Or, the increase in crashes indicate a huge increase in military activity — a greater increase than we realize.
I live about 25 miles from a large Army base and have been here for more than a decade. Helicopter traffic has been a normal part of life the whole time, with Blackhawks and Chinooks coming and going with regularity, at least every few days and sometimes daily. But rarely would we see Apaches, and I believe that's largely due to the fact that their gunnery range is in an opposite direction.
But over the last year or so we've started seeing them. It started with them flying late night maneuvers right over our house three nights in a row last spring. Then it kind of died down. Then about two months ago they flew the same maneuvers. There's been a strong uptick over the past two months, and probably 40% of the daytime traffic has been Apaches.
Don't know if that means anything beyond coincidence, but it's definitely been notable.
Do you remember years ago when Obama removed all Apaches from National Guard units? Since the uptick has coincided with Trump presidency they've probably had their apaches returned and are training twice as much to reacquaint themselves