Bell is preparing to begin final assembly of the initial two production V-22 Osprey tiltrotors at its new Amarillo plant, for delivery to the US Marine Corps. It marks the end of the programme's engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase.
Final assembly of the V-22 will switch to Amarillo in Texas with the delivery in March of Boeing's third production fuselage to the new Bell tiltrotor assembly centre. The first 35 of a planned 1,200 workers have just started work at an existing hangar, 155km (300nm) northwest of Dallas. A new purpose built plant is due for completion by the end of the year, which will also assemble the planned smaller BA609 civil tiltrotor.
Boeing's Philadelphia plant has already delivered its first two V-22 production fuselages to Bell's Arlington plant near Forth Worth. Arlington will continue manufacturing the V-22 composite wing and nacelle after assembly moves to Amarillo, while the empennage will remain with Aerostructures. Work on the first productionMV-22 (aircraft 11) is nearing completion and it will delivered to the USMC in May, followed by the second two months later.
The USMC plan to start operational evaluation in September using four V-22s, including the first Amarillo-assembled tiltrotor and aircraft 10 - the final EMD vehicle. The initial phase of validation testing is already under way with a month-long series of V-22 sea trials aboard the helicopter assault ship USS Saipan using the final EMD aircraft.
Boeing and Bell have orders for 17 MV-22s out of a USMC requirement for 360. The remaining three aircraft (13-15) out of the first five ordered in fiscal year 1997, along with the initial four (aircraft 16-19) from the second FY1998 batch of seven, are now in production at Philadelphia and Arlington.
Defence department planning calls a further 10 MV-22s to be funded in FY2000, 16 more in FY2001, along with the first four CV-22 versions of a Special Operations Command (SOC) requirement for 50. Production for the USMC will increase to 20 in FY2002 and then stay at 30 per year in FY2003 through to 2010.
Source: Flight International
