In the planned test programme, the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey will enter extreme, almost unexplored regions of its flight envelope at altitudes presumed sufficient to recover from the resulting gyrations. But there is no guarantee that forces generated by high sideslip or other motion will not break something essential, such as the rotor, or that the intact aircraft will not enter a mode of flight from which recovery is impossible.

Further, the test programme has the dangerous duty of checking that lethal mechanical and computer problems have been cured, and new ones have not been created.

Earlier full scale development aircraft had ejection seats. The engineering and manufacturing development aircraft to be used in the tests will not but should. Otherwise:

test pilots may be killed; test planners and pilots may avoid regions of the flight envelope that ought to be explored; production aircraft users will lack the confidence that comes from knowing tests were done by pilots with a second means of landing.

Charles McClutchen Bethesda, Maryland, USA

Source: Flight International