CV-22: Virginia’s Blue Ridge Is Venue For Final Sign-Off Of Terrain Flight Capability.

Winchester, Va., Residents of this rural town - with the most northern airport in Virginia - woke to see a USAF CV-22 Osprey overhead, returning from a foray into the nearby Blue Ridge mountains before dawn.

A joint USAF/Boeing team is here to conduct ‘live’ instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) flights of the aircraft’s terrain following/terrain avoidance (TF/TA) radar system prior to completing development ready for operational use.

The crew tells rotorhub the emphasis in this series of flights is low-speed work: high speed flights - also in actual IMC - were completed earlier in Portland, Or.

In the current cycle, the CV-22 is flying as low as 100 feet and as slow as 50 knots (GS) in varying terrain from 700 ft to over 4,800 ft, the pilot relying completely on the aircraft’s multi-mode radar and its processing system to command flight cues.

‘We needed to, you know, do the quality assurance things you need to do in actual instrument weather,’ Capt. (P) Sol Baase (USAF) test team project director said. ‘And believe it or not you have to look hard to find it.’

The requirements that the visible moisture making up the atmospheric obscuration be well above freezing, plus the opportunity to access a special IFR military training route deep into the mountains to the west here made the choice of this airport the optimum, he said.

Nevertheless the situation highlighted the problems test teams can have when it comes to needing to evaluate specific operational conditions.

The high speed flights - essentially with the Osprey maxed out - showed that altititudes of around 200 feet AGL were easily handled by the system. Low speed operations are slightly trickier involving as they do more movement - and integration - of dynamic components of the flight control system.

Ospreys do not - at this point - have coupled flight controls, so all terrain flying in this manner is conducted manually.

The handling pilot flies to a pointer bar cueing system , the non-flying crewmember monitoring radar, IR and even the NVG picture as necessary. A unique feature of USAF Osprey operations is that a third crewmember - a flight engineer - also monitors system integrity.

Flights this week have produced the desired results, but several days more of inclement weather are being sought to complete various engineering requirements.

Test officials said that it would take ‘about six weeks’ from the completion of the current testing before the aircraft would be finally signed off for operations.

Other testing, meanwhile has looked at the effects of activation of countermeasures during TF/TA flight - and cleared the system of any conflicts. ‘If you’re asking whether emissions from the ECM sensors interfered with the navigation system, they did not,’ said Bill Wainwright, the Boeing test pilot on the project here.

The two other flight crewmembers, Flight Test Engineer Paul Schank (Boeing) and Osprey pilot Capt Marty Schweim USAF (a former Army aviator on OH-58Ds) said team training in crew resource management plus USAF’s ‘hard crewing’ practices that teamed the same people together were significant contributors to effective operations in the TF/TA regime.

Summing up, Schweim described the latter’s performance overall as ‘robust’ and ‘extremely reliable’ thanks to the specific design characteristics of the radar system which provide plenty of radar energy output and coverage.

Some observers say operational availability of CV-22s - capable of low level ‘blind’ operations in mountainous, ever-changing terrain - are the missing key factors for potential special ops missions in places such as the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan where ‘ingress and egress can be conducted in a single period of darkness.’

418th FLTS tests CV-22 terrain-following radar in East Coast fog

by James Darcy
V-22 Osprey Public Affairs

7/24/2007 - PATUXENT RIVER, Md. -- A CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., is operating out of Winchester Regional Airport in Virginia until late August.

The Osprey, which can take off like a helicopter then rotate its proprotors forward to cruise like a conventional airplane, will be flying in the mornings using approved military flight routes over the Allegheny Mountains.

Crews from the 418th Flight Test Squadron are taking advantage of foggy early-morning conditions in the mountainous terrain to exercise the CV-22's advanced terrain-following radar.

In combat, Air Force Special Operations Command crews will use the CV-22 and its radar to fly low-level insertion and extraction missions for U.S. Special Operations troops in any weather, day or night.

"The V-22 gives us the speed and range we need to conduct our missions in a single period of darkness, where it's safest for us and most dangerous for our enemies," said Army Gen. Doug Brown, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command.

Its ability to take off and land vertically in rough terrain gives the Osprey the operational flexibility of a helicopter, but with twice the speed, four times the range and more than twice the altitude. When flying in airplane mode, the Osprey is also 75 percent quieter than conventional helicopters.

The Marine Corps variant of the Osprey, the MV-22, will deploy to Iraq for its combat debut in September. The Air Force version will be ready for combat in 2009. The V-22 operating today is a significant redesign over previous versions, boasting improvements in safety, reliability and mission effectiveness. The Osprey completed a very successful operational evaluation in summer 2005, and was approved for full-rate production that September.

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