The Osprey and a sick little boy

Happy Valentine's Day. Last night was crazy hair day at church for the kid's club program. Joshua was excited and you can see the results in the picture. Today was also crazy hair day at school, but he won't be going since his runny nose turned into a bad cold in the middle of the night. At midnight he was actually in a hot shower using the steam to get his nose unclogged. It worked and he slept through the rest of the night. But he is still pretty sick. We were planning to drive to Porterville this weekend to visit my aunt and uncle at their farm, but looks like we may be staying home. No need to share the gift of germs.

As I mentioned last week, Jon had to take a trip within the country where he currently lives and below is a description of what he got to travel in. Pretty cool after all these years.

"When I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1981, my recruiter told me that when I graduated from boot camp and went out to the Fleet, I'd get to ride in the latest thing in aviation, a tilt-rotor aircraft that the Marine Corps was developing and would field in the near future. Now, after more than 25 years, the MV-22 Osprey is actually in service, and I had an opportunity to fly in one recently.

It is a very distinctive aircraft, and my first impressions were "solid" and "capable." Solid because it appears to be very strongly constructed, with the wing structure, engines and "propellers" seemingly dwarfing the underslung fuselage (which is actually fairly spacious, with room for 24 "combat loaded" Marines and their gear, plus the crew). Capable because each of those factors are necessary features of the advanced capability offered by the Osprey.

I experienced three take-offs and landings, one of each involving some (limited) use of the runway, with the other two of each being vertical (onto and from a helicopter pad). The rate of climb the Osprey is capable of was (in the experience of it) impressive, and it's cruising airspeed significantly greater (and more economical) than any rotary wing competition (I suspect the Osprey is also capable of operation at higher elevations than rotary wing aircraft, though I'm guessing the VTOL capability is extremely dimished or non-existant at some threshold).

The pilot of our aircraft had turned on some green marker lights that were apparently at the tip of each "propellor" blade (OK, I know it's called a tilt-rotor aircraft, but my experience was that they functioned for a greater duration of total flight as propellors), so as the aircraft taxied to the apron to pick us up (with the engines pointing almost vertical and the props acting as rotors), the distinctive features of the aircraft were dramatically highlighted. This first take-off we utilized a (very short) section of runway (a tech-rep on the plane with us said that the rotors are tilted about ten degrees off vertical simply as a gas-saving measure), and once airborne, the still-lighted spinning disks very rapidly rotated the rest of the way into a "normal" fixed-wing aircraft position. I was sort of surpised at the speed of the engine rotation, as I had expected it to be more gradual, but then, I know little of the principles of flight. The transition was smooth, and I do not recall being able to identify by feel (apparent or impending stall) that the transition from vertical flight to lift-enabled flight had taken place.

Anyway, my dry remarks here do little to capture the unique experience of flying on this aircraft, nor do they adequately communicate the exciting fulfillment of over 25 years of anticipation...

Semper Fi, JarHedJon"

My brother-in-law posted a comment with this link so you can see what the osprey looks like: http://tinyurl.com/3e3f3l