MV-22B Osprey: a class all its own

Photo By Cpl. Manuel Estrada | The MV-22B Osprey is a tiltrotor aircraft capable of landing and launching like an airplane or a helicopter.  

NC, UNITED STATES

08.02.2012

Story by Lance Cpl. Manuel Estrada 

Marine Corps Installations East       

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. - Since the dawn of man, people have looked to the skies and wondered what it would be like to soar like birds. Stories of flight have dated back to the Greek tale of Daedalus and Icarus, where Icarus puts on a pair of wings but dies when he flies too close to the sun and melts the wax holding the feathers.

Although his venture ended in death, others have been more successful.

Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first people to succeed in performing heavier-than-air flight in 1903. The technology of flight has rocketed to the moon and back since that first voyage.

The latest advancement in design and functionality in aviation has added up to the MV-22B Osprey.

The Osprey is a common sight in the skies of Jacksonville, N.C. People have accepted the Osprey as just another helicopter aboard Marine Corps Air Station New River. But, anyone on the air station would say it is not a helicopter; it is a tiltrotor aircraft. It has a category all to itself.

“The V-22 is a tiltrotor aircraft,” said James O’Donnell, public affairs officer for the V-22 program. “It has the ability to take off like a conventional helicopter but once airborne the aircraft can rotate its propellers from helicopter to airplane mode, making the aircraft very fast, able to travel at more than 350 miles per hour, and carry more weight than the CH-46, which the V-22 was developed to replace.”

He added the aircraft can carry 24 Marines with a full combat load or 15,000 pounds of cargo up to 800 miles. It has the ability to refuel in mid-flight, infinitely expanding the distance it can travel.

“What makes the V-22 such a great aircraft is the flexibility of options it gives to a unit commander,” said O’Donnell. “Basically, do you need to get 24 Marines to point ‘A,’ as soon as possible? Send an Osprey. Need to deliver some supplies out to a carrier in the middle of the Atlantic? Send an Osprey.”

The Osprey program has had many doubters over the years who say it is an unsafe aircraft and that it is not worth the money the government has put in to it. Other than some mishaps at the beginning of the Osprey program, the aircraft has one of lowest class ‘A’ mishaps than any other tactical rotorcraft in the Marine Corps, according to Boeing.

A class ‘A’ mishap is when there is more than $1 million in damages or a loss of life.

The crew and pilots of the Osprey are continuously learning new ways to implement the capabilities of the aircraft.

“Just last month we completed a proof of concept test where a V-22 conducted an injured personnel evacuation from a submarine,” said O’Donnell. “In that demonstration, the aircraft flew from Canon Air Force Base, N.M., to rendezvous with the USS Wyoming off the East Coast. Once there, the aircraft lowered a rope to hoist a mannequin strapped into a litter to evacuate the ‘injured sailor’ and then flew back to New Mexico. It was a roundtrip of about 2,600 nautical miles all done in one day.”

The Marine Corps activated its first Osprey squadron, Marine Medium Tiltrotor Training Squadron 204, in June 1999. The first operational squadron, VMM-263, was created in March 2006. All remaining medium helicopter squadrons are scheduled to transition to the V-22 by 2019.

• Date Taken: 08.02.2012
• Date Posted: 08.02.2012 09:21
• Story ID: 92566
• Location: NC, US