Some people seem to make the mistake of thinking that the Chinook rotors act independantly of each other all the time. This is not...I think...the case. They overlap by, what, 30%? Not only that, the masts are at different angles with respect to each other. Even in a hover the Chinook rotors are interacting with each other.
Not so the V-22. SAS says that it's neither a helicopter nor an airplane and that's incorrect. In a hover the V-22 is most definitely a helicopter...*two* helicopters, actually, connected by a stick, with a WHOLE LOT MORE lateral polar inertia than a Chinook has longitudinal polar inertia (think majorette's baton). How many Chinooks and Sea Knights over the years have done a forward or rearward somersault and crashed inverted because one of their rotors got into VRS and other didn't?
The proprotors on a V-22 do act individually...and need to act individually because it has been discovered that when they interact with each other (as in the shipboard testing) the results can be nearly disastrous. Or have we forgotten that for the sake of convenience? Apparently the Air Force didn't read or listen to what the Navy discovered about proprotor downwash interaction.
We don't know enough about the recent Eglin crash yet to know whether it really was "roll off" or what. Maybe Maj. Luce can enlighten us if he has any recollection of *this* crash. (Personally I wouldn't bet on it. If not, he may go down in history as the most forgetful pilot ever since my 80 year-old Uncle Ned, from whom we finally had to take the keys to his Cessna 140 away after he landed, parked, tied it down and walked away from it while it was still running! We were, like, "Uhh Ned, did you lock your plane?" Then he started patting his pockets for the nonexistent keys.)
But whether the Eglin crash was the result of "A-VRS roll off" or "wingtip vortice roll off" makes no difference. The aircraft rolled over and crashed (we know at least that much) which strongly hints at unequal lift on one side. It still strengthens my point that the tiltrotor concept is DEFECTIVE. When one proprotor loses lift that piece of crap flips over on its back and crashes. It is only a miracle that anyone on the Eglin aircraft survived. (And don't give me that BS about "See how survivable a tiltrotor crash is!")
I've said this all along. And some of you nitwits blather on and on about how, "All you have to do is beep the nacelles forward and fly out of it!" Piece of cake! And now it happens again (maybe?) and the same nitwits are saying, "Oh no, loss of lift on one side of the V-22 is NOT THE SAME as A-VRS!" Yeah, right. Asymmetric loss of lift is asymmetric loss of lift. Why don't you guys just admit it? Okay, geniuses, what's the EP for "Roll-Off That You Think Might Not Be Caused By A-VRS?" And how do you differentiate between the two when you're down close to the ground and the thing starts to flip over on its back? And don't give me that Henny Youngman line: "Don't do this." Do not tell me that the crews should merely avoid any flight regime that *might* cause roll-off.
So what's next? "Let's not do formation flying with them." (And you KNOW that's coming...but...we learned that after Marana and the shipboard trials, didn't we? I guess not.) "Let's not use them for gunnery." (It was never intended to have a gun. There was never a V-22 gunship model proposed.) Let's just keep whittling down what the V-22 *cannot* do until we find what's left that it *can* do safely. Which in my book is nothing.
"Fatal Flaw." I'm telling you. Watch for it soon.