V-22 at Farnborough
Tcabot113 added to the video link:
"The V-22 looks pretty good here. Notice no pitch down, roll off or whatever the latest BS is."
Assuming the video link is a tape of the V-22 demo performance at the ongoing airshow, I would offer the opinion that the demo profile is so limited as to provoke asking " Why fly at Farnborough if that's all we are going to do? ". No pitch down? Absolutely. No roll off? Absolutely. But also ( to borrow from the D. Black article ) no tactical agility? Absolutely. External cargo? No. SAR/rescue hoist demo? No.
The running landingat the end was a curious way to end the demo. Landing distance was about the same ( certainly no shorter ) as the C-17 normal demo for a short field landing and at least the C-17 then backs up and does a backward taxi turn into its parking space.
Just my guess, but between the US Secretary of State offering public apologies testifying to the safety of the V-22 to the Japanese Gov't, and the present international V-22 marketing efforts that make the papers, it would be reasonable to assume that the flight demo profile was orchestrated/coordinated at very high level and based on a dictat that " there will be no incident at Farnborough ".
TCabot, I agree that the machine looks good ( it has always " looked good " to me ), but the timidity of the flight demonstration profile, 23 years after first flight, conveys a different assessment.
Thanks,
John Dixson