US Osprey Down in Norway

[PHXPhlyer]

U.S. military aircraft crashes in Norway during exercise, officials say
According to initial reports, four service members were aboard the MV-22 Osprey, a U.S. official said. Their status was not clear.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/u ... -rcna20711

A U.S. military aircraft that was said to have four service members aboard crashed during a NATO exercise in Norway, officials said Friday.

The Marine MV-22 Osprey went missing during an extreme weather exercise but has since been located. It was not clear what condition it was in, a U.S. military official said.

Weather prevented a helicopter from landing at the crash site, and the condition of those aboard was not clear, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre North Norway said.

Emergency services were working to send a rescue team, the coordination center said.

The Osprey, which is a tilt-rotor aircraft, was taking part in a cold weather exercise and there was bad weather at the time of the incident, the U.S. official said.

The II Marine Expeditionary Force said in a statement it was aware of the incident, which is being assessed.

“Norwegian civil authorities are leading the search and rescue efforts at this time,” it said. “We are grateful for their efforts and will assist them ... in all manners possible.”

The aircraft was taking part in “Exercise Cold Response 22," the Marines said in a statement.

The military has described it as a Norwegian-led exercise. NATO says it was long-planned and involves thousands of troops from its allies and partners.

The exercise runs from March 14 to April 1, and it is “designed to enhance military capabilities and allied cooperation during a high-intensity warfighting scenario in a challenging Arctic environment with rugged terrain and extreme cold weather,” the Marine Corps said.

While tensions between NATO and Russia are high due to Russia’s attack and invasion against its neighbor Ukraine, NATO says it the exercise is not related and was announced eight months ago.

“It is not linked to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine, which NATO is responding to with preventive, proportionate and non-escalatory measures,” the organization has said.

PP

[FD2]

Sad news - there's reportedly 'no sign of life in the wreckage'. Norwegian SAR unit is based at Bodo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bod%C3%B8 ... ir_Station

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... orway.html

[TheGreenGoblin]

Sad news - there's reportedly 'no sign of life in the wreckage'. Norwegian SAR unit is based at Bodo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bod%C3%B8 ... ir_Station

I wonder what the modus operandi is for an an engine failure in one of those Ospreys in vertical mode. It would seem to be a short cut to a total loss of control and a crash? The same could be said in plank mode as well.

I ask this out of general interest, and am not second guessing the accident cause in this particular case where the weather was appalling apparently and where there is little information about the accident anyway...

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrai ... 54070fabdd

[CharlieOneSix]

I don’t know the ins and out but somewhere I read that there is an arrangement where a single engine can power both nacelles in the event of a single engine failure.

Edit: Back in 1980 I was at the Bell Fort Worth factory accepting a machine and spent the day at their test facility at Arlington. I was able to sit in the XV-15 cockpit - the forerunner of the Osprey. There was a spring loaded switch for the nacelles which had two markings - back was for the hover mode and forward for 'airplane' mode. To go from hover to airplane you just pushed the switch to the airplane extremity and the speed of rotation of the nacelles made for a smooth transition. The transition back to the hover had a wide airspeed bracket. The simplicity appealed to me. Sadly because it was a test vehicle they wouldn't let me try it out in flight!

bell_xv-15_1.jpg (26.1 KiB) Viewed 538 times

The XV-15 had a seized engine during a test flight:

On December 5, 1979. an actual engine failure occurred when the turbine seized. The transmission interconnect system worked properly, and both rotors continued to turn as designed.

I presume the Osprey system is the same.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/bell_xv-15.php

[CharlieOneSix]

Flying the Osprey article......I like the term "collective dyslexia" used to describe the initial problems with the Thrust Control Lever that helicopter pilots have during type training. With his Harrier experience I think Boac would be at home in the Osprey...?
https://verticalmag.com/features/20112- ... v-22-html/

[Boac]

Yes - sounds very similar. Always remember not to rush the movement of the 'go faster' lever from the hover or you get a tie

[TheGreenGoblin]

I don’t know the ins and out but somewhere I read that there is an arrangement where a single engine can power both nacelles in the event of a single engine failure.

Edit: Back in 1980 I was at the Bell Fort Worth factory accepting a machine and spent the day at their test facility at Arlington. I was able to sit in the XV-15 cockpit - the forerunner of the Osprey. There was a spring loaded switch for the nacelles which had two markings - back was for the hover mode and forward for 'airplane' mode. To go from hover to airplane you just pushed the switch to the airplane extremity and the speed of rotation of the nacelles made for a smooth transition. The transition back to the hover had a wide airspeed bracket. The simplicity appealed to me. Sadly because it was a test vehicle they wouldn't let me try it out in flight!
bell_xv-15_1.jpg

The XV-15 had a seized engine during a test flight:

On December 5, 1979. an actual engine failure occurred when the turbine seized. The transmission interconnect system worked properly, and both rotors continued to turn as designed.

I presume the Osprey system is the same.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/bell_xv-15.php

Thank you for posting that fascinating article C16. What a pity you couldn't get to fly the XV-15.

[TheGreenGoblin]

I don’t know the ins and out but somewhere I read that there is an arrangement where a single engine can power both nacelles in the event of a single engine failure.

http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/bell_xv-15.php

Transition took 12 seconds and the vehicle was designed to accelerate from hover to 450km/h in less than 30 seconds. Driveshafts were interconnected to permit single-engined operation in case of a failure.

Initially I was somewhat thrown by the possible acceleration implied by those numbers but a quick and dirty acceleration calculation where a = change in velocity/time taken yields a fairly reasonable 0.36 g loading assuming the difference between a 35 knots transition airspeed to 243 knots over a 30 second period.

Very impressive.

As a kid in the 1960's I remember seeing a page on this early version of a tilt rotor in one of the Time Life books...

While the XV-3 program was still working out its problems in the early 1960s, Bell already was looking to the future, convinced that eventually they would prove the viability of the Tilt-Rotor concept.

This idea has been around for a long time but is clearly bearing fruit now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_XV-3

The XV-3 resumed flight testing at Bell's facility on 12 December 1958. On 18 December 1958, Bell test pilot Bill Quinlan accomplished the first dynamically stable full conversion to airplane mode, and on 6 January 1959, Air Force Captain Robert Ferry became the first military pilot to complete a tiltrotor conversion to airplane mode. Flight testing at the Bell facilities was completed on 24 April 1959, and the aircraft was shipped to Edwards Air Force Base. The military flight testing of the XV-3 began on 14 May 1959. Promoted to the rank of Major, Robert Ferry would coauthor the report on the military flight evaluations, conducted from May to July 1959, noting that despite the deficiencies of the design, the "fixed-wing tilt-prop," or tiltrotor, was a practical application for rotorcraft.

[AtomKraft]

There is a system of shafts which run between the nacelles, so each engine always powers both rotors.
Otherwise an engine failure would always be an accident.

[TheGreenGoblin]

There is a system of shafts which run between the nacelles, so each engine always powers both rotors.
Otherwise an engine failure would always be an accident.

In normal flight mode I guess you would have to hope you don't lose a prop (rotor) because asymmetric flight is also clearly not an option...

[AtomKraft]

I guess if you lose a prop, the only option is to idle the good one?