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Chips are down, and so is V-22 By WILLIAM BENDER, wbender@delcotimes.com 02/10/2007 A computer chip problem has popped up in Boeing's V-22 Osprey. Months ahead of its scheduled deployment, the V-22 Osprey has been temporarily grounded due to a computer chip that couldn’t stand the cold. The problem was detected in the flight control computers of "some" Ospreys, according to a statement released Friday by Marine Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C. As a result, all of the Marines’ MV-22s and Air Force’s CV-22s - less than 60 altogether -- have been grounded until the chips can be replaced. "Testing...

Column - Roger Williams: Time reporter wouldn't give conflicting source time of day Opinion Column Over the past several days, my office has received a barrage of phone calls and e-mail inquiries regarding Time magazine's Sept. 28 article on the V-22 Osprey. I certainly don't pretend to be a professional journalist, but I do feel it important to set forth a factual response for my fellow Amarilloans - people the world recognizes as having a major stake in the future of the Osprey. Time magazine reporter Mark Thompson chose to rely on select, outdated information which was both inaccurate and...

Bell Helicopter engineers have resolved a performance anomaly that test pilots had discovered when flying the hybrid aircraft in conventional flight mode, also known as the zero-degree position of the nacelles. The BA609 is a six- to nine-passenger corporate aviation tiltrotor, a product the companies expect to begin delivering in 2011. According to Roy Hopkins, Bell's chief test pilot for the BA609, both prototype aircraft had been exhibiting a differential torque between the two prop-rotors in flight tests, causing a left-turning tendency at cruise speeds. The companies are flight testing one aircraft at Bell in the USA and the other...

It's hard to imagine an American weapons program so fraught with problems that Dick Cheney would try repeatedly to cancel it — hard, that is, until you get to know the Osprey. As Defense Secretary under George H.W. Bush, Cheney tried four times to kill the Marine Corps's ungainly tilt-rotor aircraft. Four times he failed. Cheney found the arguments for the combat troop carrier unpersuasive and its problems irredeemable. "Given the risk we face from a military standpoint, given the areas where we think the priorities ought to be, the V-22 is not at the top of the list," he...

A Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey may soon be equipped with a gun within the cabin that can fire on targets at all angles relative to the aircraft's position. US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has disclosed that it is seeking a vendor to provide an "interim all-quadrant defensive weapon system" for its CV-22 tiltrotors. SOCOM would require flight testing to begin within 120 days of a contract award, according to a solicitation document posted on 14 September. The notice may be a signal that SOCOM believes it needs greater self-protection on the CV-22 than currently available on the aircraft. As an...

Mark Dodd | August 22, 2007 ADF may be first to buy 'tilt' chopper AUSTRALIAN special forces could be the first international customers for the revolutionary tilt rotor Osprey - a US-designed half-helicopter and half-plane. In its first operational deployment, 10 of the twin-engined V-22 Osprey will be sent to Iraq as troop and cargo carriers serving the US Marine Corp. Manufacturer Boeing claims a clean operational report card is likely to be followed by US government export approval and the Australian Defence Force is being eyed as a potential customer. The ADF today confirmed it is looking at buying...

FARNBOROUGH, England, July 18 — For its debut at the international air show, the V-22 Osprey danced in the sky. It flew straight up, then forward. It twirled and dove down. It flew sideways and even took a bow in midair. The performance on Monday was 20 years in the making, and Bell Helicopter and the Boeing Company — which jointly made the helicopter-airplane hybrid specifically for the United States Marine Corps — are hoping it will erase memories of the aircraft’s troubled history. The first squadron of V-22’s is scheduled to be deployed next fall and, at the moment,...

Marine Ospreys exploring long-range deployments June 17, 2006 Marines successfully completed two non-stop, coast-to-coast flights this week with a pair of MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, as a precursor to a transatlantic flight to England with the same Ospreys in July. The unconventional Osprey started life with some very bad publicity but now that the unconventional machine is working properly, it is beginning to offer an entirely new way of doing things, adding an important new tool to the Marine armoury. "Unlike conventional rotary wing aircraft, which must be transported into overseas theaters of operation aboard amphibious shipping or heavy lift...

