I guess they've resumed testing.  I'm here in Arlington and they fly that sucker around my neighborhood.  Good looking bird, it sure could help the medevac community and make a hell of a good troop transport.  Too bad it's so complex the software has a problem with keeping it airborne.

My ex-gf's dad is the lead test pilot for Bell helicopter, as if you care.

I live right by the Bell Helicopter in East Fort Worth near Hurst. My house gets buzzed all day.

I got to go to Amarillo to the Pantex nuclear weapons facility once.  [:O]  I guess that's where the Textron manufacturing facility is.  Anyway, they were flying Ospreys around quite a bit.  That is one ungainly looking bird.  

If software has to keep an aircraft aloft, the aircraft has major problem$$$$. Rumsfeld's right- throwing money at this problem won't solve the basic watered-down compromise between a heli and an airplane that this contraption is, complete with all the bad features of both, and none of the good ones.

Well, even the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver was eventually made reliable, (in its FIFTH series, the SB2C-5) after spending untold amounts of money and after seven Congressional investigations, but by then the 2nd World War was over and its mission as dive bomber, a concept of the pre-war era, had disappeared in the face of jet engines, rockets and radar.

You can't polish a turd.
........................
When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both.
- --JAMES DALE DAVIDSON

I've really got a problem with the aircraft.  Not so long back, there was a crash that killed a lot of Marines.  In the investigation, it came out that the crash occurred due to attempting, I think, to "land too quickly", or some such.  Apparently, if you descend too fast, the backwash causes an instability.

The official cause of the crash was "pilot error"

The pilot was one of the most experienced test pilots they had.

What does this bode for the average pilot?

The space shuttle is an example of how to 'play' with technology in a closely controlled enviroment.  Combat + V22 is a nightmare I wouldn't wish on anyone.  An aircraft capable of killing the most trained pilots on the planet should be scrapped.  The stealths (f-117 and B-2) do the job of one vehicle not that of two.  Planerench out.

95th foot,
in about 5-10 years, there is going to be a military engagement that makes the Osprey doubters forget that they ever doubted.  This happened with the M1, the AH-64 and just about every cutting edge weapons system.  Sure some, like the DIVAD are abandoned, and if we can't affort do develop the Osprey, it should be abandoned.  But this thing will probably work.  Our alternative is helicopters with inferior performance, and I don't see helicopters with blem-free safety records.  Look at the Iran-Hostage rescue attempt.  

Bell-Augusta is developing a civilian version.  This thing has potential, and those computer control systems you are so critical of are critical to F-16s which seem to have a very good combat record indeed.  

But tilt-rotor aircraft designs have been around at least since WWII.  The concept is old, but has only recently become technologically practical.  

What do you want our pilots to do, fly around using mechanically actuated controls and dead reckoning for navigation?  

This sounds like the French when they wouldn't buy steel artillery to replace brass.  They got a taste of steel anyway in 1870 thanks to Krupp.  

I hope you stayed out from underneath it.

Huh???

The space shuttle is flown to orbit insertion by computer because a human can't do it as efficiently as a microprocessor. Orbit has to be "on the money" for a successful mission. The computer also does the landing (although the crew is allowed "yank and bank" during approach - a human vanity thing rather than a real necessity).

F-117s and B-2s are flown by the computer while the crew becomes weapons operator/bombadier and route planner around threats. Getting those bombs on target is the most important thing the crew does. Piloting skills primarily used for takeoff/landing and taxi.

Everyone rags on the V-22, but few remember the early problems with the CH-46 that it is supposed to replace. It seems the "Frog" had a nasty habit of losing the aft rotor tower in flight during the 1960s. Ch-46s don't fly too well with only the forward rotor. LOTS of marines died, but the crashes went unnoticed due to the casualty reports from Viet Nam. I see V-22s at Edwards AFB quite a bit. Bell/Boeing will get the bugs worked out, but it will take time.

The reported cause was "settling with power" which can be a problem with any rotor born, hovering aircraft.  It IS caused 100% by pilot error and it can happen to any helicopter type aircraft.  It's caused by inattention (as in the pilot doing too many things at once) and not the aircraft design.  Recovery is easy and simple.  You just move in any direction a couple of knots to get the rotor to cut into clean air.  The problem is recognizing your in it.  The natural reaction of any pilot is to arrest the descent by trying to apply more power.  In a settling with power situation, this actually has the opposite effect and aggravates the situation.  As this happens in a hover, you generally have all of 50ft to figure out what's going on and get out of it.  Not alot of time.  

