1 of 1

Write now Article Tools

The V-22 Osprey is the answer to an age old question in aviation.

How to get a helicopter's Short Take off and Landing ability with the speed and performance of an aircraft.

Helicopters have a wonderful ability to take off and land vertically and hover in one spot. For military (and some civilian) applications, this is an advantage. The drawback is that helicopters have a maximum speed due to compression issues with the rotors having to perform both lift and thrust.

While an aircraft can travel at great speed and carry a larger payload.

How do you get the best of both worlds, you can build an aircraft like the Harrier (or the F35 Lightning II) and use the engine power to provide lift (only in vertical take off, or Vectoring in Forward Flight, once airborne the wings provide lift) and the engine for thrust. This works but at the penalty of fuel use. A fully armed and fuelled Harrier if it lifts off vertically would have to refuel soon after being airborne to continue operations.

The V-22 Osprey gets around this by having the body and wings of an aircraft, but with 2 movable engine/propeller on the ends of the wings that act as rotors for landing and takeoff.

The V-22 cannot land like a conventional aircraft due to the size of the three bladed propellers and must land as a helicopter.

A normal take off operation, starts with the engines pointing the propellers upwards, once the engines start they provide lift like the discs of a normal helicopter, once the aircraft is airborne, the engines are rotated forward and locked in place and the V-22 looks like a normal propeller driven aircraft (admittedly with really big propellers). This allows all the normal speed and manoeuvrability of a conventional propeller driven aircraft. When the V-22 lands, the engines are rotated back to 90 degrees and the propellers land the aircraft like a helicopter.

The V-22 Osprey has been in development for over 25 years and has been deployed with the US military since 2005. The aircraft has not been without controversy with in 2000 two separate crashes killed 19 marines and this lead to a detailed investigation that uncovered a number of unsavoury issues that have now been dealt with.

The civilian version of the V-22 Osprey is the Bell/Agusta BA609, which is similar in design to the V-22, but has a vastly reduced costs due to not requiring the same level of equipment and mil-standard parts and equipment.

Learn more about this author, Robert Mcmartin.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about All about the V-22 Osprey?
We want to hear your view. Write now!