XV-15 litho - NASA's History Office

from the Naval Air Test Center,
Patuxent River, Maryland, and Dorman
Cannon of Bell, performed the Navy’s
flight evaluations of the XV-15.
During the week of the evaluations (figure
69), the XV-15 TRRA once again
performed faultlessly. It completed a
total of 54 operations which included
short- and vertical-landings and takeoffs
with the LPH headed into the wind as
well as with crosswinds over the deck.
It successfully performed all shipboard
operations that helicopters would normally
have performed including shipside
hover at various distances over
water during simulated air-sea rescue.
There were no adverse effects with one rotor positioned OGE and the other IGE.
Pilot evaluations during such conditions were that the XV-15 was stable and easily
controllable as predicted based on data from the prior ground-effect performance
evaluation at Ames. Jim Lane, Demo Giulianetti, and Mike Bondi were the Ames
project personnel assigned to the support the operations onboard the USS Tripoli
during all phases of the XV-15 shipboard evaluation flights. Following the carrier
operations, LCDR Ball reported that he “was struck by how easy and just plain fun
it was to control.” 54 Postoperation interviews with deck personnel indicated that
deck-handling of the XV-15 was quite manageable; that tiedown operations after
retrieval and preparations prior to launch were no worse than, or, as some deck personnel
reported, were easier and quicker than with helicopters.
Later Flight Demonstrations
While Ames continued flight tests to expand the evaluation and documentation
of the XV-15’s characteristics with aircraft N703NA in accordance with the
objectives of the TRRA project, Bell flew aircraft N702NA for a wide range of
missions as was permitted by the contract modification executed in October
1981. These included assessments of engineering enhancements, aircraft evaluations
by guest pilots, and flights demonstrating military and civil tilt rotor applications.
Therefore, in September of 1984, the Bell XV-15 team embarked on a
tour to demonstrate the civil and military potential of this aircraft type. This
would become one of the highlights of the project and was to be known as the
“Eastern U.S. Tour.” This three-week adventure was managed by Ron Reber,
Bell’s Program Manager and LTC Cliff McKiethan, Department of Defense liaison
for the Government Project Office.
54 John C. Ball, “Tilt-Rotor Memories,” Naval Helicopter Association Rotor Review, Number 19,
November 1987.
Figure 70.
XV-15 during nap-of-theearth
flight demonstration at
Ft. Rucker, Alabama.
(Ames Photograph
AC86-0140-25)
95