Advertisement

A New Angle in Transportation : Tiltrotor aircraft may solve the problem of congestion at civilian airports.

Share
<i> Times Staff Writer </i>

A scene from the year 2000:

The strange-looking craft sits on a slab the size of a small parking lot as passengers file out of the adjacent Amtrak station in Anaheim.

When all 75 are aboard, the 6,000-horsepower engines on each wing tip begin driving a pair of propellers, 38 feet in diameter and pointed straight up.

The giant blades spin faster and faster, and the craft slowly lifts like a helicopter until it hangs in the sky above the vertiport. Then the engine pods smoothly rotate 90 degrees, aiming the propellers forward like those on a fixed-wing plane, and the craft begins picking up horizontal speed. In less than a minute, it is flying north at 300 miles an hour.

Advertisement

Ninety minutes later, the “Sacramento Shuttle” completes its flight as it settles to the ground at another downtown vertiport, this one only blocks from the state Capitol.

That futuristic scene may seem farfetched.

But it should not, because the prototype of an aircraft that blends the speed of an airplane with the agility of a helicopter exists today in the Marine Corps’ V-22 Osprey. And although the so-called tiltrotor was designed to shuttle combat troops rather than commuters, transportation experts predict that it could one day revolutionize commercial air travel, particularly in packed population centers along the East and West coasts.

“I think the solutions to air travel and crowded airports and skies in Southern California are to be found in new technology, like the tiltrotor,” said Gary L. Proctor, a longtime member of the Orange County Airport Commission. “I think the bottom line has to be technology. There is just no land to build new airports. There is less and less open space.”

The V-22 flew for the first time last March at Bell Helicopter Textron’s Flight Research Center in Arlington, Tex. It stayed aloft for 15 minutes as scheduled, and spectators marveled at its stability and quietness. Built jointly by Bell and Boeing Helicopters, it is designed to go as fast as 350 m.p.h., as high as 30,000 feet and as far as 600 miles--fully loaded--without refueling.

But while the flight in March was hailed as a significant step for aviation, the tiltrotor’s development--already eight months behind schedule--was recently thrown into doubt. In a belt-tightening move, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney this spring cut it from the proposed 1990 defense budget.

Last week, the House Armed Services Committee argued for two days before restoring $157 million for the tiltrotor by taking money from the B-2 stealth bomber program. But the $295-billion defense appropriations package must now be approved by the full House, where debate is tentatively set to begin July 24.

Advertisement

To get the first half-dozen training and testing craft from drawing board to runway, the government already has spent nearly $1.8 billion. But the program calls for spending about $26 billion more for 657 tiltrotors, of which 552 would go to the Marines. Eventually, each craft is expected to carry a price tag of between $20 million and $25 million.

Unless the new vehicle gains support in Congress, said John Zuk, chief of civil technology at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., the cut could prove fatal to the civilian--as well as military--tiltrotor program.

“In the United States, nearly all revolutionary aircraft have been developed by the military,” said Zuk, who has been involved in the non-military research and development of tiltrotor technology for 11 years. “Unlike most other countries, the United States does not subsidize development by commercial aircraft manufacturers. I’m certainly not advocating subsidies, but research and development of aircraft is very expensive.”

Zuk said the helicopter, the jet engine and jet transports were all developed by the military, and some experts question whether they would now be in use if the research and testing had not been publicly underwritten.

At a time when America is struggling to improve its balance of trade, Zuk said, it would be “a shame” if the United States loses its edge in tiltrotor development or has to share the technology with another country.

Bell President Leonard M. Horner told aerospace writers at the Paris Air Show recently that he would get the V-22 built even if he had to go to France for financing.

Advertisement

Noise Level Lower

“The Wright brothers came here after they couldn’t sell their airplane in the United States and started the whole thing. People forget that,” Horner said at the briefing at Paris’ Le Bourget Airport. But Horner told reporters that he was moderately optimistic that Congress would put the tiltrotor program back in the budget.

