As the dust settles on the US-led coalition operations in Iraq, where the range and speed of the Bell Boeing V-22 military tiltrotor would have been particularly effective, the aircraft's development programme has taken another tentative step forward.
The harsh terrain, long-range missions and rapid troop insertion requirements of forces in Iraq were the exact conditions envisaged for the aircraft to excel and following a successful Defense Acquisition Board (DAB) report last month, fielding of the V-22 is looking more secure.
Although the DAB stopped short of an immediate increase in production rates, the endorsement by the previously sceptical Pete Aldridge, outgoing undersecretary of defence for acquisition, bolstered the programme team's efforts.
A decision is now expected in August to raise the minimum sustained production rate in 2005, a move critical to the goal of cutting $10 million from the $68 million unit cost of the MV-22 variant. A review in advance of that decision will be conducted by the overarching integrated product team (OIPT).
If the production increase is given the green light it is expected that manufacture will remain at 11 aircraft a year until 2005 and then ramp up to 20 MV-22s and air force variant CV-22s in 2006 and further to 31 in 2007 and 35 in 2008. By 2009, 39 aircraft a year would be manufactured.
In the meantime the V-22 integrated test team has passed the 500h milestone, almost a year to the day since the programme returned to flight.
V-22 joint programme manager Col Dan Shultz says: "I am proud of the entire team's accomplishments as we continue to execute a safe and methodical flight programme. From Bell Boeing which has built a reliable airframe to Roll-Royce that has produced the Liberty engine, this programme has had a great 12 months."
Source: Flight Daily News
