Reply #14: The concept is good, but getting ti to work is another thing. [View All]

The theory is you can tilt the rotator from vertical to horizontal positions. While this sound easy, you still have to maintain the fuel lines and control lines intact. In a conventional plane or Helicopter these fuel lines and control lines always stay in the same position between the pilot (for the control lines) and the fuel tanks. In the Osprey these have to move as the engines moves. On top of this the engine moves WHILE IT IS ON, making vibration. A further complication is you can NOT have more than two point to hold the engines (as completed to the 4 or more point the engine in your car has). The engines pivots around these two points, one on each side of the engine. These NOT Small planes or engines. The only other plane that used pivoting engines is the Harrier (A plane know for being picky to operate with a huge lost do to engine failures ,but it has ejection seat for the pilot which seems to have reduced pilots killed by the plane). The osprey will NOT have ejection seat for anyone including the pilots.

The Russians when they deployed a VTOL fighter like the Harrier opted for two engines, one for vertical takeoff and landing the other for horizontal operations. The Russian VTOL Fighter requires TWO engines instead of one, but you could fix the engines to the fighter at more than two points, and fix the fuel and controls to each without having to worry about them breaking do to movement of the engines. You carry two engines instead of one, but most of the problems of the Harrier and the Osprey are avoided.

This has been the problem for Decades (Pivoting engines were first proposed in the 1920s and research has occurred since them, but the biggest problem has been the engines and how to keep getting fuel to them AND to maintain pilot control over the engines). Will these control issues ever be fixed? Maybe, but it might be better to do like the Russians, use two engines, even if this means more weight (But such a Solution, while possible for a fighter, would make the Osprey ever heavier and larger so that its use compared to a C-130 might not be worth the effort).

More on the Harrier
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/av-8.htm

On The Osprey
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/v-22.htm
At the bottom on this site, it shows the HUGE size of the Rotators needed on this type of plane, anther problem that that have to be addressed (Which often requires the engines to be at the end of the wing, reducing the pivot point to ONE from two, which adds to the problems of design.

On the YAK-38:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/row/yak-38.htm