V22 Osprey

About

The Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey is the world's first operational tiltrotor production aircraft. Developed jointly by Bell Helicopter and Boeing under a U.S. Department of Defense Joint Service Vertical Takeoff and Landing (JVX) requirement, the V-22 prototype made its first flight on March 19, 1989. The development program was extended and troubled — three serious test-program crashes during the 1990s, two ground accidents, and persistent doubts about the type's safety record — but the V-22 entered operational U.S. Marine Corps service in 2007 as the MV-22B, replacing the aging Boeing-Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight in the assault-transport role.

The Osprey's defining capability is the in-flight transition between helicopter mode (rotors vertical, like a tandem-rotor helicopter) and airplane mode (rotors horizontal, like a propeller-driven airplane). The transition is mechanically managed by the tiltrotor mechanism that swings the entire engine nacelle 90 degrees through a controlled arc, with intermediate "transition" angles available for short-takeoff operations. The result is an aircraft that can take off and land vertically from a Marine Corps amphibious assault ship's small flight deck, then transition to airplane mode for long-range cruise at twice the speed and twice the range of any conventional helicopter.

The V-22 has flown thousands of operational missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and as part of the Marines' rapid-response amphibious capability. The unmistakable Osprey silhouette — twin tilting rotor nacelles on a high wing, blended fuselage with rear cargo ramp — is one of the most distinctive military aircraft shapes of the twenty-first century, and a striking subject for RC scale modeling.

In the simulator

A unique scale subject capturing the visual character of the world's first operational tiltrotor. Use it for sport-scale flying with one of the most distinctive military aircraft of the modern era. A unique entry in any RC pack.