4 ms·

The article really should have mentioned the BA-609 tiltrotor aircraft. It's the civilian version of the V-22, and nearly ready for production. The BA-609, wit

by akamaka 16y ago

The article really should have mentioned the BA-609 tiltrotor aircraft. It's the civilian version of the V-22, and nearly ready for production. The BA-609, with the speed and range of an airplane, has tremendous potential, and is the reason why Sikorsky started resealching faster helicopters.

DannoHung 16y ago
It's in the little slideshow dealy.
philwelch 16y ago
The V-22 should make for a very interesting engineering story when all of the history comes out. Tiltrotors inherently have a lot of moving parts, plus a very complicated aerodynamic profile as they transition from helicopter mode to airplane mode. It took decades to develop it, at least one fatal accident, and a lot of technology risk throughout, and all the while it was a prime candidate for cancellation. The only thing that saved it was its suitability for the Marine Corps, who needed an aircraft that could carry more Marines a longer distance than helicopters. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MV-22B_combat_radius_in_Iraq_compared_with_CH-46E_combat_radius.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MV-22B_combat_radius_in_Ir...) It's probably not too far from the truth to say that, just like stealth aircraft, we wouldn't have usable production tiltrotor aircraft today if it wasn't for the political tendency to spend vast amounts of money on unnecessary and implausible military contracts. Not an argument either way, just an observation.
- icegreentea 16y ago
  To be fair, initial stealth technology wasn't even THAT expensive. The initial development of 'true' stealth (Pave Blue/F-117) cost about 2 Billion USD in R&D and a total of about 7 Billion for all the planes and everything else. Furthermore, it wasn't even that implausible. Some Soviet physicist already wrote the paper telling us how to calculate Radar Cross Sections. The initial prototyping was a huge success (pretty much matched up exactly what their expected/calculated values). Now, the B2. That's a different story. It's very hard to justify 2 Billion dollar bombers, no matter how you spin it. Linkie here: http://www.ausairpower.net/Profile-F-117A.html http://www.ausairpower.net/Profile-F-117A.html and also Ben Rich's excellent (though somewhat biased) book Skunk Works.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    The 2 billion dollar price tag is misleading, though--the design cost was supposed to be amortized over a much larger order of planes.

by akamaka 16y ago

DannoHung 16y ago

It's in the little slideshow dealy.

philwelch 16y ago

The V-22 should make for a very interesting engineering story when all of the history comes out. Tiltrotors inherently have a lot of moving parts, plus a very complicated aerodynamic profile as they transition from helicopter mode to airplane mode. It took decades to develop it, at least one fatal accident, and a lot of technology risk throughout, and all the while it was a prime candidate for cancellation. The only thing that saved it was its suitability for the Marine Corps, who needed an aircraft that could carry more Marines a longer distance than helicopters. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MV-22B_combat_radius_in_Iraq_compared_with_CH-46E_combat_radius.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MV-22B_combat_radius_in_Ir...) It's probably not too far from the truth to say that, just like stealth aircraft, we wouldn't have usable production tiltrotor aircraft today if it wasn't for the political tendency to spend vast amounts of money on unnecessary and implausible military contracts. Not an argument either way, just an observation.

icegreentea 16y ago
To be fair, initial stealth technology wasn't even THAT expensive. The initial development of 'true' stealth (Pave Blue/F-117) cost about 2 Billion USD in R&D and a total of about 7 Billion for all the planes and everything else. Furthermore, it wasn't even that implausible. Some Soviet physicist already wrote the paper telling us how to calculate Radar Cross Sections. The initial prototyping was a huge success (pretty much matched up exactly what their expected/calculated values). Now, the B2. That's a different story. It's very hard to justify 2 Billion dollar bombers, no matter how you spin it. Linkie here: http://www.ausairpower.net/Profile-F-117A.html http://www.ausairpower.net/Profile-F-117A.html and also Ben Rich's excellent (though somewhat biased) book Skunk Works.
- philwelch 16y ago
  The 2 billion dollar price tag is misleading, though--the design cost was supposed to be amortized over a much larger order of planes.