Helicopter crash in Wulai

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
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This article says Taiwan’s UH-60 pilots training are the same as American pilots.

UH-60s are known to be difficult in high humidity, high temperature, and high altitude situations, and the pilots are specifically trained to handle these situations.

However, accidents are still a frequent occurrence. In 2019, US Army suffered 200 UH-60 accidents in the Middle East, that’s not counting damages suffered from surface to air attacks.

In just September to December of 2019 alone, 3 American Blackhawks crashed in Louisiana, Afghanistan, and Minnesota.

Even Operation Neptune Spear back in 2011 lost a stealth Blackhawk while it is hovering without suffering from enemy fire due to an aerodynamic phenomenon called vortex ring state.

So I guess taking a helicopter is just inherently dangerous, especially in mountainous, humid conditions.

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I think hovering with any helicopter is dangerous and pilots are supposed to move the craft a little bit when hovering to prevent the vortex from developing.

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helicopters are inherently unstable – sudden gust of wind coming over the mountain could have flipped her …

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Sounds like it’s got some serious design flaws. As someone mentioned back there, maybe Taiwan should think about buying Mi-8s or something instead. Wonder if the US would object…

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I don’t think the design is flawed. Helicopter flight is inherently dangerous. There were 7 incidents last year

There were rather more Mi8 incidents, not really surprisingly as it’s an older design and a lot more of them built. Probably comparable

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I agree, but presumably some designs are less dangerous than others. Someone mentioned Mi-24s back there, but AFAIK they’re a bit shit. They just look impressive.

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That’s like a tank.

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I always wanted to ride in a helicopter, maybe not now.

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Basically Taiwan is paying protection to the US by buying their garbage. Probably stuff that sat in the boneyard.

The US would object in a big way if Taiwan even thinks about buying Russian equipment… I’m serious. I mean stuff like economic sanctions and stuff.

Taiwan is not as independent as we like to think.

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That was my guess too.

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I think this is why I think KMT is better for Taiwan, but voters have decided otherwise. I don’t think China would object to Taiwan buying Russian equipment.

The US has gotten in the way when Taiwan wants to develop their own equipment by the way. Like equipment that deals with humidity better than American stuff.

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They would. You assume China will let Russia sell us weapons. Any vital information of weapons given to us would be given to the PLA. Putin is Xi’s bitch these days.

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Taiwan is never going to buy Russian military equipment
Not happening

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They are pretty dangerous
But odds are you will be fine

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Is the funeral for these officials today? I saw Minquan, near the airport and military base, lined with groups of soldiers. Then every intersection from Donghu to Dahu has a police officer stationed, with military and police along Dahushanzhuang St (the military cemetery is at the top of the mountain from there).
Any clues what’s going on? I don’t really feel like waiting by the street to find out…

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Don’t know, but it looked like the flags on the monuments in Danshui were at half-mast today. (“Looked like” because it was more like 3/4 mast.)

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Ludicrous

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What did the U.S. prohibit Taiwan from making? 8 honestly don’t know.

The US is allowing Taiwan to make its own subs.

And Tsai is trying to make Taiwan self-sufficient in defense in 13 years. To the point we’re able to export.

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Nuclear weapons, for one thing. There was an active bomb program in the 70s, IIRC, but the US put a stop to it. Which, in hindsight, was probably just as well.

I don’t think they’ve ever objected to Taiwan making conventional weapon systems. AFAIK quite a lot of Taiwan’s military kit is home-grown.