“Green Tops” MV-22 osprey tilt-rotor aircraft fly the President’s supporting staff and Secret Service agents.
Posted on 05/28/2018 4:31:00 PM PDT by COBOL2Java
“Green Tops” MV-22 osprey tilt-rotor aircraft fly the President’s supporting staff and Secret Service agents.
(video at link)
The clip was probably filmed by one of the escorting U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. In fact, “Marine One” (when President of the U.S. travels aboard the VH-3D or any other chopper operated by HMX-1, the helicopter uses the radio callsign “Marine One” by which the aircraft is known) was escorted by green-painted MV-22 Ospreys (also referred to as “Green Tops”) that fly the White House Staff during the President’s travels.
The tilt-rotor aircraft fly also the Secret Service agents that follow “Marine One” and take care of its valuable passengers in case the helicopter goes down due to a failure.
Usually, at least two or three Ospreys accompany “Marine One”. For instance, when last year Trump traveled to Virginia’s Newport News Shipbuilding facility to visit pre-commissioning unit USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN78), the two VH-3Ds were escorted by three MV-22s.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaviationist.com ...
Hawkwind is great
I don’t know how to spell Military or Tribe, But I am thankful to Donald J Trump for restoring pride in the nation, a swagger to the ****’s
Nothing compared to the CH-47.
Yup. You wouldn’t get me in one of those things.
Gunships.
They borrowed the phrase from the Canadian infantry heh.
Heh, I think I would be quite nervous to see St. Elmo’s Fire inside the hull of a nuclear submarine!!!!!!!
You chopper jockeys are nuts!<<
Thank you!.....But it took us awhile to realize that...
as to Auto rotation.....given enough altitude...I can eat lunch deciding where I want to land when the engine quits......
Try that in a fixed wing..you’ll die on an empty stomach...
Remember when obama had F16’s fly over NY with AF1 with no notice and upsetting many people in the city. I suspected the plane was carrying obamas friends who got him in office.
“What is the purpose of those strange machines?”
Your response was both comedic and accurate. Brilliantly done!
Bro in law was Master Gunny Sgt in Marine One shop (I got to visit and sit in Nancy Reagan’s seat). His definition of a helicopter: 10,000 parts all trying to get away from each other.
Got to witness the Presidential helicopter flight first hand from my front porch. Unfortunately, it was President Obama visiting the Oso mudslide site in 2014. Saw the two helicopters, and an escorting Osprey, leave Arlington (WA) Airport on their way back to Air Force One.
They build those things around here. The Osprey is pretty agile for a rotorcraft as big as it is. As you note, they’re very fast, very quiet and they do insert and extract *very* well.
They also come with an optional ‘hideaway’ 7.62mm NATO Gatling gun aka the Minigun on a remotely operated hideaway belly turret that has a 180 degree hemisphere of fire as well as being able to mount a 7.62mm or .50 cal machine gun on a popup mount on the rear ramp. The minigun turret is called the Remote Guardian system, has a FLIR sensor, can be retracted into the belly and you can’t tell it has it unless you can pick out the outline of the hatch.
Mostly straightened out with further development. Ospreys were more heavily used than the retiring Marine CH-46s in the Sandbox in recent years and they’ve not had a combat loss of one yet. There have been some training accidents and some incidents in theater almost all due to pilot error.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_V-22_Osprey
Meanwhile, the CH-46s killed a few dozen more Marines...
https://www.helis.com/database/accidents/?model=316
One reason the Marines continued with V-22 development is that it has *still* killed fewer Marines for the years it’s been developed and in use than the CH-46.
Yes and no on the complexity. A great deal of the complexity is the fact that in order to fit aboard ship, the wings have to rotate and the nacelle rotors have to fold. An Army version that didn’t have to do that would actually be less complex than a conventional helicopter in many ways as it wouldn’t have to have the anti-torque rotor out behind the fuselage, it doesn’t have to have the swashplate rotorhead, etc., etc.
The crew of the Gimli Glider would probably disagree with you. :P
This is how obama traveled in SoCal too. One day when he was fairly new as President, and his fans were all excited as he was going to be traveling by motorcade from Long Beach CA airport to someplace south like Orange County or San Diego, they lined up on the freeway overpasses by downtown inner city Long Beach to see him go by underneath, with their signs of love etc. I was driving by on the 405 around the time he was taking off, not by motorcade but had changed to helicopter brigade like this photo of Trump. It was so exciting to see those copter things fly up and south. I looked back at the fans on the bridge but they were holding their signs and looking down to the freeway below in anticipation, ignoring the absolute cacophony of 5 military helicopters taking off near them and flying south. No clue.
25 years ago it was a real problem - progress has been made...
V-22 Osprey firing the GAU-16 .50 BMG ramp gun and the “surprise” retractable GAU-17 7.62mm Minigun turret: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asgaxkv75aA
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