Hello everyone you're watching Military TV. It has long been a dream of aircraft designers
to create an airplane that not only can fly long ranges at high speeds and carry heavy cargo,
but can also take off, hover and land like a helicopter.
Such a plane would have the flexibility to handle many different types of military missions
and would also have civilian and commercial uses. Here we go, we will talk more about the aircraft,
"V-22 Osprey". Why is the Osprey aircraft so special?
Don't go anywhere, Keep watching the video till the end.
The V-22 Osprey is a tilt-rotor aircraft that takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter
and flies forward like an airplane. It is a multi-mission air-craft developed to fill
multi-Service combat operational requirements. This versatile craft has been developed by Boeing
and Bell Helicopters. Boeing is responsible for the fuselage, landing gear, avionics, electrical
and hydraulic systems, performance and flying qualities. The multirole aircraft can transport
assault troops and cargo, undertake combat search-and-rescue and fleet logistic support
and provide long-range transportation for special operations. On Sept. 5, 2013, the Bell Boeing V-22
program also completed an initial test of the V-22 Osprey performing as an aerial refueling tanker.
Well, before we discuss how does this unique aircraft work?
Let us tell you the reason why V-22 Osprey is built!
The remarkable progress for a program that was so controversial when it first began flying that
Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney tried to kill it every year he held the job. Cheney managed to
terminate a hundred major weapons programs during his tenure, the Cold War had just ended, but he
couldn't do in the Osprey because Congress and the Marine Corps banded together to protect it.
Now, in the tenth year since Osprey first became operational, it is clear they were right and
Cheney was wrong. It's not just that V-22 enables missions that were not feasible in the past,
but it enhances the value of other assets already in the joint force. For instance, the Marine
Corps has taken to splitting up its three-ship amphibious ready groups when they deploy because
there is a chronic shortage of such vessels for covering security challenges. The speed
and range of Marine Corps MV-22s make it easier to sustain such dispersed operations since Osprey
can quickly fly between the scattered warships even when they are many hundreds of miles apart.
Or consider what the Air Force states in a fact sheet about its own variant of Osprey,
CV-22, which is used to insert and extract special operators in dangerous circumstances: "The CV-22
can perform missions that normally would require both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft."
A long-range mission to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran failed in 1980 in part due to the complexity
of coordinating planes and helicopters leading to the development effort that became V-22.
Since it became operational with the Marines in 2007 and the Air Force in 2009, V-22 has proven
its value and versatility over and over again, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Kuwait, and across much
of North Africa. In the latter region, it has been used both to provide humanitarian relief
during the Ebola crisis and to rescue downed U.S. fighter pilots during air operations over Libya.
More broadly, it has enabled Marines to operate air-ground task forces
from shore locations rather than ships because of the extraordinary flexibility and reach
afforded by tiltrotor technology. Now we will take you to see the
aircraft systems and its design. Let's get started with the systems.
The Osprey is a type of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft with a tilt-rotor design.
The VTOL concept is an old idea stemming from the German air force at the end of World War
II. Furthermore, the Osprey has two, large, three-bladed rotors that rotate in opposite
directions and produce lift. Because the rotors turn in opposite directions,
there is no need for a tail rotor to provide stability as in a helicopter. The wing tilts
the rotors between airplane and helicopter modes and generates lift in the airplane mode.
The Osprey can convert smoothly from helicopter mode to airplane mode in as few as 12 seconds.
The major advantages of the Osprey over a helicopter are:
 Longer range - The Osprey can fly from 270 to 580 miles.
 Higher speed - The Osprey's top speed is 315 mph, which
is twice as fast as a helicopter's top speed.  Increased cargo capacity - The Osprey can carry
10,000 pounds of cargo or 24 troops. Another advantage of the Osprey over
an airplane is that it can take off, hover and land like a helicopter. This makes is
more versatile than an airplane for such missions as moving troops to remote areas,
especially those without landing strips, or conducting long-range rescue operations at sea.
Like any aircraft, the Osprey has the following systems:
 Propulsion As mentioned above,
the Osprey has two rotors with three-bladed, 38ft propellers. Each propeller is driven by
an Allison AE 1107C turboshaft engine that is capable of producing over 6,000 horsepower.
Each engine drives its own rotor and transfers some power to a mid-wing gearbox. This gearbox
drives the tilting mechanism.  Fuel
The Osprey has 16 fuel tanks, 10 integrated into the wings and six in the fuselage. The feed tanks
directly supply the engines with fuel from the other tanks, and fuel transfer is automatic.
Depending upon the configuration of the Osprey, it can hold from 1,450 to 3,640 gallons of fuel.
 Cockpit Controls The cockpit of the Osprey
holds a pilot and co-pilot. In addition, there is a fold-down seat in the center behind the pilots
for a flight engineer. The instrument panels have multi-functional displays, similar to the new
glass cockpit of the space shuttle. There are also keypads used to interact with the flight computer
and sticks used to control the flight maneuvers.  Communications
The Osprey is equipped with multi-band radios (AM, FM, UHF, VHF) for voice transmission and
radio reception.  Payload
The Osprey can hold up to 24 troops and carry up to 20,000 lb in its cargo bay, which is 5.7 ft
wide by 5.5 ft high by 20.8 ft long. It also has an external hook-and-winch system that allows it
to carry up to 15,000 lbs of cargo in tow.  Stowage
When the Osprey lands on the deck of a ship, it can be folded up for down-time.
The blades and the wings are both foldable.
In the last part, let's take a look at its design. The V-22 is the first major airplane project to be
designed entirely on computer. With computer-aided design (CAD), engineers were freed from having
to draw a multitude of blueprints and could easily make changes in the design.
The Osprey's airframe made by almost entirely of composites. Slightly more than 6,000 pounds of
the aircraft’s almost 13,200-pound structure will be made of a graphite-epoxy laminate.
The composite materials are very lightweight (about a quarter of the weight of alumi­num),
and because of the buoyant fuel sponsons, the V-22 will
have good flotation characteristics in the event of a ditching at sea.
There will only be about 1,000 pounds of metal in the airframe, and most of that comes in the
form of perforated copper that will be laminated to the outer skin panels for lightning protection.
So, the right word to describe the Osprey aircraft is "Fly Like a Bird, and Hover Like a Bee".
Thanks so much for watching and see you in the next episode.