Upcoming Osprey flight tests are do-or-die.

• Author: Fein, Geoff S.

The Marine Corps plans to stand up its first squadron of V-22 Ospreys by December 2003 and begin operational evaluation by November of the following year. By then, however, the tilt rotor aircraft will have gone through further flight and de-icing tests, before pilots take the plane out to sea.

The goal is to give pilots enough time to become well acquainted with the aircraft before the operational evaluation, said Osprey Program Manager Marine Col. Dan Schultz.

"[We are] two years away from deploying. By that time, we'll have pilots with a lot of experience on that plane before they ever take it out to a ship," Schultz said.

The V-22 is expected to join the fleet in December 2005, the earliest it can enter combat, Schultz said.

There will be eight crews (a total of 16 pilots) once the V-22 goes into a five-month operational evaluation. But program officials insist that deadlines are not a top priority. "The V-22 is event, and not schedule, driven," said one Marine official.

Once OP EVAL is completed, six V-22s will continue to run through flight tests while the remainder will go to VMMT04--the V-22 training squadron, said Ward Carroll, from V-22 public affairs.

Osprey 8 was to continue with High Rate of Descent (HROD) testing. But program officials and engineers believe they now have a handle on Vortex Ring State (VRS). That led to a decision to skip a second round of testing. VRS occurs when a rapidly descending helicopter flies through its own downwash and becomes unstable.

"We have a grasp of [VRS] now," Carroll said. "[There is] nothing we don't understand." Warning lights and alarms will give V-22 pilots 18 seconds to react before going into VRS, Schultz said. That warning gives them enough time to begin tilting the rotors to fly out of VRS.

"The V-22 is much less susceptible to Vortex Ring State [than a helicopter]," Schultz said.

Osprey 8 now will have to wait until a test group determines what to replace the HROD tests with. The group currently is looking at other test options, Carroll said.

Osprey 10, at the moment, is undergoing mission software testing. Osprey 21 is going through night-formation flight testing and austere landing tests. Osprey 22 is in mission software and austere landing testing. Osprey 23 (CV-22)--the Air Force Special Operations Command version--is undergoing operational testing as a training asset, Carroll said.

Osprey numbers 11 through 20 have been delivered to the Marine Corps and are awaiting Block A...