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Not to dismiss either the "shot down", or loss of life - but that does illustrate why very large passenger helicopters are a bad idea. Too many lives at stake,

Not to dismiss either the "shot down", or loss of life - but that does illustrate why very large passenger helicopters are a bad idea. Too many lives at stake, and a helicopter is generally a far more fragile basket than a fixed-wing aircraft.

__turbobrew__ 2y ago
I don’t think that is how probability works. The same amount of people will die to helicopter crashes regardless of the helicopter size.
- Retric 2y ago
  That assumes nothing changes over time. Learn from the first accident and the odds of a second accident should reduce.
ardaoweo 2y ago
Well, it should be noted that the helicopter in question was designed to be used by an organization that couldn't care less about loss of life, as we have again seen in recent years. So I guess this aspect of human life wasn't a big concern to the designers, the military can always get new human resources from Siberia or whatever poor part of the country.
- ClumsyPilot 2y ago
  I object. I think our Media is a great disappointment. We’ve spent 20 years in the Middle East, but the general public didn’t learn anything, The idea of local culture is as uninformed as it was at the start of the war. As a result we will make the same mistake again. The reporting about war in Ukraine is the same - basically a caricature of reality. Sidenote: population of Texas and population of Siberia is about the same. Russia has a cruel culture, but their population is only 1/4 of EU’s. Articles that ask probing questions are only now starting to appear, but are extremely rare. For example: “Russia is producing artillery shells around three times faster than Ukraine's Western allies and for about a quarter of the cost” https://news.sky.com/story/russia-is-producing-artillery-shells-around-three-times-faster-than-ukraines-western-allies-and-for-about-a-quarter-of-the-cost-13143224 https://news.sky.com/story/russia-is-producing-artillery-she...
  - nradov 2y ago
    Yes, NATO countries have hollowed out their military-industrial complexes. Everyone is aware now that was a mistake but it will take time to rebuild the industrial capacity necessary to fight wars of attrition. And of course it's cheaper to manufacture artillery shells in Russia since the country has lower wages and is now running a partially mobilized command economy. But once you normalize for quality of the shells, the difference isn't quite as bad as it first looks.
    - bell-cot 2y ago
      > isn't quite as bad That phrase sounds about right. Though my impression is that shell production is still a "meh, I guess we probably should do something..." priority in the great majority of NATO countries.
    - Sakos 2y ago
      > The research on artillery rounds by Bain & Company, which drew on publicly available information, found that Russian factories were forecast to manufacture or refurbish about 4.5 million artillery shells this year compared with a combined production of about 1.3 million rounds across European nations and the US. Rheinmetall intends to increase their annual production to 750k by 2025 and the US is aiming for 1 million annually by 2025. That's still much less than Russia and that's before considering they have access to the significant reserves and the factories in North Korea. > Since August, Pyongyang has shipped about 6,700 containers to Russia, which could accommodate more than 3 million rounds of artillery shells or more than 500,000 rounds for multiple rocket launchers, according to the South Korean Defense Ministry. https://news.sky.com/story/russia-is-producing-artillery-shells-around-three-times-faster-than-ukraines-western-allies-and-for-about-a-quarter-of-the-cost-13143224 https://news.sky.com/story/russia-is-producing-artillery-she... https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/07/asia/north-korea-artillery-exercise-seoul-threat-intl-hnk-ml/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/07/asia/north-korea-artiller... https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2024/02/2024-02-12-rheinmetall-builds-new-ammunition-factory-in-unterluess-ground-breaking-ceremony-with-chancellor-scholz https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2024/02... https://www.army.mil/article/274905/munitions_for_ukraine_observations_and_recommendations https://www.army.mil/article/274905/munitions_for_ukraine_ob...
