In article ,
Guy Alcala wrote:

(reformatted)

And here's what someone who's a lot closer to the program had to say,
about 6 months ago, about someone with a similarly out of date, not
to say biased, viewpoint (hopefully the formatting will survive):


'Morning, Gents. This author has never, in my recall, written a fair
and balanced article about the V-22. I don't know who's pocket he's
in, but he sure has a penchant for taking a grain of truth and
building a mountain of crap.

The High Rate-of Descent testing has almost finished Phase One, with
some very interesting results. Two of the most prominent a

1. The envelope for VRS susceptibility predicted before Marana
(flight restriction: 800 fpm@40 KIAS) was, if anything,
conservative. No surprises have been found and the VRS recovery
procedure of using forward nacelles has been verified as very
effective. In fact, these data now support relaxing the restriction
somewhat; perhaps to something like a maximum of 1200 FPS (edit: I
meant 1200 FPM; thanks to Ray Norton for catching my flub) below 70
IAS.

2. Rolloff of the kind that caused the crash at Marana have occurred
only (IIRC) eight or nine times in all of the HROD testing, including
hundreds of attempts to approach/exceed the limits. The most striking
finding WRT VRS was that the aircraft has to stabilize in flight well
outside the authorized envelope for four to six seconds before enough
VRS develops to cause a rolloff. Our earlier fear that dynamic
control inputs by the pilot(s) would accelerate VRS entry have been
shown to be unfounded. NOTE: this is a preliminary conclusion at this
point, and we're still reviewing/discussing the data. But think what
this means for operational pilots: they would have to a: exceed the
flight limitation grossly(like 2X or more), thus triggering the HROD
audible and visual warning system, and b: continue that for 4-6
secomds before anything like a rolloff would happen. And if they did
drive the aircraft into a VRS rolloff, then no more than two seconds
of nacelle tilt would let them fly right out of it. Can anyone
guarantee that there will never be another VRS-induced crash? Of
course not. But that hapless crew will have to strive really hard to
abuse the aircraft into the ground.

3. Low airspeed Maneuvering: The lower left hand portion of the “N-V”
envelope has now been filled in. After discussing these tests with
Bell/Boeing test pilots and engineers it seems clear the flight
envelope has now been completely sampled without any rotor stall or
controllability problems surfacing. Again, a preliminary position,
but it looks like the low-airspeed maneuverability question is no
longer a concern.

Regarding the chatter about "deferred tests": the program is, in fact
looking at the remaining HROD tests and starting to sort out what
needs to be done as a program responsibilty before returning the
Fleet to flight, and what should properly be put into a new project
of the "Science Fair" variety to investigate, jointly with NASA Ames,
the aerodynamics of tiltrotors in various HROD conditions. This
latter work would in no way detract from the confidence underlying
fleet ops, and would mainly serve to advance the scientific
community's understanding of HROD aerodynamics in highly-loaded
proprotor sytems. It might well serve to support a future design of a
"four-poster" tiltrotor to replace or augment the C-130.

Anybody--even "Stryker Meyer" is free to have an opinion. We all know
where they come from.

But I have no patience for people who cling to pre-conceived
positions while ignoring factual information and data that costs a
great deal of time and money to get. GRRRRR!

S/F TC

In a later post, he mentions that testing has shown that dynamic
control inputs actually _prevent_ entry into VRS, not cause it. Just
to establish the above poster's bonafides, I'll include the post
where he introduces himself to the MV-22 forum on the Popasmoke
(USMC/Vietnam Helicopter Association) website, www.popasmoke.com,
back in January :

G'Day, Mates. Brand new FNG here, and Hello to all. By way of intro,
let me say where I'm coming from. After some 410 missions in SEA
(68-69) flying A-4s, the Corps decided I was survivable enough to go
to TPS at Pax River. Got to work on some interesting stuff in the
specialties of stall/spin (A-4M, TA-4, EA-6B, and T-2C) and peculiar
birds like the Canadian tilt-wing CL-84, the XC-142, and the NASA
STOL Buffalo. So while my roots are in jets, I "branched out a bit"
as you can see.

I first worked on what's now the V-22 in 1981 when I was assigned to
the Director, Defense T&E office in the Pentagon. Except for five
years as a Beltway Bandit (85-90) I've been doing the same thing
since then. In addition to the JMVX program, I had the USAF Maverick
Missile, the Navy HARM, and the Army DIVAD/Sgt. York programs. Yeah,
I've seen a few rotten potatoes.

I'm currently the AO (action officer) for V-22 in the office of the
Director, OT&E in OSD; have been since 1990. Have known every V-22 PM
since Harry Blot (who I relieved at Flight Test in 1971). Knew the
operational testers, past and present, since they sorta' kinda'
worked for my boss. Miss the lost ones.

But enough about me. My assessment of the very-expensive, oft-delayed
V-22 program now? It's on the right track to repair the damage done
by a lot of past decisions that turned out to be bad ones. I
fervently hope we're doing all the right things now, and by most
accounts, we are. The overwhelmingly big question in my mind right
now is this:

In the warafre of the future, will young V-22 pilots be able to
accomplish all maneuvers needed in combat while avoiding VRS? And
right at this moment, to be honest, I couldn't answer that question
if the SecDef himself asked it. But about two years from now, I plan
to be able to.

Anyway, thanks for letting me in. Where's the bar? Semper Fi Tom
Carter Leatherneck

Edited to add: Can I be an honorary rotorhead? I pinned my
son-in-laws Army wings on him two months ago at Ft. Rucker. He's just
now finishing Blackhawk qualis and will be in Korea a month from
now.

Those of you who actually want to inform yourself with information
from inside the program by people who actually work with the sytem,
could do worse than read the posts on the forum, both positive and
negative, and make up your own mind who's got the most credibility.

Guy


--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.