KC135TopBoom From United States of America, joined Jan 2005, 11708 posts, RR: 52 Reply 1, posted (11 months 1 week 4 days 23 hours ago) and read 6752 times:
I've said it before and I'll say it again, we shoud have never bought this pink elephant.
rwessel From United States of America, joined Jan 2007, 1989 posts, RR: 2 Reply 6, posted (11 months 1 week 3 days 3 hours ago) and read 5696 times:
Quoting Acheron (Reply 4): At least helicopters can autorotate. I'm not sure the same can be said for the V-22.
The V-22 can autorotate (IOW, have the rotors drive by the relative wind so that you have both control and the helicopter equivalent of a "glide"), but not to a generally survivable landing (which would require enough excess energy stored in the rotor system at the end of the autorotation to slow the downward and forward speed of the helicopter enough for a safe landing).
The V-22 can, however, *glide* to a survivable power-off landing (you'll obviously trash at least the rotors), and can, given enough altitude, transition from helicopter mode to airplane mode even after a double engine failure. That being said, it has a larger window where a safe landing is impossible than most helicopters do (most helicopters, for example, are going to be in serious trouble if they're in a 40ft AGL hover when all the fires go out).
L-188 From United States of America, joined Jul 1999, 29350 posts, RR: 62 Reply 7, posted (11 months 1 week 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 5507 times:
Quoting Acheron (Reply 4): At least helicopters can autorotate
Autorotate my arse....
Yeah I know they practice them but lets face it, You are dependent on the pilot doing several things right and with the right timing.....Hard to ask somebody to do that under stress.
Quoting Max Q (Reply 5): Don't think it can. Engine failure is dealt with by a crosshaft driving the other rotor
That is probably the best way to handle an engine out situation-a good simple mechanical solution.
OBAMA-WORST PRESIDENT EVER....Even SKOORB would be better.
Yeah I know they practice them but lets face it, You are dependent on the pilot doing several things right and with the right timing.....Hard to ask somebody to do that under stress.
My father has done hundreds of autorotations in helicopters. Granted most of them were during training in the US Army but they were power off (throttle to idle) autos to a complete landing. And a few years ago while flying a civilian Huey in Central America he actually had to do one for real, with workers and equipment loaded on board, and he successfully did it, the mechanic got the bird fixed, and he flew it back out. Not as hard as you imply. He's always said he'd prefer an engine out in a helicopter to a fixed wing.
As for the V-22 its a shame to see another one crash, but I agree with those whose sentiments are that this is not a big deal overall.. lots of airframes that were less groundbreaking had their share of teething problems too.. you don't get progress without some painful problems along the way.
runner13 From United States of America, joined Jun 2010, 227 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (11 months 1 week 1 day 8 hours ago) and read 4895 times:
One of my friends from college was a pilot in the one in Morocco. He's going to be ok, and hopes to return to flying in a year or so. His legs are messed up pretty bad though. They are pretty cool to see, but they look very unstable if something goes wrong. I haven't asked my friend what happened as he probably doesn't want to talk about it, but I read it was a mechanical issue.
Max Q From United States of America, joined May 2001, 3289 posts, RR: 19 Reply 10, posted (11 months 1 week 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 4811 times:
Quoting rwessel (Reply 6): The V-22 can autorotate (IOW, have the rotors drive by the relative wind so that you have both control and the helicopter equivalent of a "glide"), but not to a generally survivable landing
That is, kind of the point isn't it ?!
The best contribution to safety is a competent Pilot.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, we shoud have never bought this pink elephant.
Which is a shame, I think it looks absolutely awesome, something straight out of a sci-fi movie.
But I can see it doesn't need much to crash, don't think it glides very far with those tiny wings.
I have a friend who works them, they landed one in a "grassy" area and it was down for weeks because some of the composite structure was damaged. Cool looking, yes... easy to ruin, yes!
Sad we spent sooooo much $ on that program and didn't cancel it when it was first killing people.
XT6Wagon From United States of America, joined Feb 2007, 3132 posts, RR: 4 Reply 12, posted (11 months 1 week 16 hours ago) and read 4571 times:
Quoting 135mech (Reply 11): Sad we spent sooooo much $ on that program and didn't cancel it when it was first killing people.
Perhaps we shouldn't have ever put money into airplanes. or helicopters.
Both of those make the tilt-rotor look quite safe in comparison.
Now perhaps we should have had an extended period of development work with prototypes that didn't need all the bleeding edge technology, and then work on the bleeding edge technologies that expanded the airfames capiblities to give the V-22 its mission capiblities. Doing this on either mature platforms, or by themselves so that we are not trying to bug fix everything at once.
rwessel From United States of America, joined Jan 2007, 1989 posts, RR: 2 Reply 14, posted (11 months 5 days 21 hours ago) and read 4065 times:
Quoting Max Q (Reply 10): Quoting rwessel (Reply 6):
The V-22 can autorotate (IOW, have the rotors drive by the relative wind so that you have both control and the helicopter equivalent of a "glide"), but not to a generally survivable landing
That is, kind of the point isn't it ?!