- foldr 2y ago
  Russia actually has a pretty strong tradition of pilot safety in the military. For example, the Ka-50 attack helicopter is one of very few such helicopters to be fitted with an ejection seat.
  - simion314 2y ago
    Pilots costs many years to train, the OC is commenting about the mobiks, the soldiers used for their meat not brains. There is evidence to support that Russia or better said the Putin regime still gives less almost zero value to human live.
    - masijo 2y ago
      What government that has an active military cares about the lives of their soldiers beyond their utility value? I don't see how the US is different in that regard.
      - simion314 2y ago
        That is the point, if you sacrifice the soldiers lives you should do it for something valuable, even using pro-Rus maps Russia is gaining at best something less then 1 square kilometer a day and has 1000+ dead or wooded, I am sorry for you disillusions with USA but in civilized countries nobody would think that 1 soldiers live is worth 5000 square netters of field. Sure probably they are sacrificed not for that land but for buying time for Putin, maybe Trump or other miracle move will save him. So from Putin's POV 1000 soldiers for 1 more day on the throne is a price he can pay, in a democracy this would have ended a long time ago.
        thriftwy 2y ago
        > maybe Trump or other miracle move will save him Save Putin from what? By default, from now on Russia just retains the (formerly) Ukrainian lands it controls and integrates them in Russia. There's no deadline to that process, even if Russia stops gaining any land at all while still having to lose some number of people on the front line, basically indefinitely. I can see that assertion in the Western media that Ukraine has an option to "not agree" to unfavorable terms, such as the ones voiced by Putin. The underlying assumption is that Putin has to disengage eventually, so the Ukraine can just wait it out. But unless some miracle saves the day for Ukraine, Russia is not getting out of these lands at all. After all, Russia is busy paving roads and issuing Russian citizenship in these areas.
loloquwowndueo 2y ago
That thought is not very logical. Very large passenger fixed wings are also a very bad idea and fragile if the premise is someone is shooting at them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
- lvspiff 2y ago
  Even ground based large passenger non-winged transports are a bad idea if someone is shooting at them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_railway_station_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_railway_station_att... overall i prefer any mode of transport that is not being shot at
  - medo-bear 2y ago
    What do you know, even sea based large passenger transport is a bad idea if someone is shooting at them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania Funny anecdote, my first air travel was in an Mi-8 as a 6 year old being airlifted out of a war zone
    - jprd 2y ago
      I'm not sure a lot of us would find that "funny", but is pretty great that you are in a place now where _you_ can find it so.
      - medo-bear 2y ago
        Took almost 30 years to find the dehumanizing idioticity of that war as funny, but I got there.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  My grandfather flew in WWII and had many stories of both his planes and those in his group making it back with what mechanics would have thought was catastrophic damage. Shooting down any aircraft with a rocket is likely to take anything down. Planes can handle damage much better from what I understand.

