XV-15 litho - NASA's History Office

More documents

Recommendations

Info

60 NAVAIR managers as a means of determining the tilt rotor aircraft’s readiness and suitability for Navy missions. One of the leading advocates for Naval VTOL capability, and a strong proponent for the tilt rotor aircraft within NAVAIR at that time, was Harold (Hal) Andrews. By March 1978, discussions had been initiated between NAVAIR and the NASA/Army TRRA Project Office for the participation of the Navy in the XV- 15 activity. This new collaboration provided for the infusion of $4.0M of Navy funds into the program between 1979 and 1981. Of particular interest to the Navy was the timely opportunity to conduct concept feasibility flight testing of this unique aircraft type onboard a Navy carrier. The Navy funds permitted the Army/NASA TRRA Project Office to refurbish aircraft N702NA for flight, purchase the required spare parts, continue the contractor flight test activity, and initiate the Government concept evaluation (proof-of-concept) flight testing as planned. In addition, the use of the XV-15 for the Navy evaluation was consistent with the NASA goal of making available advanced aeronautical technology to the military. It was a “win-win” arrangement. George Unger of NAVAIR was assigned to develop an agreement for Navy participation in the TRRA program with the Army and NASA. Coordination for this between NASA Ames and the Navy was provided by Clark White, of the Ames Aeronautics and Flight Systems Directorate, who was on assignment to the Naval Air Systems Command in Washington, D.C., John Ward, Rotorcraft Manager at NASA Headquarters, provided HQ support. The Army/NASA/Navy Memorandum of Agreement signed in July 1978 led to a request from Rear Admiral E. R. Seymour, Commander, Naval Air systems Command to the CNO for a shipboard evaluation of the XV-15. The request cited key areas of interest as “gust and turbulence sensitivity, deck edge effect, handling qualities, pilot work load, and STOL performance.” Within a short time, the request was approved and arrangements were made to conduct sea trials aboard an LPH class ship operating in the California coastal waters off of San Diego. The story of that evaluation will be covered later. The timely funding provided by the Navy enabled the TRRA to be put back on its original plan.
Flight Envelope Expansion With the initial hover/low-speed/low-altitude evaluation and the 40-by 80-foot wind tunnel test completed and all identified technical issues addressed, authorization was provided by the Government to initiate Phase I of the Contractor Flight Test activity. This phase involved the initial venture into the full flight capabilities of the XV-15 TRRA. It became apparent that the Government Project Office and the Ames Airworthiness and Flight Safety Review Board (AFSRB) had a conservative view on the approach to envelope expansion. Bell, on the other hand, having had more recent experience in the development of new flight vehicles was anxious to more aggressively explore the flight capabilities of the XV-15. The directives from the Ames TRRA Project Office prevailed and Bell was required to accept the more cautious approach to envelope expansion. Expansion would be performed in small airspeed and nacelle angle increments and a thorough analysis of the test data would be conducted prior to the next configuration and airspeed test condition. The first flight of XV-15 N703NA (the aircraft available at Bell for the Contractor Flight Tests) occurred on April 23, 1979, at the Bell Flight Test Center, Arlington Municipal Airport, Texas. The Bell pilots assigned to the envelope