Mike McKinney is a retired LT Col now working as a civil maintenance test pilot on the V-22 Osprey.

A battle truck that cruises at 240kts and can land in your supermarket car park – the V-22 Osprey is one of the more unique aircraft kicking around.

Ok, technically its a tiltrotor design but we’ll adopt it as more rotary wing than fixed wing.

The Osprey was developed from earlier tilt rotor aircraft such as the XV-3 and XV-15. After a long-ish development period (20+ years) the Osprey is now fielded by the USAF and US Marine Corps.

Lots of engineering tricks have been built into the design. The rotors and wing fold up almost to the size of the fuselage in what looks like a circus contortionist act that helps storage onboard ships. The engine lubrication/scavenge system also has to work in vertical and horizontal positions.

V-22 Osprey Compilation

Extensive use of computerised flight control systems are required to convert pilot inputs into the right mix of thrust, blade tilt, engine angle, flaperons and rudder deflection to cover the huge operating speed range.

Our guest this week is Mike McKinney who takes us on a walk-through of this amazing machine. Mike is a retired US Air Force Lt Col who flew UH-1Ns and MH-53J/M Pave Low helicopters in the special operations support role.

From 2005-2010, Mike flew the CV-22 Osprey (Air Force variant). He was selected as initial cadre for the introduction of the Osprey into the USAF and helped develop the initial training course and stood up the training squadron for the USAF. His involvement extended to the Operational Test & Evaluation of the CV-22 before it was considered mission capable and accepted into the fleet.

Mike McKinney in front of a USAF CV-22 Osprey

These days he still gets to fly the Osprey as a civilian contractor out of Kirtland AFB in New Mexico on post-maintenance functional check flights and operational check flights, ensuring the airplane is airworthy and mission capable prior to being placed back in service.

This episode was recorded in early Feb 2015. News reporting at the time indicates that the deployment of V-22s to Iraq was a request from coalition partners operating against ISIS. “Once you grasp the full functionality of the V-22 Osprey, the insistence on its in-theater deployment by Emirates leaders is not hard to understand.”[Forbes Magazine]

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In this week’s episode:

00:50 r/helicopters on Reddit – thanks for the plug

01:11 Sponsors trainmorepilots.com

01:20 World Helicopter Day

01:50 V-22 Osprey Tiltrotor

02:40 Mike Mckinney intro – USAF special operations helicopter pilot and Osprey instructor

04:04 Bell 47 lesson then hooked

04:40 Roles of the USAF helicopter fleet – missile site support, VIP, combat search and rescue (CSAR), special operations

08:20 Osprey initial design and operational need – speed!

09:50 Mike’s first V-22 involvement, Fort Worth

10:56 Initial impressions when people see one up close

12:50 Prop-rotor system

14:50 Engines and gearboxes – 6150hp x 2

18:00 Hydraulics

20:55 Cockpit layout and flight controls, helicopter and aeroplane modes

27:00 Acceleration – co-ordinating the engine tilt and mode transfer

30:34 Blades below the fuselage

32:06 Cabin noise levels

33:00 Aircrewman / Flight engineers

33:50 Role equipment and cargo capabilities – OCL, fast roping, hoist

36:50 Self protection equipment

38:50 External load capability

39:50 Internal fuel 13,000lbs @ 3300lbs/hr and aux fuel hook up

41:10 280kts top speed, groundspeed 300kts+, oxygen and heights

43:20 Emergency handling, vortex ring reputation unfounded, autorotation, 170kt aeroplane glide

51:30 Training process, Air Force vs Marines, rotary, fixed wing, straight through, 9 months

54:00 Civil maintenance test flying

55:35 Heavy focus on simulator training

57:40 Concept of tiltrotor is sound, some V-22 shortcomings

59:50 Importance of speed on the battlefield

1:01:55 Next generation of tiltrotors – AW609, Bell V-280 Valour

Links from this week’s episode:

V-22 Osprey on Wikipedia

Bell Helicopter page on the V-22

V-22 Osprey Folding Up Sequence

In flight refueling – puts the size of the prop-rotors in perspective

A Marine Corps Osprey showing off the versatility of the machine

Did we miss something about the V-22? Ask below in the comments. If you’d love to have a crack at flying it – what would you do with it?

The post RWS 21 – V-22 Osprey with Mike McKinney appeared first on The Rotary Wing Show.