Aviation engineers contend that the V-22 has much less noise impact than conventional military helicopters because most of its sounds can be confined to its takeoff and landing zones. When flying in its airplane mode, the craft is said to be quieter than the quietest commercial airliner in service today.

“You’d hardly be able to hear it when it is flying forward. It kind of whispers,” said Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Donald E. P. Miller, commanding general of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, which includes units at El Toro, Tustin and Camp Pendleton.

For the Marines, the Osprey was designed to carry 24 combat-equipped troops. Had it been available in 1980, said Brig. Gen. Harry Blot, the Marines’ V-22 project manager, the craft might have altered the course of history: It is ideal for missions such as the attempt to rescue American hostages from Iran.

Three of the eight conventional helicopters used in that unsuccessful operation broke down and another crashed into a fixed-wing plane at a secret refueling point outside Tehran.

“This is almost like it was made for Iran,” Blot said, “as if somebody went out and said, ‘Gee, what would I build to do Iran again?’ ”

Advertisement

Which is exactly why the Air Force wants to buy 55 of them, said Air Force Lt. Col. John Creveling of the U.S. Special Operations Command. He said the V-22 was the top priority for the joint military command because it needed an aircraft that could take off vertically and fly at high speed for special operations.

Could Reduce Traffic

“That is what we do for a living,” Creveling said, adding that the Osprey can fly higher, faster and farther than any military helicopter.

Some civilian agencies, including the California Division of Aeronautics--part of the State Department of Transportation--and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, are looking at the Osprey and tiltrotor technology as a way of dealing with future congestion in the air and on the ground. Rather than moving all commercial airline passengers from centrally located airports, a smaller network of four-acre vertiports could be built to shuttle passengers from city to city or within a city.

Travelers could also be transported by tiltrotor craft to larger airports for long-distance flights, thus reducing some of the vehicle traffic at main airports such as Los Angeles International and John Wayne in Orange County.

Orange County Airport Commissioner Proctor, a private pilot, said the tiltrotor could succeed where the helicopter failed as a popular mode of transportation because it will be able to carry more people at higher speeds.

Passengers also may feel more at ease while flying because the craft does not have to tilt forward to gain speed as a helicopter does.

Advertisement

“I think the flying public will perceive this more as an airplane than a helicopter,” said Ron Reber, manager of Bell Helicopter’s tiltrotor program. “They will feel a little bit safer. I hate to say that in a negative way, but people see a helicopter, and it doesn’t look like it will fly.”

In a study partially financed by the Transportation Department and the Federal Aviation Administration, officials in New York and New Jersey were told that, for a tiltrotor to be put into service in the Northeast Corridor, it must be “cost-effective, reliable and attractive to passengers.”

Search for New Site

“I think if the tiltrotor is cost-effective, it will have a place in commercial air travel in the United States,” said USAir pilot Capt. Skip Budny of Clinton, Pa., a former military helicopter pilot who is interested in the tiltrotor concept. He said the seat-per-mile cost of a tiltrotor flying from a downtown location in one city to a downtown location in another will have to be low enough to be competitive with flights from one big regional airport to another.

The Board of Supervisors in Orange County has appointed a committee to search for a new airport site that could relieve the growing congestion at John Wayne Airport. The Airport Site Coalition has until October to come up with a recommendation.

For residents, it is often an emotional subject, according to one county official who said: “Airports are much like prisons; everyone wants them but not in their neighborhoods.”

V-22 The V-22 Osprey, developed by Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing Helicopter, is a tilt-rotor craft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies horizontally like an airplane at up to 350 mph. Commercial and Civilian Use Although the craft was developed for the Marine Corps, its use in commercial aviation could drastically reduce the amount of land required for new airports, especially in urban areas where open space is scarce. Building tops could be a common landing spot for commuters. The craft takes off like a helicopter and virtually turns into an airplane within a matter of seconds. Features of Military V-22 1. Inflight refueling probe 2. Terrain-following radar 3. Night vision system 4. Rescue hoist 5. 24 folding troop seats 6. Cargo hooks 7. Loading ramp 8. 2 turboshaft engines

Advertisement
Advertisement