Wall Street Journal has a long article today (Tues Dec 19) about the latest V-22 Osprey crash in Japan.

After the article this comment was posted by a reader:

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The physics behind many of the crashes of the V-22 over the past 2 decades is well understood. I have a PhD in physics and have been working in aerospace on these types of issues for 20 years. As Dewey Smith says, asymmetric loading of the rotors is impossible to recover from but it is very easy for even experienced pilots to find themselves in that state. The aircraft rely on 200 year old air data technology that everyone knows doesn't work at the low speeds where these accidents happen, that measure air data in the rotor wash and are completely inaccurate, and provide no look ahead information for the control system to be able to respond to. They have known about this since the inception of the aircraft. Both Boeing and Bell/Textron have used look ahead, laser based air data that provide them the information necessary to have prevented these crashes. They have used them in the certification flight tests of the commercial version of the tilt rotor. However, they refuse to incorporate these new capabilities in the V-22 because those at the top refuse to admit they have a problem.
Therefore, so many of our young soldiers are dying. It's criminal and heartbreaking.

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