expansion were Ron Erhart and Dorman Cannon, and the Bell test director was Shep Blackman. In mid June, when the XV-15 had explored flight regimes from the helicopter mode to a nacelle angle of 60-degrees, LTC Dan Dugan, the NASA/Army project pilot, made an evaluation flight. In his report to the Ames AFSRB, he recommended that the envelope expansion be continued, and permission was granted. After a total of 15 hours of flight testing and more than three months of expanding the flight envelope with carefully planned incremental steps, a major milestone was reached when, on July 24, 1979, the first full in-flight conversion from helicopter-to-airplane mode was accomplished. During that initial airplane mode flight lasting about 40 minutes, the crew evaluated climbs, descents, turns, accelerations, and decelerations and reached an airspeed of 160 knots. The Bell flight crew and test engineers were quite pleased with the results and envelope expansion in the airplane mode continued. The success of the Phase I effort now opened the door for the Proof-of-Concept Flight Tests, Phase II of the contractor’s XV-15 flight activity. This phase of the flight program involved a closer examination of the flight characteristics of the XV-15 and of the performance and operation of its systems. It also presented an opportunity for the Bell test pilots to train the Government flight crew and permitted an initial Government evaluation of the XV-15. In accordance with the Project Plan, the completion of the Proof-of-Concept phase was to be conducted at a Government test site. Because of the level of risk associated with the flight test of a low-time research aircraft, it was decided that 61
Page 1:
The History of The XV-15 Tilt Rotor
Page 5:
Contents Prologue . . . . . . . . .
Page 9:
Dedication The story of the success
Page 13:
Foreword The development of tilt ro
Page 17 and 18:
List of Figures Figure 1 Leonardo d
Page 19 and 20:
Figure 41 Simultaneous static test
Page 21 and 22:
Figure A-2 Transcendental Model 2 t
Page 23 and 24:
List of Acronyms AARL Army Aeronaut
Page 25:
TRENDS Tilt Rotor Engineering Datab
Page 28 and 29:
Figure 2. Illustration of vertical
Page 30 and 31:
Figure 4. McDonnell XV-1 compound h
Page 32 and 33:
Figure 7. Henry Berliner tiltpropel
Page 34 and 35:
Top: Figure 9. The Baynes Heliplane
Page 36 and 37: Figure 13. Illustration from the Ha
Page 38 and 39: Figure 17. Bob Lichten, extreme lef
Page 40 and 41: Figure 20. Tiedown tests of the XV-
Page 42 and 43: 16 Research and Engineering), obtai
Page 44 and 45: 18 management continued to show int
Page 46 and 47: 20 Building the Technology Base Aer
Page 48 and 49: Figure 25. Bell 25-ft. diameter pro
Page 50 and 51: Figure 28. Performance tests of 5-f
Page 52 and 53: Figure 31. Bell 25-ft. diameter pro
Page 54 and 55: 28 Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft Pro
Page 56 and 57: 30 During the late 1960s and early
Page 58 and 59: 32 range of loading conditions and
Page 60 and 61: 34 The initial projected cost of $4
Page 62 and 63: Figure 35. Illustration of the Boei
Page 64 and 65: Figure 36. 1/5 scale XV-15 model in
Page 66 and 67: 40 under the contract. To accomplis
Page 68 and 69: 42 Aircraft Development The primary
Page 70 and 71: 44 Test stand angle box Test stand
Page 72 and 73: Figure 40. Proprotor response to co
Page 74 and 75: Figure 41. Simultaneous static test
Page 76 and 77: 50 helicopters. For the conversion
Page 78 and 79: 52 Prior to the start of flight ope
Page 80 and 81: Figure 44. Initial Bell tiedown sho
Page 82 and 83: 56 degrees 25 and a brief assessmen
Page 84 and 85: Figure 45. XV-15 in the Ames Resear
