Newcomers to this thread should read back about 100 pages before coming up with 'new' thoughts/ideas. (Pretty please) and perhaps this statement may be of use also:
3. Lack of Combat Maneuvering Capability
The V-22 is flown by a flight control computer – not the pilot. The pilot merely asks the computer for a given change of flight path, and the computer obliges by applying the necessary aerodynamic inputs to generate the requested change. Under near-equilibrium flight conditions, i.e., straight and level flight, steady turns, climbs, and descents, etc., the pilot’s request and the computer’s response are nearly simultaneous and the delivered inputs are exactly those requested by the pilot. However, under non-steady state conditions such as during evasive maneuvering, entry into autorotation, or unusual flight conditions such as vortex ring state, the flight control computer will attempt to protect the aircraft from structural overloads and other dynamical limits such as the flapping of the rotors (rotor disk not perpendicular to spindle shaft) by not producing the commands requested by the pilot’s controls positions. This tends to significantly reduce the severity of any hard maneuver commanded by the pilot - the goal of evasive maneuvering.
The fact that the pilot has enough control authority to damage the aircraft during hard maneuvering is the reason why the flight manual places restrictions on how much flight control inputs can be used during evasive maneuvering. That a pilot actually has enough control authority to “break” the aircraft is unique to V-22. Concerns over this issue in V-22 have resulted in a significant decrease in the amount of control authority given to the pilot, making the aircraft less and less maneuverable. Key tests of combat evasive maneuvering scheduled in 2002 remain, to my knowledge, to be completed. Sending V-22 into real combat situations without the completion of these critical tests is, in my opinion, irresponsible.
Proponents argue that V-22 has been “combat proven” given its operational experience in Iraq. I cannot agree with this position as the mission in Iraq was largely one of “combat circulation”, a euphemism for the logistical support of carrying passengers and cargo from one base to next in bus-route fashion. Combat assault, the mission for which V-22 was designed, remains unproven under realistic conditions. A deployment to Afghanistan would certainly serve that purpose but the risks associated with such a mission and the lack of lift capability in the Afghanistan Theater would seem to preclude such a deployment. Indeed, despite the rhetoric heard over the past five years about how V-22 is the ideally suited aircraft for combat operations in Afghanistan, the aircraft has not been deployed into that Theater to date. One could speculate on the reasons for this. I believe the principal reason is that operators and decision makers fully understand the risks involved both operationally and politically. http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20090623104701.pdf
Last edited by Dan Reno; 8th Oct 2009 at 15:59.