Posted on 10/16/2006 9:10:13 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
Now I'm imagining an ugly picture: An engine failure followed by a gearbox failure.
Thanks for the info. The Marines are quite picky about their aircraft (notice they don't fly UH-60 Blackhawks) so if they like this one I guess that's that.
"Now I'm imagining an ugly picture: An engine failure followed by a gearbox failure. "
Yes, that would be a bad day. Unlikely though.
TC
Ya know, there once was a passenger airplane named the "Electra". It was a 4-engine turboprop and it initially had a nasty habit of shedding wings and augering in with full loads of passengers.
Of course, it was taken out of service and never amounted to anything, cause it wasn't right the first time.
It is too bad, because the Navy sure could have used an ASW version of it.
After looking at the picture in the article, I notice there is no "bottom" on the wing, i.e, no sheet metal. When the prop and engine is tilted forward for forward flight as in a normal aircraft, how is lift generated if there is no bottom part of the wing? Seems to me that airflow over and under the wing would be significantly different than in a typical aircraft.
> It's really amazing that US tech and innovation does not apply to the auto industry anymore.
History quiz:
What company was responsible for both the Redstone ballistic missile that launched Alan Shepard into space, *AND* the S-I first stage of the Saturn I launch vehicle?
Your are looking at the aircraft with the flaperons extended making the wing seem thicker than normal. The V22 wing is like any other fixed wing aircraft.
Chrysler Corp?
cll: "Now I'm imagining an ugly picture: An engine failure followed by a gearbox failure."
samPaine: "Now I'm imagining a bunch of shredded gears and ORCs before an engine failure."
I'm in agreement, if the Marines like it, then fine. But for me, as an engineer, it sounds like a wide diversion from the principle of K.I.S.S.
More systems == Less Reliable. Period.
Now maybe it's a reasonable trade-off for the added perfomance/capabilities, but it just sounds like a Rube-Goldberg Machine description, not an A-10 "overbuilt tough" description.
OK, I see you point(s) about the wing being "dirtied up" by slats, spoilers, etc; however, if the wing is a normally shaped wing, then it still looks like the driveshafts are still exposed under the wing. If so, I would think that laminar airflow characteristics under the wing would be different, i.e, lift is degraded. What am I missing here?
Like the Harrier ?
As some others pointed it, that is an illusion. I will point out that a wing does not need a bottom to generate lift. It is better with one but not 100% needed.
OK, now your picture came through and I now see the bottom of the wing with no driveshaft visible. No problem. Thanks for the visual.
Ha!
Hey, I don't like to argue with US Marines.
I had to cheat and look it up.Hard to believe the makers of this
made this
Imagine the next NASA competition for a launch vehicle.
Boeing, Lockheed, Chrysler? Ford?
An Air Force pal, commenting on the early Harriers' tendancy to crash, said, "Only the Marines are crazy enough to fly em."
Recently, two from Cherry Point MCAS were making T&G's at the local airstrip. Living right under the downwind leg of the prominently active strip offers plenty of eye time for viewing CPC visitors.
I can say, they are remarkable AC to watch, but there's no way in hades the thing will ever "sneak up" on a living enemy.
I was thumbing through some old magazines while waiting for a friend to get out of a doctor's appointment, and learned from Road & Track that the Japanese have (auto) R&D facilities set up all over the U.S. doing truly groundbreaking work.
I left wondering, "is it possible their Americans are better than our Americans?"
I recall a French fabric two-popper had no bottom of its main airfoil - if I can find a pic of the thing, I'll post it.
The Osprey has sheeting on the underside of all its airfoils.
they claim they are quieter than a Cobra or Chinook. Obviously its not an Apache.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/v-22-survive.htm
Compared to both helicopters and conventional turboprops, the Osprey has a lower acoustic signature due to the tiltrotor's reduced rotor rotational speed. It also uses very low thrust for cruise propulsion. The V-22 flying in aircraft mode produces a distinctive sound, described by observers as a "throaty and muted hum - more like a vehicle than a helicopter." The observers noted that, in combined operations, the steady buzz of the MV-22 was frequently masked until the last minute by the "whop-whop noise" of AH-1 Cobras and UH-1 Hueys that were supporting nearby. Overall, as compared to the CH-46, the MV-22 is less noisy while in the aircraft mode, and provides comparable acoustic acquisition cues while operating in the helicopter mode.
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