Out of sheer curiosity of this unique type, Dave Tonks tracks down a sim version of the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, but after trying his hand ends up wishing he hadn’t.
I often find that my interest in an aircraft is stirred by an article I read in one of the many aviation magazines I purchase on a regular basis. Recently I came across a terrific article about some lucky bugger who was invited to visit the USAF’s 71st Special Operations Squadron at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. The 71st Special Operations Squadron operate, amongst other aircraft, the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey.
The Osprey is not – as some describe – a tilt-wing aircraft, but a tilt-rotor aircraft. Its wing is fixed in place (for flight) and the two Rolls-Royce Liberty powerplants are mounted on pods at the end of the wings. These pods then rotate between 7.5° aft of vertical (for steep approaches) and zero degrees (horizontal). The three-blade rotors are huge at just over 38 feet in diameter, and as they can be folded and the wings rotated 90° in only two minutes, the V-22 is ship-friendly for storage purposes.
The Osprey’s performance is staggering, if you consider this aircraft to be a rotary wing (which it isn’t). It’s rate of climb at sea level at 47,000lbs. is 3200 feet per minute, with a maximum level speed of 300 knots at FL200. The engines are coupled by a shaft so that the counter-rotating proprotors are always receiving power from the ‘good’ engine.
Given the uniqueness of the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, and the fact that there’s fat chance I’ll ever get my hands on the real thing, I naturally had a desire to track down some sim software of the aircraft.
After reading the aforementioned article, I was soon conversing with my old friend Google to see if there actually was a V-22 currently in existence and available for FSX. Luckily for me – or so I thought at first – there is a V-22 Osprey marketed by Abacus.
Now I have in the past in these pages written reviews of a couple of Abacus flight sim products – the Cessna Skycatcher (January/February 2010 issue) and Boeing 787 (March/April 2010 issue) – and came away disappointed both times. I was hoping for better luck this time around, but unfortunately this Osprey add-on turned out to be a major disappointment.
As always, I start with a pan around the aircraft in Spot view. With the V-22, the walk-around didn’t take long because there isn’t much to see – detailing is very sparse, and for a payware add-on I do not expect to see things like warning decals on the engine nacelles printed in reverse. The level of detailing is about what you would expect from a default FSX aircraft, perhaps in some areas not even to that standard.
Stepping inside the cockpit to have a look around results in a bit of a shock. The overhead panel is just a blur of switches; not a single control there is operational. The main panel itself can only be described as toy-like, with very few operational items apart from the autopilot panel, which works well and is a must for stable flight. Flying the real-life V-22 is a bit of a handful due to the compromises inherent in an aircraft that transitions from rotary wing flight to fixed-wing flight, but flying the Abacus V-22 is even worse.
For a start, the aircraft will not hover. Even at idle, if the brakes are released the aircraft will accelerate to 25 knots and maintain that speed until some other flight control input is made. Taking off is therefore required from a runway (or at least a long flat area) and after reaching an altitude away from ground obstacles, transitioning the aircraft into forward flight by rotating the engine pods forward – this is achieved in FSX via the flap controls.
An approach to land results in the same basic problem - which is basically in that, with no way to transition the aircraft into a hover, touchdown is going to be at a minimum of 25 knots or thereabouts. Trying to raise the nose to wash off speed to force the aircraft into a hover simply results in pitch instability, with the aircraft continually pitching forward and back and maintaining around 25 knots forward speed.
The thought occurred to me that perhaps I wasn’t controlling the aircraft properly, so I had another look through the manual then visited Mr. Google and checked for other reviews. Surprise, surprise – I found four other instances in which simmers were unhappy with the flight dynamics of this model.
The final nail in the coffin is the soundset, which is basically so awful you have to turn it down to a whisper to put up with it.
There’s not much more to say about this one really. Here’s hoping either Abacus bring out a patch to sort out the flight dynamics, or someone else produces this iconic aircraft.
Take-off at Rwy 04 YBOA.