WASHINGTON --The Pentagon on Wednesday gave the go-ahead to begin full-rate production of the V-22 Osprey, the hybrid helicopter-airplane that the Marine Corps considers vital to the future of its air fleet. The Osprey program has been threatened since 23 Marines died in a pair of crashes during testing in 2000. The go-ahead to start full-scale production was approved by the Defense Acquisition Board. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said before the official announcement that he anticipated that step. "Full-rate production clears the way for a more efficient and lower-cost delivery of this next-generation military aircraft, and would be great news...

Experimental chopper loses part of blade By Chris Lambie November 24, 2004 OSPREY: Experimental aircraft takes off like a helicopter, flies like an airplane. (File Photo) A cutting-edge U.S. military aircraft being tested in our skies made an emergency landing at Shearwater on Friday after losing a chunk of rotor blade. The tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey lost a 50-centimetre-long piece of rotor blade somewhere near the shoreline. “They were flying along the water when this occurred, not over a populated area,” said Kirsti Dunn, of Boeing Co., the U.S. aviation giant that built the aircraft with Bell Helicopters. About 20 kilometres...

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER - Flight crews are testing the V-22 Osprey – a tilt-rotor aircraft scheduled to replace Vietnam-era helicopters – in desert conditions that simulate duty in Iraq, officials said Wednesday. Four aircraft in a test squadron based in North Carolina traveled to Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas to test operations in austere conditions, according to a news release. "Over the next two weeks, our pilots will train and become competent in flying the Osprey in an austere environment, which is nothing but goodness," said Lt. Col. Christopher C. Seymour, the officer in charge...

PATUXENT RIVER, Md. (NNS) -- Dec. 2, the V-22 surpassed 1,000 flight hours flown since the Osprey’s return to flight in May 2002. At approximately 1305 EST, Osprey No. 24 got the program past the mark during an icing test flight over Nova Scotia, where a V-22 Integrated Test Team detachment is currently based for the first half of the icing portion of the test plan. “It’s fitting that this milestone was reached by Osprey No. 24 on our crucial icing detachment in Canada,” said Air Force Col. Craig Olson, V-22 Joint Program Manager. “We’ve accomplished what we’d intended at...

In showing off the V-22 Osprey's capabilities, the Marines are gearing up for a new mission with the aircraft that critics once wanted to send to a scrap heap. The aircraft flew Thursday at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland in a demonstration for journalists that whatever problems the aircraft had before testing resumed in May 2002 have largely been cured. Now, said Ward Carroll, Naval Air Command public information officer, the Marines will consider how many aircraft are needed for operational testing and evaluation that will determine if it goes into full production. The V-22 Osprey team will...

The Pentagon on Thursday ordered 11 new V-22 Osprey aircraft for $817 million, giving a boost to a program plagued by deadly crashes and other problems. The program had been in danger of being eliminated after 23 Marines died in crashes during testing in 2000. The aircraft's maker, a joint venture between Boeing Co. and Textron Inc.'s Bell Helicopter unit, had to redesign parts of the aircraft to fix hydraulic and other problems. The Osprey has fixed wings and propellors that can tilt upward so the craft can take off and land like a helicopter, then tilt forward so it...

Problems with titanium hydraulic lines have plagued the innovative aircraft for yearsTen months after resuming a round of critical flight tests, the Navy grounded its fleet of V-22 Ospreys on Thursday because of problems with the aircraft's hydraulic lines. Osprey program officials said Thursday that the newest problem results from a bad batch of titanium tubing from a supplier that will be cut from the program. "We've flagged a crappy supplier," said Ward Carroll, the V-22 program spokesman. "We remain bullish on the hydraulic system." The five Ospreys being used in flight tests will be down at least two weeks...

Osprey's flight tests `going well,' Pentagon official says BY RICHARD WHITTLE The Dallas Morning News WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The V-22 Osprey's flight tests are "going well," Defense Undersecretary Pete Aldridge said Friday, adding that he will visit the program's Maryland office next week to assess its progress in detail. "I'm always skeptical until I'm proven otherwise," said the Pentagon procurement chief, who previously had expressed doubts that the tilt-rotor troop transport would be suitable for combat missions. But without declaring any change of heart, Aldridge allowed that the flight test program for the controversial Marine Corps aircraft "is laid...