SkippyBing

Didn't realise Bristows had lost the contract, they were quite helpful when we had to go downbird at of all places Portland. As we sat on dispersal looking at our poorly aircraft we said 'what a great place this would be for a naval air station'!

Be interesting to see their sales pitch. 'Yeah the fatigue cracking only becomes an issue after about 30 years, you'll be fine...'

d'oh of course it is! Although I've only ever seen them listed as a NOTAM rather than actually speaking to them. Where do you operate from?

I think the biggest problem in fitting catapults is finding somewhere to generate and store sufficient steam (remember this is a gas turbine powered ship not oil or nuclear) however it is an option and has been designed into the project. However what the Navy would like and what it can get the money for are two completely different things.

Craig do you ever use the 'Watchdog' callsign, or am I thinking of someone else? Although my day job is a Lynx Observer (TACCO, Navs, depending on how wrong your local air arm is) I just had an absolute blast today with a half hour ride in a Texan/Harvard doing some Aeros near the Hoover dam, I fear it may be habit forming!!

... the b*****d who used my debit card to pay for two weeks in Manila. I don't go to places that nice when I take myself!

Well a rubber dinghy blew a hole in the side of the USS Cole, and at the ranges they're talking about things like Harpoon aren't going to help any. Asymmetric warfare it's called.

There's a very interesting book on the development of the Sidewinder (no stay with me here) called 'Sidewinder: Creative Missile Development at China Lake'. It was basically developed in the engineers spare time with surplus materials and samples from manufacturers, as they'd been told explicitly not to try and develop a heat seeking missile as it was too complicated. Also gives you a good insight into the capabilities of the different models, e.g. why the 9B is so useless! Well worth a read if you can find a copy on Amazon

No you're thinking of a refit, that's like an oil change. A SLEP would be more like taking the car apart, replacing the engine and the electronics and maybe welding some new parts on.

Nice thought though it is I don't think a Vigi would actually fit on the Melbourne!!

Ages ago (well a year or so and my memory isn't that good) I remember poking around the ini for the Mk 6 and adding fuel to get the figures to agree with the published data. Of course this assumes the fuel consumption is correct but it probably is. I think I posted my fixes at SimHQ so if anyone wants to trawl through there (shudder) it's probably still there. As for an engine wav it might be possible to grab something off

I'm 99% sure that the design allows for that with the blades being designed to break off at the appropriate point and due to the spin direction fly away from the fuselage, I'll see if I can dig out the reference. In helo mode you'd probably end up having to do a running landing, which is fairly standard for a twin engine helo with an engine out as unless you're having a good day you won't have enough power to hover.

Apparently MiG and Sukhoi decided to go with the NATO designators for their aircraft when trying to sell them as then everyone else would know what they were talking about, e.g. Flanker, Fulcrum etc. The exception being Frogfoot which Sukhoi thought a bit demeaning.

My limited knowledge of twin engined aircraft is in helicopters. Which should be a fairly straight transfer to the Osprey due to the interconnect between the engines making it essentially a twin helo with the gearbox spread out a bit. In the Lynx our engines have two ratings, one for twin ops, where you want to limit the power going into the gearbox to avoid damaging it, and the second for when you lose an engine and you don't want to kill the one that still works. However if you do lose an engine ultimately you'll pull whatever you can out of the one that works, and generally they'll give a lot more than the maker says it will. The problem with the Osprey is it's a fairly unique rotor configuration and you can't test it for failure in every possible configuration. Well you could but life's too short. As to a total engine failure I think the rate of descent for auto was in excess of 5000 feet per minute which is f*****g scary if you ask me!

I think the II thing is an Americanism e.g. Thunderbolt II, Corsair II, Phantom II etc. Of the few UK aircraft I can think of that re-used a name (er.. Whirlwind, Nimrod) there was no indication that the name had been re-used, probably something to do with the different designating system employed by the two countries.

They don't need to, they just need to turn up at the LZ at the same time.

HMS PORTLAND's Lynx. Somewhere in the Caribbean

So no Clash fans then?!? Generally I'm into Punk/Ska/Rock type stuff

Heretic!

And if they did all that it'd qualify as a new airframe which'd cost millions more to certify and sign off on. Hell you could do the same to a Phantom, give it new electronics, make it out of kevlar and stick in some F404s with thrust vectoring. The fact is the 'Cat cost sh**loads to maintain and it's primary role isn't a major player at the moment. Sure it could do A2G but it cost more than a Hornet for the same effect. In an ideal world you'd have both but at the end of the day there's a limited budget, and right now spending that on A2A makes no sense.

Disturbingly I think I vaguely remember the TV series from when I was err.. a lot younger. The film has one of the more random plots I've ever seen (cue my flight commander 'what the f**k?!?!?'), however the flying sequences are pretty awesome and the bit with the dancer on the Corsair but we'd been at sea for a while so who knows...

Yeah, having read those it appears that it can kind of auto but the high rotor load and small rotors make it 'interesting' to say the least so it's not considered a viable option which is fair enough. You'd still have to be really unlucky to suffer a double engine failure so I can't see it being a major problem.

I'd be interested in seeing any references about Boeing not giving it an auto-rotation capability as I'm not even sure that's possible. Auto-rotation is a function of how helicopters work it's just the engines aren't powering the rotors, airflow is. I have heard the rate of descent in auto is very high for a V-22, somewhere the wrong side of 5000' per minute due to the relatively small disc size, but that just makes the bit at the end more interesting. As for single engine failure, with the interconnect it should be like any other twin engined helo. If you lose one in a low hover you cushion onto the ground using all the power you can get out of the remaining engine. If you're in a high hover you put the nose down and gain forward airspeed until you're above your safe single engine speed, which varies with weight and outside air temp. The advantage the V-22 has is that it can either make a running landing like a normal twin would single engine or rotate the discs forward and land like a conventional aircraft. If you look at the rotation of the discs it's designed so that the outer tips will shatter on impact with the ground and fly away from the airframe in that situation. There is often a height band between being able to cushion on and being able to fly away where if you lose an engine it's going to hurt but smart people stay out of that. There may be other problems with operating the V-22 in Iraq etc. but I don't think engine failures is going to be one of them.

Err does the guy in the front seat get any use of his window with all that crap in front of him!!

The only other difference with a drill round would be the blue band, which signifies that it's a drill round. It should probably be yellow for a live one.