The Air Force is providing warfighters advanced and reliable tools to accomplish their mission by combining the capabilities of two distinctly different aircraft.

Although the CV-22 Osprey is still undergoing developmental tests, it began operational testing here in December with crews from Air Force Special Operations Command, headquartered at Hurlburt Field, Fla.

"The CV-22 is a tilt-rotor aircraft designed to take off like a helicopter -- either vertically or on a short-roll takeoff,” said Maj. Percy Dunagin, commander of Detachment 1, 18th Flight Test Squadron.

The nacelles, which is the prop-rotor engine combination, is then gradually moved from a vertical to a horizontal position so it converts into an airplane, he said.

"The CV-22 flies most of its mission with the props facing forward. Then when you prepare to land, it can tilt the nacelles back up to land like a helicopter," Major Dunagin said.

The aircraft's agility makes it capable of high-speed, high-altitude flight.

By bringing the capabilities of a medium-lift helicopter and the speed of a medium-lift, fixed-wing transport together, operators can do long-range, deep infiltrations and exfiltrations in areas that otherwise would not be done quickly enough, Major Dunagin said.

The detachment is performing training missions on the two CV-22s that call Edwards home.

Training the actual special operations crews at Edwards has allowed the test team to gather valuable data that can be passed on to the 71st Special Operations Squadron at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., said Maj. Steven Breeze, the detachment director of operations.

"Since most of us have never flown this aircraft before, you have to start a pyramid of training," Major Breeze said. "The top of the pyramid has to become experts so they can pass that knowledge all the way down to the actual students who will come out of pilot training to start flying.”

As part of their training, the CV-22 crews have been conducting formation flights here. Flight engineers, pilots and maintainers gather information on the CV-22 to increase understanding about the unique capabilities this plane will bring to special operations.

CV-22 preparation and preflight times are probably half of what it used to take on previous airframes -- helicopter or fixed wing, said Tech. Sgt. Matt Pipal, a flight engineer with Det. 1.

"The cockpit management system keeps the flight engineer and the rest of the crew aware of all the aircraft's systems," Sergeant Pipal said. "You can use this system data to make the proper decision on each particular aircraft discrepancy. Also, this data can be downloaded after the flight, so the aircrew and maintainers can get a good cross-flow on how the aircraft performed during the flight."

Turn-around time for CV-22 maintainers has also been cut nearly in half, said Tech. Sgt. Dennis Hudon, with Det.1’s quality assurance section.

With integrated avionics, the CV-22 can troubleshoot itself and provide information via a control panel. Maintainers can check hydraulic, oil and other levels without having to go into the gear boxes to visually inspect each level, Sergeant Hudon said.

"This is a very reliable aircraft," Sergeant Hudon said. "We've been doing the formation flights these past few weeks and we've actually been able to take the two aircraft and turn them each day to make these flights. For a normal aircraft squadron, doing this without a spare is pretty much unheard of. It just proves the reliability of this aircraft and how easy it is to maintain."

(Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)