Regardless of flight time, one mistake is all it takes.  Not to slam the pilot, as I've made plenty of mistakes myself flying helicopters in the Army.  It's an easy problem to get out of, but a hard problem to recognize.  You have NO TIME at the altittude he was at to figure it out.  

As far as how does it bode for the average pilot?  It shouldn't be any more of a problem than it already is with any other rotor born configured aircraft.

Ross

Ross,
My father was Medevac pilot in Vietnam and an IP at Rucker......I was born there in 75.  What I also hear from my ex-gf's father was the software code had a logerithm problem with the effects of "settling with power" or rotor blade stall, you can add all the power you want but it won't correct the rate of descent.  It is definately pilot error although an error of inattention.  It's bad enough landing in a hot LZ, training for landing in hot LZ's is just as hazardous.  There isn't enough operational experience with the technology to be able to employ it effectively.

THERE ARE STILL problems with the 46's and 47's.  They are GREAT BIRDS but they are just one big flying transaxle.  I LOVE THE 60's!

Ross is right on the money about direct cause of the crash.  Part of that problem is related to who they are using for V-22 pilots.  Lots of fixed wing time and skill does NOT make a good Osprey pilot!!!!!!!!  Needs to be a pilot with lots of rotary wing time to avoid these type problems.  All helicopters fly similar to an airplane when moving along; things get interesting when acting like a helicopter and hovering!!  Training and long practice help imensely with preventing problems.

The falsification of maintenance records by the officer in charge on the V-22 was a disgrace.  Should have resulted in some hard labor in sentance!

My problem with the aircraft is it will not auto-rotate like a real chopper so a power failure at low altitude in helicopter configuration is certain to be deadly.  Curious why THAT compromise was made!  

All new AC developement programs result in crashes, deaths and more of the same.  There is a high price to develope new technologies.  We need to hang in there until the flaws are corrected.  Failing to do so is an insult to those who gave their lives to perfect it.

You guys remember the two Apaches lost in Kosovo due to low time pilots?  One was "settling with power" the other backed into a tree in low hover.

If you don't like "fly by wire" aircraft, stay on the ground!  Most airliners now use the technology.  Not that it is perfect, but it IS the coming thing.  In time, it will be better than it is but any complex system has it's bugs.

None of the modern military US jets(F117, F15, F16, F35 (the Joint Strike Fighter), F22, B2) could fly without computers actually controlling the plane.  For a plane to be great at air to air manuevering, it has to be unstable, but making it unstable makes it such that a human cant control it.  Basically: the computers fly the plane, and the pilot uses the controls to tell the plane where he wants to go.

Kharn

I know the guy who is the team leader of the national rotary wing craft(?) association of america's martian helicopter competiton winner. Basically he designs helicopters. He says the osprey is a collasol failure not so much for the avionics but becasue of the inherent compromises made in the design. The biggest problem is the force of the down draft. This makes it unstable during landings and makes in nearly impossible to use hoists and such becasue the smaller roters need much more force to keep the v-22 in the air.
I myself know very littel about this. BUt the guy is a doctorate student and he is like 23 years old so and the head of Marylands helicopter design team. SO i trust his knowledge.
I think the V-22 is done, or it should well be.

Good ole Mother Rucker

In any settling with power situation, regardless of computer controls or direct controls, adding power just makes you fall faster.  That's the way it works.  You have to "fly" the aircraft into clean air to get out of it.  



It's because of the very political nature of the military-industrial complex.  The best thing that the military could do is recognize the need for the capability and quit threatening to kill the program.  Then allow the USMC to develop the aircraft properly and effectively.  The political nature of the Military-Industrial Complex prevents a normal course of development.  The enemies of the V-22 push to kill it, so the USMC has to push to develop it.  I've been involved in procurment programs before.  I'm not being cynical when I say that I believe the V-22 enemies were betting that if they pushed hard enough a catastrophic failure would happen that would kill alot of Marines, and kill the program along with it.  That's how nasty these programs get.  These are multi-million, even billion dollar programs.  Don't think a few dead bodies along the way matter to big business.  



I LOVE THEM ALL!  But I'll have to tell you that when the 60 first came out, it had plenty of problems, fatal crashes, and earned the name "Crash-hawk".  Many people back then thought the program was too ambitious.  The aircraft too advanced.  The helicopter "too much" to handle in combat.  

Every program, the M16 being one we should all be familiar with, that pushes any technology will have problems when it's pushed too fast.  The problem is that some programs are needed, and the risk is taken.

Ross

Altitude for airspeed.
Words to live by.

Three things you can never have enough of?
Fuel
Runway
Altitude

Altitude for airspeed.
Words to live by.

Three things you can never have enough of?
Fuel
Runway
Altitude