| ▲ | rootusrootus 5 hours ago | |
The Osprey has a reputation, for sure, but it's mid-pack. They called the F-104 the widow maker for a reason, for example. And the F-16 has a fairly high accident rate, too, slightly higher than the Osprey. Though I think the F-16's history is a bit more lopsided, they made some changes after early production airframes proved pretty accident prone. | ||
| ▲ | nstj 14 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | |
> The Starfighter had a poor safety record, especially in Luftwaffe service. The Germans lost 292 of 916 aircraft and 116 pilots from 1961 to 1989, leading the German public to dub it Witwenmacher ("widowmaker").[0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-104_Starfighter | ||
| ▲ | hyperific an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |
Maybe the Osprey's reputation is due not only to the accident rate but also to the fatality rate. A fatal accident in a standard F-16 (not the 2 seater), assuming no one outside the plane is killed, means 1 death. A fatal accident in a V-22 with the same assumptions would have a minimum of 2 deaths (pilot and copilot) at a soft maximum of 26 deaths (2 crew + 24 passengers, possibly more if overloaded). | ||
| ▲ | sedatk 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | |
In Turkey, F-104 was called “flying coffin”. | ||