As I mentioned, the two are somewhat separate issues. If you could not aerodynamically autorotate, the aircraft would just fall uncontrollably after a double engine failure in helicopter mode. As it can, you have a chance to try to relight the engines, reconfigure to airplane mode, etc.
As an analogy, many high performance military aircraft are not really landable deadstick, except in the most optimal circumstances (the SR-71 pilot's manual, for example, doesn't even contain a description of a hypothetical deadstick landing procedure*, and the section on double engine failures says to bail out when you get too low). They still glide just fine.
*And it's not like they've neglected unlikely stuff either - for example, they do include a spin recovery procedure, after declaring that "spin recovery has not been demonstrated, and is considered extremely unlikely". But they end that with an instruction to eject at 15,000ft AGL.
Max Q From United States of America, joined May 2001, 3289 posts, RR: 19 Reply 15, posted (11 months 5 days 7 hours ago) and read 3846 times:
Quoting rwessel (Reply 14):
As I mentioned, the two are somewhat separate issues. If you could not aerodynamically autorotate, the aircraft would just fall uncontrollably after a double engine failure in helicopter mode. As it can, you have a chance to try to relight the engines, reconfigure to airplane mode, etc.
As an analogy, many high performance military aircraft are not really landable deadstick, except in the most optimal circumstances (the SR-71 pilot's manual, for example, doesn't even contain a description of a hypothetical deadstick landing procedure*, and the section on double engine failures says to bail out when you get too low). They still glide just fine.
*And it's not like they've neglected unlikely stuff either - for example, they do include a spin recovery procedure, after declaring that "spin recovery has not been demonstrated, and is considered extremely unlikely". But they end that with an instruction to eject at 15,000ft AGL.
My point is, that autorotation in the V22 is considered such a high risk maneuver that it's successful outcome is considered doubtful.
A single engine failure is dealt with by cross shafting power from the other side.
Double engine failure without sufficient speed / altitude to glide to a forced landing gives you no choice but an autorotation but your chances appear slim.
The best contribution to safety is a competent Pilot.
rwessel From United States of America, joined Jan 2007, 1989 posts, RR: 2 Reply 16, posted (11 months 5 days 6 hours ago) and read 3831 times:
Quoting Max Q (Reply 15): My point is, that autorotation in the V22 is considered such a high risk maneuver that it's successful outcome is considered doubtful.
Agreed - autorotation to a survivable landing is not really possible in a V-22.
Autorotation after a dual engine failure (in helicopter mode) is perfectly possible, and keeps the aircraft in control while you try to relight the engines or switch to airplane mode. Below some altitude neither is possible, and you will crash (and even then, the autorotation will let you hit the ground right side up and approximately level, which will maximize your chances).
Again, autorotation, and landing after at the end of an autorotation are two separate things.
wvsuperhornet From United States of America, joined Aug 2007, 516 posts, RR: 0 Reply 17, posted (11 months 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 3595 times:
At first I was a fan of this aircraft. With that being said from what I have seen I can't see where this aircraft is safe and should even be flying. I totally understand with new aircraft you will have a glitch from time to time but this things safety record is at the least terrible. I think it may be time for the US to re-evaluate the need for this thing.
AirRyan From United States of America, joined Mar 2005, 2529 posts, RR: 6 Reply 18, posted (11 months 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 3584 times:
It's expense is first and foremost unjustifiable. It along with the F-35B could very well run the Marines out of budget. You can't replace $10m CH-46's with $70m+engines V-22's, $50k HUMMVE's with $500k MRAPs, or $25m F-18's and AV-8's with $125m F-35B's - something has got to give. It's called Greece, and the US is next in line with the Marines leading the way.
garysted From United Kingdom, joined Sep 2005, 54 posts, RR: 0 Reply 19, posted (11 months 4 days 3 hours ago) and read 3550 times:
Gents,
I don't have any detailed knowledge of the V-22 but I clearly remember talking to one of our Army Air Corps Apache pilots about them last year. It was shortly after his Apache squadron had returned from Afghanistan and at the same time as the USAF had deployed four CV-22's to RAF Mildenhall here in the UK, ahead of a permanent squadron standing up either late this year, or early next. This Apache driver was interested in the V-22 while in theatre, so went and had a look at the local USMC unit. He came away thinking it was a lovely piece of kit while it worked right, but got the distinct impression that far to many problems and failures resulted in the aircraft falling out of the sky.
While us locals were watching them at Mildenhall last year, they forever seemed to be working on the things, and it seemed quite a struggle for them to fly a pair every other night while they were here. I don't know what the statistics for the Osprey are, but from the couple of weeks that we watched them, they seem to be very maintenance heavy, and prone to low serviceability. The USAF have said that they squadron establishment will be 11 CV-22's, which seems quite high considering the old MH-53 unit that was here only had 6/7 airframes. I can't help wondering if the increase is needed to keep the same level of availability.
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