

Lots of helicopter activity and just a few minutes ago around 0835 both Blackhawks with the White Top (do both use the 'marine one ' c/s?' plus Ospreys Apaches and assorted cop choppers appeared . The Blackhawks flew right over my house but then the RMA gates are only 200yds or so from my front door . My dog barked more at the second one and is a sensitive hound so my money is he was on that one.

I dont know how he will get to Windsor - the helicopter circus or armoured limo. the whole trip could be done on MoD and Crown land I think, or its a very short road trip-appropriately enough passing Broadmoor on the way..

I cannot image what it has cost us to entertain someone who probably dislikes us more than Putin does., having seen a presidential visit and its planning at very close quarters in the past it seems to get bigger and more OTT with each incumbent..

With practice for Farnborough going on at the southern edge of Camberley is been quite a week for those with an aviation interest

Ospreys for breakfast, lunch and tea in N5. They seem to like to orbit round the Emirates; 3 of them 10x on Wednesday lunch, same about 16x last night around 7pm, unknown n umber 7x this morning around 8 a.m. They make the bone-china rattle and I rather wish they'd stop. Wasn't there a bloke in West Germany decades ago who pinged low-flying F-104 Starfighters with a home made trebuchet or something. We need him.

The Prez landed at Stansted but not sure of his movements thereafter.

He's got lunch at Chequers before tea at Windsor.
http://www.blackbusheairport.co.uk/f...y-restrictions

I know it is different technology looking at the same problem but the Ospreys remind me so much of the Rotodyne I saw as a kid at LHR -not that different with the stumpy wings and multiple vertical stabs and lots and lots of noise .

I dont not know if the Ospreys can doa stright vertical landing or take off , landing wise they seem to follow the normal slow glide slope approach that big Helos use and I assume they can doa vertical take off because I dont think there is enough room in the RMA grounds for any kind of rolling take off . Interesting looking machines and bigger , certainly wider. than i thought from just seeing pics .

When Derek Johnson, owner of 3 Counties Aero Club at Blackbushe, took a C150 into Sandhurst years ago, he landed on the parade ground in front of the main building; it's about 250m long.
And yes, Ospreys can VTOL depending on load.Well they used to in Farnborough displays anyway as did their predecessor the XV15..

Having gone from never having seen one to hearing too many i got rather intrigued by the Osprey which i recall ahd avery long development and pre service period.

The main thing that comes to my mind ,is that what on earth do you do if an engine fails in helo mode . Suddenly no lift at all on one side but loads on the other and massively asymmetric. I know it has big vertical stabs and rudders but how much use are they ate say 60knots and 300 ft with no airflow or propwash over the rudders or ailerons and I am not sure if auto rotation would be very practical. To my simple mind it looks like engine failure at low speed in help mode and you are dead..
Any ideas?


And thanks to earlier poster for answering my question about full VTOL capability

Autorotation like any other helicopter would me my assumption. I guess they either do it manually or have some automatics so the power output of both engines is the same.

Both engines power both rotors.

Not really much different from, say, a Chinook.

Dave reid

For the umpteenth time thank you for coming up with answers to my puzzlement..

Of course having one engine able to run both rotors /props whatevr they are called on an Osprey.. i thought there had to be a solution otherwise it would surely be completley uncontrollable with a huge asymmetric force problem and no airspeed over the control surfaces to balance it.
Many thnaks once again , and to chevron for the answer to can they do VTOL