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© (c) 2014 AFP2 U.S. Osprey aircraft take part in tsunami drill amid protests
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Harry_Gatto
Informed opinion at its best.
OssanAmerica
Sorry but these protesters are fools. They aren't thinking about what the Ospreys are being used for. And if what are they going to do in a couple years when the JSDF starts flying them all over?
titaniumdi0xide
The Osprey is an ugly aircraft, no mystery it's being protested all the time.
Serrano
@titaniumdi0xide
Har!
CrazyJoe
It's a plane. It's a helicopter. It's a Superman of military aircraft.
ArtistAtLarge
The V-22 is the safest of all the Marines' rotor aircraft.
JWithers
“We asked everybody, even the U.S. forces, to join us because we need to save the lives of as many people as possible,” Wakayama Gov Yoshinobu Nisaka told a news conference, adding that he had no objections to the use of Ospreys.
The above quote is probably one of the most sensible things I've ever heard from a Japanese politician.
When your life is in danger, when you have no food or water and your family is in a dire situation will you hold on to your picket signs or get on board.
Can we please elect more people who have humanity's best interests are heart?
SamuraiBlue
They are the same group that are protesting in Okinawa. Basically they are similar to hippies that follows a band or star at every concert around the nation exept they protest instead of lowering their undies.
HongoTAFEinmate
So what if a worst case scenario comes to pass? Are these same people going to refuse emergency aid if it turns up in one of these aircraft? Also as somebody pointed out, the JSDF are buying these aircraft in the near future.
Ted2014
Stupid Protesters what are they thinking really...
Nathaw
For surviving tsunami, people have to rush to the peak. The low flying Osprey is not the answer for victims. Wind and Rain and Osprey will kill more instead of saving lives. If there is the storm, pilots will make emergency landing on the victims.
That year is 2014. Recently there were some Osprey accidents too. Buying Ospery is worse than throwing money inside tsunami waves. What's a waste?
Osprey is the champion of defective and deceptive aircraft.
Fox Sora Winters
Even the "safest" of aircraft can crash given the right conditions, so there will always be a possibility, no matter what. However, the probability of an MV-22 Osprey crashing is pretty low. In the beginning of their service life, they were shaky. As one would expect of a new concept. Look at game consoles and smart phones for example: bugs and glitches often appear soon after launch. Once those are fixed, they become reliable. The Osprey went through the same thing. It was unreliable early on, but those kinks have been worked out now. They're far more reliable than most helicopters currently in service, such as the Chinook, which in recent years has been in decline. There is nothing wrong with the modern Ospreys, and no reason to protest against them.
TorafusuTorasan
I see a lot of knee-jerk responses to the protesters such as Ted2014 calling them "stupid" and SamuraiBlue calling them "similar to hippies."
But thanks to the local protesters decades ago during the nuke plant construction bubble, the Kii Hanto was kept free of nuclear power plants. In hindsight, that was downright visionary--the opposite of stupid--and local protest leaders from Wakayama Pref. were publicly praised after the Fukushima meltdown three years ago.
The current protesters are probably suspicious that Osprey maneuvers are just part of a larger military push by the Abe government. The same day the Osprey flew into Wakayama, for example, the SDF had a public display of some of their vehicles and personnel at Wakayama Castle Park. Were these two things just a coincidence or a ploy by Wakayama's government to set the stage for upcoming base relocations to the mainland?
GW
Would love for some common sense to start taking hold on these isles, apparently not much yet........
TorafusuTorasan
"Would love for some common sense to start taking hold on these isles"
Well, there was some common sense staging the exercise in Shirahama during the off-season. Can you imagine the crowds on "Shi-lala-hama" fleeing a Russian-style beach landing like the one attempted in the run up to Sochi Olympics!
Maybe what titaniumdiOxide meant is that the Osprey doesn't look Gundam enough to satisfy the average otaku.
When I saw the placement of Japan's military personnel directly across the street from the local Asahi Shimbun headquarters yesterday on Keyakidori in Wakayama, it sure didn't seem "common sense." Intimidation of journalists might already be happening with the new state secrets law clamping down on the media by the end of this year.
SamuraiBlue
Asahi Shimbun headquarters inWakayama????
There HQ is at Tsukiji, Tokyo bud.
TorafusuTorasan
@SamuraiBlue, sorry, should have said "local Asahi Shimbun office in Wakayama." Note the operative word: "local"
Interesting that Yomiuri's local branch office also overlooks the same park in Wakayamashi, but the SDF don't seem to park their jeeps directly in front of the Yomiuri office. Makes you wonder which newspaper is more at odds with the LDP, hmmm?
kyushubill
Just another day and another protest in Okinawa and another in South Korea. Some things just stay so darn consistent.
TorafusuTorasan
@kyushubill, that must be a different story. This article explicitly states the places involved: Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Pref., and Shirahama, Wakayama Pref. The writer bends over backwards to provide helpful hints like "south of Osaka."
In contrast to Okinawa, military-related protests are extremely rare in the sleepy beach resort town Shirahama. The biggest draw in the off season is the baby pandas at Adventure World, so to get 500 protesters together in that kind of out-of-the-way place is actually a big deal. Almost all local Kansai and Kii folks would be my guess.
lostrune2
........ until they get caught in a tsunami disaster and would actually pray an Osprey could pick them up.
OssanAmerica
The J-govt is buying Ospreys for the JSDF. Looks to me like the majority on the isles have common sense, while a minority don't. This is pretty much the same in every democratic country. I bet this minority are secretly on he Chinese payroll.
TorafusuTorasan
The protesters are probably agnostic on China. The real Chinese money from tourism is evident in the Chinese language recordings blasting at upscale department stores.
The Japan Times recently had an interesting piece about Chinese real estate investors buying up all the luxury apartments surrounding Kokyo (Imperial Palace). So much for keeping Chinese money secret.
Magnus Roe
God I'm sick of the whining about this thing.
Vorpal Weapon
I have a suspicion that this is not about the Osprey for a great number of protestors. In fact, its about wanting the U.S. military out and latching on to any old reason to vilify them. And hey, fair enough. Its not like Tokyo listens to reason or the voices of the local people, so the local people are not being reasonable anymore.
And isn't all this humanitarian rescue talk just wonderful? Its almost like the job of the military isn't killing and they don't train for that at all. I would rather see all the money going to the U.S. military instead poured into creating a local disaster relief force whose job is 100 percent saving people. Some hovercraft would probably be a lot more useful than Ospreys too.