Bell Boeing has been awarded a $490 million contract to begin engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) of the CV-22 special-operations variant of the Osprey military tilt-rotor. The contract calls for the joint venture to design, integrate and install special-operations-unique systems, including terrain-following/terrain-avoidance radar, and additional fuel tanks, in the baseline V-22. The MV-22 EMD aircraft 9 will be remanufactured into a CV-22 production-representative configuration in 1999. Flight-testing of the special-operations variant run up until 2002. The MV-22 EMD aircraft 8 will be used for initial development and testing of the radar and additional fuel tanks.
Source: Flight International
