Osprey taking off while on short...

Very cool.

I go down to Albuquerque regularly.

Kirtland AFB (shares runways with ABQ) has V-22's.

Good Osprey veiwing there; they fly out over the city but don't seem to do vertical TO's. Engine pods usually at about 45 degrees.

 

Somebody else can google for details but I'm pretty sure they require certain types of surfaces in order to take off vertically. Something about exhaust temps damaging the runway surface.

This is purely conjecture on my part but I suspect they also do it for safety reasons. If you lose an engine during a more conventional style takeoff you can probably recover a lot better than if you are doing a purely vertical takeoff. They come through here semi regularly and I have talked to them in the past but have never asked about TOLD stuff.

 

Wasn't the whole fleet grounded for a while due to safety concerns? Did they modify it after that?

 

That was a long time ago and the Osprey now has an excellent safety record. They flew right over my Albuquerque office window all the time from Kirtland AFB, where they do the training for the special ops pilots. Great view of them at 500-1000' and usually about 2/3 of the way through the translation to straight ahead propulsion. Things are nearly as fast as a C-130 and have excellent legs. Everybody wants them now since they have proven so versatile and reliable. Really speeds up special ops team insertions because they are so much faster than a helicopter. Not good for water pick-ups because the prop blast is so strong.

 

You bring up a good point. With the engine at the end of the wing the asymmetric thrust must be pretty bad.

 

There is an interconnect to prevent this. Not sure what %GW they can hover at though with just one engine.

 

A result of the large prop diameter...

Picture near Albuquerque:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CV-22_Osprey_in_flight.jpg

 

I can just hear your com to the tower:

"ah, this is Rob Lay......umm...FerrariChat?........can you just get them out of my way?........ciao, and thanks......"

 

I imagine that the propwash behind an Osprey operating in airplane mode must be tremendous.....

 

I have almost 1000 hrs on ospreys. Was the second unit to fly them in Iraq. But I was just a crew chief not a pilot. Cool to fly on pain in the ass to work on.

 

Johnny- I would imagine you have some pretty good war stories. How do the pilots like the Ospreys?

 

Regarding exhaust temps/surface damage, there was plenty of talk about that with the F-35B.

 

….funny; I always heard that "ordinary landings" were the best kind….

 

James- If an ordinary landing on an Osprey had the engines forward, it would be very exciting.

Wonder if they have an emergency procedure for stuck engine pods?

 

I was reading a USMC pdf a week ago about the Osprey and for its first deployment on ship they used temporary heat shields on the deck, but since have adopted "nacelle modulation" periodically rotating a small number of degrees to reduce heat buildup on the surface.

 

I spoke about that exact topic with some of he Osprey guys that fly through here and they say the blades are designed to come apart in a particular way. If memory serves the term they used was broomstick.

 

Out in Al Asad? I remember when they first showed up, it was quite a surprise seeing them. That place always seemed to have something crazy going on even though it was a lot quieter than a lot of other places in Iraq. Some friends were he crew that burnt up the C-130 that was parked out on the west end of the field. I nearly got run over by an IL-76 that tried to taxi his wing over the top of our aircraft, that was quite entertaining. It seemed like there were a lot of people who landed on the wrong runway and/or taxiway there. The marines who ran the cargo ops were always entertaining, one Christmas I remember being there and someone had sent a Furby (what a thoughtful gift for the troops) and these guys were trying to figure out how they could shoot it out on the parking ramp.

 

Wonder if they just come off the hub?

For carrier storage, the blades fold at the hub... also the wings, as a unit, swivel 90 degrees so the tips are fore and aft. Bizarre looking...

Pic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:V-22_Osprey_wing_rotated.jpg

 

On November 5th, I was about to enter the Washington, DC. beltway when up ahead I saw (2) Osprey's flying in formation towards Washington DC. Since that's a restricted no fly zone, I assumed they were heading for a flyby of the Pentagon.

What a beautiful sight!

Bill P.

 

Probably don't want that as there would probably be at least one the would go through the fuselage which would probably come close to cutting it in half. There are pictures out there of C-130s which have had props come off and it's pretty ugly, the props on the Osprey are much larger in proportion.

 

Sounds more like they are designed to separate the tips at approximately the same prop diameter that would have some ground clearance. No telling where those parts would go, but if designed to shear backwards, ie bend and then break, might be survivable.

The F-111 wings were designed do they could not get out of synch when swept, but it happened on an early bird. Luckily on the ground, and suitable upgrades were made so it could not happen again.

 

They have a connection between the two engines so that in a single engine failure, both rotors are still powered by the working engine.