[throwaway0a5e]

>As I understand it, V-22 Osprey can neither auto-rotate, nor land in emergency like an airplane (because the rotors would hit the ground). Seems a bit like worst of both worlds.

Tradeoffs.

It's worth it to them to plop a bunch of marines down with helicopter speed faster/farther than you normally can with a helicopter.

The military generally doesn't uncritically accept "but muh safety and liability" arguments like private industry does because the cost of doing things less efficiently (trying to refuel helicopters in hostile airspace, airborne operations, etc) comes with a statistical body count as well and they have some degree of sovereign immunity.

In a non-military context the pros and cons would weigh differently.

[rich_sasha]

Yeah, I see that the calculus is very different for the military. I was specifically curious about civilian case. I’m already conscious of how fragile helicopters can be, hence my curiosity re this.

But from other responses it seems that these aircraft can in fact auto rotate and glide in an emergency.