Page 88 and 89: Figure 46. Government and Bell pers
Page 90 and 91: Figure 49. Tiedown test facility at
Page 92 and 93: 66 Wheel height Top: Figure 51. Met
Page 94 and 95: 68 Symmetric beam mode Antisymmetri
Page 96 and 97: Figure 55. XV-15 during short takeo
Page 98 and 99: Top: Figure 56. Flow visualization
Page 100 and 101: 74 during “degraded” flight con
Page 102 and 103: Figure 59. Hover acoustics tests du
Page 104 and 105: 78 Nose weight Top: Figure 61. Typi
Page 106 and 107: 80 Following the completion of cont
Page 108 and 109: 82 After the proprotors stopped, th
Page 110 and 111: 84 sudden stoppage of the right eng
Page 112 and 113: 86 A reconversion to the helicopter
Page 114 and 115: 88 Paris Air Show By early 1981, th
Page 116 and 117: 90 enroute from Farnborough to Fran
Page 118 and 119: Top: Figure 66. Senator Goldwater i
Page 120 and 121: Figure 69. Shipboard evaluations of
Page 122 and 123: Figure 71. XV-15 at the New York Po
Page 124 and 125: 98 Crash (October 16 and 17, 1991).
Page 126 and 127: 100 The End of an Era By the mid 19
Page 128 and 129: Top: Figure 73. XV-15 at the Dallas
Page 130 and 131: 104 management system was very effe
Page 132 and 133: 106 could make use of the same flig
Page 134 and 135: Figure 76. The Bell tilt rotor eagl
Page 136 and 137:
110 demonstrations two years earlie
Page 138 and 139:
112 Future Tilt Rotor Aircraft By t
Page 140 and 141:
114 tiltrotor aircraft program. Thi
Page 142 and 143:
116 Model 1-G Characteristics Power
Page 144 and 145:
Figure A-3. Transcendental Model 2
Page 146 and 147:
Figure A-4. XV-3 three-view drawing
Page 148 and 149:
Figure A-5. XV-3 inboard drawing, s
Page 150 and 151:
Nacelle angle (degrees) 124 120 90
Page 152 and 153:
Figure A-8. General layout and majo
Page 154 and 155:
Figure A-9. Side view inboard profi
Page 156 and 157:
Figure A-11. XV-15 height-velocity
Page 158 and 159:
132 Weight Design . . . . . . . . .
Page 160 and 161:
134 WBS LEVEL: Bell Army/NASA I II
Page 162 and 163:
136 US Army Air Mobility Research a
Page 164 and 165:
138 Army/NASA (continued) Staff (19
Page 166 and 167:
140 Appendix C—Chronology 1452-15
Page 168 and 169:
142 1968 Boeing Vertol awarded cont
Page 170 and 171:
144 November, Initial piloted simul
Page 172 and 173:
146 24 March 1982 XV-15 demonstrate
Page 174 and 175:
148 30 July 1987 FAA/NASA/DOD Tilt
Page 176 and 177:
150 21 August 1990 V-22 reached 340
Page 178 and 179:
152 14 June 1993 The Department of
Page 180 and 181:
154 Appendix D—Awards and Records
Page 182 and 183:
Figure D-1. Jean Tinsley, first wom
Page 184 and 185:
Figure E-3. XV-15 flying by the Sta
Page 186 and 187:
Figure E-7. Bell test pilots Roy Ho
Page 188 and 189:
Figure E-11. Ken Wernicke, Bell til
Page 190 and 191:
164 Appendix F—Bibliography Tilt
Page 192 and 193:
166 Ball, J. C. “XV-15 Shipboard
Page 194 and 195:
168 Churchill, G. B.; Dugan, D. C.
Page 196 and 197:
170 Edenborough, H. K. “Investiga
Page 198 and 199:
172 Harendra, P. B.; Joglekar, M. J
Page 200 and 201:
174 Kvaternik, Raymond G. “Studie
Page 202 and 203:
176 Magee, J. P.; Pruyn, R. “Pred
Page 204 and 205:
178 Martin, Stanley, Jr.; Erb, Lee
Page 206 and 207:
180 Rutledge, Charles K.; George, A
Page 208 and 209:
182 Tischler, M. B.; Leung, J. G. M
Page 210 and 211:
184 Whitaker, H. L.; Cheng, Yi. “
Page 212 and 213:
186 Daniel C. Dugan Daniel Dugan gr
Page 214 and 215:
188 Carnet, 88 Carpenter, Ron, 91 C
Page 216 and 217:
190 Moffett Airfield, Moffett Field
Page 219 and 220:
Monographs in Aerospace History Lau
Page 222:
National Aeronautics and Space Admi
show all

XV-15 litho - NASA's History Office

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?