I would imagine; the thing cannot land in full “airplane mode”; the rotors are too big.
1 replySort-of. The rotor blades have a designed-in weak spot to break away where they will contact the ground if the machine ever needs to land in “airplane mode”. So it can be landed safely in airplane mode, but not without at least minor damage.
Have they got over the noise problems? Early reports I heard were that the troops on the ground could hear them when they were 20 km away which rather spoilt the quick insertion missions they were trying.
I don’t care how much redundancy you build into a design, Murphy always manages to find a place to pop up. In my helicopter, I’d pretty-much have to grossly exceed max rotor RPM and sling a blade off before I couldn’t auto-rotate down from a mechanical. Not so for all these new powered-lift designs, like the Opener that flew at Airventure.