__turbobrew__ 2y ago

I don’t think that is how probability works. The same amount of people will die to helicopter crashes regardless of the helicopter size.

Retric 2y ago
That assumes nothing changes over time. Learn from the first accident and the odds of a second accident should reduce.

ardaoweo 2y ago

Well, it should be noted that the helicopter in question was designed to be used by an organization that couldn't care less about loss of life, as we have again seen in recent years. So I guess this aspect of human life wasn't a big concern to the designers, the military can always get new human resources from Siberia or whatever poor part of the country.

ClumsyPilot 2y ago
I object. I think our Media is a great disappointment. We’ve spent 20 years in the Middle East, but the general public didn’t learn anything, The idea of local culture is as uninformed as it was at the start of the war. As a result we will make the same mistake again. The reporting about war in Ukraine is the same - basically a caricature of reality. Sidenote: population of Texas and population of Siberia is about the same. Russia has a cruel culture, but their population is only 1/4 of EU’s. Articles that ask probing questions are only now starting to appear, but are extremely rare. For example: “Russia is producing artillery shells around three times faster than Ukraine's Western allies and for about a quarter of the cost” https://news.sky.com/story/russia-is-producing-artillery-shells-around-three-times-faster-than-ukraines-western-allies-and-for-about-a-quarter-of-the-cost-13143224 https://news.sky.com/story/russia-is-producing-artillery-she...
- nradov 2y ago
  Yes, NATO countries have hollowed out their military-industrial complexes. Everyone is aware now that was a mistake but it will take time to rebuild the industrial capacity necessary to fight wars of attrition. And of course it's cheaper to manufacture artillery shells in Russia since the country has lower wages and is now running a partially mobilized command economy. But once you normalize for quality of the shells, the difference isn't quite as bad as it first looks.
  - bell-cot 2y ago
    > isn't quite as bad That phrase sounds about right. Though my impression is that shell production is still a "meh, I guess we probably should do something..." priority in the great majority of NATO countries.
  - Sakos 2y ago
    > The research on artillery rounds by Bain & Company, which drew on publicly available information, found that Russian factories were forecast to manufacture or refurbish about 4.5 million artillery shells this year compared with a combined production of about 1.3 million rounds across European nations and the US. Rheinmetall intends to increase their annual production to 750k by 2025 and the US is aiming for 1 million annually by 2025. That's still much less than Russia and that's before considering they have access to the significant reserves and the factories in North Korea. > Since August, Pyongyang has shipped about 6,700 containers to Russia, which could accommodate more than 3 million rounds of artillery shells or more than 500,000 rounds for multiple rocket launchers, according to the South Korean Defense Ministry. https://news.sky.com/story/russia-is-producing-artillery-shells-around-three-times-faster-than-ukraines-western-allies-and-for-about-a-quarter-of-the-cost-13143224 https://news.sky.com/story/russia-is-producing-artillery-she... https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/07/asia/north-korea-artillery-exercise-seoul-threat-intl-hnk-ml/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/07/asia/north-korea-artiller... https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2024/02/2024-02-12-rheinmetall-builds-new-ammunition-factory-in-unterluess-ground-breaking-ceremony-with-chancellor-scholz https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2024/02... https://www.army.mil/article/274905/munitions_for_ukraine_observations_and_recommendations https://www.army.mil/article/274905/munitions_for_ukraine_ob...
foldr 2y ago
Russia actually has a pretty strong tradition of pilot safety in the military. For example, the Ka-50 attack helicopter is one of very few such helicopters to be fitted with an ejection seat.
- simion314 2y ago
  Pilots costs many years to train, the OC is commenting about the mobiks, the soldiers used for their meat not brains. There is evidence to support that Russia or better said the Putin regime still gives less almost zero value to human live.
  - masijo 2y ago
    What government that has an active military cares about the lives of their soldiers beyond their utility value? I don't see how the US is different in that regard.
    - simion314 2y ago
      That is the point, if you sacrifice the soldiers lives you should do it for something valuable, even using pro-Rus maps Russia is gaining at best something less then 1 square kilometer a day and has 1000+ dead or wooded, I am sorry for you disillusions with USA but in civilized countries nobody would think that 1 soldiers live is worth 5000 square netters of field. Sure probably they are sacrificed not for that land but for buying time for Putin, maybe Trump or other miracle move will save him. So from Putin's POV 1000 soldiers for 1 more day on the throne is a price he can pay, in a democracy this would have ended a long time ago.
      - thriftwy 2y ago
        > maybe Trump or other miracle move will save him Save Putin from what? By default, from now on Russia just retains the (formerly) Ukrainian lands it controls and integrates them in Russia. There's no deadline to that process, even if Russia stops gaining any land at all while still having to lose some number of people on the front line, basically indefinitely. I can see that assertion in the Western media that Ukraine has an option to "not agree" to unfavorable terms, such as the ones voiced by Putin. The underlying assumption is that Putin has to disengage eventually, so the Ukraine can just wait it out. But unless some miracle saves the day for Ukraine, Russia is not getting out of these lands at all. After all, Russia is busy paving roads and issuing Russian citizenship in these areas.

loloquwowndueo 2y ago

That thought is not very logical. Very large passenger fixed wings are also a very bad idea and fragile if the premise is someone is shooting at them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

lvspiff 2y ago
Even ground based large passenger non-winged transports are a bad idea if someone is shooting at them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_railway_station_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_railway_station_att... overall i prefer any mode of transport that is not being shot at
- medo-bear 2y ago
  What do you know, even sea based large passenger transport is a bad idea if someone is shooting at them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania Funny anecdote, my first air travel was in an Mi-8 as a 6 year old being airlifted out of a war zone
  - jprd 2y ago
    I'm not sure a lot of us would find that "funny", but is pretty great that you are in a place now where _you_ can find it so.
    - medo-bear 2y ago
      Took almost 30 years to find the dehumanizing idioticity of that war as funny, but I got there.
_heimdall 2y ago
My grandfather flew in WWII and had many stories of both his planes and those in his group making it back with what mechanics would have thought was catastrophic damage. Shooting down any aircraft with a rocket is likely to take anything down. Planes can handle damage much better from what I understand.