Author Topic: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors  (Read 25754 times)

Offline kitnut617

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AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« on: May 14, 2018, 11:03:56 PM »
I've been working my way through a couple of other tilt-rotor projects. With lots of consultations with Evan who has helped me form my ideas.


Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #1 on: May 14, 2018, 11:08:04 PM »
From a couple of years ago, I thought about an E-22 AWAC. Thoughts came about after what I've read about the Falklands War and the lack of AEW the Brits didn't have.

These couple of pics are what I thought would work.  The idea is the radome would extend downwards on a streamlined boom. I'm still working on the mechanism for that and I'm using an old 1/72 Esci kit as a base.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2018, 11:10:41 PM »
This next one is much more involved, the idea is Bell produce a gunship variant of the V-22. Going with their Cobra heritage and mixing in the V-22 systems.

Offline Kerick

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2018, 11:17:25 PM »
Very interesting! I’ve often thought about what a gunship version would look like.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2018, 11:18:13 PM »
As has been commented here and on other forums, where to put the armament on a V-22 is a bit of a problem as anything positioned to fire forward while in forward flight would mean everything has to be in front of the prop-rotor to avoid conflict with spinning prop-rotor and ordnance flying forward. 

But I thought of a way around it and thanks to Evan, the idea has progressed quite a bit lately. My first thought were to shorten the blades of the prop-rotor but then add more of them to each engine. I worked it out I could get five blades around the original spinner but then Evan told me I would have to add the counter-weights to each blade. He said six blades would be better as they would self-balance each opposing blade.

So I reworked what I had done and found six wouldn't fit around the original spinner, so I sourced a bigger spinner where six blades would work.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2018, 03:04:19 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2018, 11:22:15 PM »
The bigger spinner meant that I had to rework the nacelle to match the spinner diameter. After some more consultation with Evan, I found I could use the original engine part of the nacelle and the exhaust area but then attach them to a new part for the gearbox area.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2018, 07:50:55 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #6 on: May 14, 2018, 11:37:15 PM »
Then it was on to figuring out what to do with the blades. I was going to shorten them by a scale two feet (8.5mm) which quickly went to 2'-6" (10.5mm). But then I thought what if we used a BERP blade tip --- I thought I would use a blade end from an EH-101 Merlin as an example for the shape and discovered that the Merlin and Osprey blades have the same chord length. So it was just a simple matter of copying the Merlin BERP end for my prop-rotors.  However, I decided to shorten them again by another scale foot (14.5mm).

In this pic, the blade is still only shortened by 8.5mm, I'll get some more pics taken sometime today of how the project has progressed.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #7 on: May 14, 2018, 11:40:12 PM »
The six blade rotor has a bit of creditability because this Westland project was earmarked for them

Offline Jeffry Fontaine

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #8 on: May 15, 2018, 12:55:14 AM »
What propeller spinner did you select for your increased spinner size on this project?  Something from a late Mark Spitfire?
"Every day we hear about new studies 'revealing' what should have been obvious to sentient beings for generations; 'Research shows wolverines don't like to be teased" -- Jonah Goldberg

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #9 on: May 15, 2018, 01:20:19 AM »
That's right Jeff, I've used a 1/48 Griffon engine Spitfire spinner (this is a 1/72 scale AV-22).  For the fuselage I've used a wrecked A-10 as a donor and an Italeri V-22 for all of the V-22 parts.  For the nacelle modifications I've used a C-130 'buddy' refueling pod for the new gearbox shape, and for the scoops at the rear end, the large one is from an A-26 Invader underwing gun pod and the smaller one is half a Harrier cold nozzle.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2018, 01:39:31 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #10 on: May 15, 2018, 01:29:40 AM »
Reducing the blade length and increasing the quantity of them was because of where I was going to put the ordnance. I had decided to use the V-22 undercarriage bays which I thought would need to be in sponsons. For these I have used a pair of C-130 underwing fuel tanks.

Top pic here, you can see I've attached a short wing stub which comes from a V-22 wing, the idea is that the sponsons will hold the u/c bay and a weapons bay in each one. I've worked out that I could fit up to ten 2.76" (70mm) RP's to the inside of each weapons bay door (there's four of them) and then another fifteen to the inside of each u/c bay door (one for each sponson). Then mounted to the inside of each weapons bay door will be a pair of Hellfires.

In the second pic down, you can see the original u/c bay size, I reduced the length of it so the bay would hold RP's from a LAU-3/61. These would be the short ones as you can see by the RP pod. The weapons bay will have RP's of the longer variety from a LAU-3/61 because the bay length is dictated by the length of the Hellfires.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2018, 01:37:39 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #11 on: May 15, 2018, 01:36:03 AM »
You can see I've modified the rear of the sponson with a chisel shape fairing, I developed it out in my AutoCAD. It has a round top to match the tank shape but the bottom has a different shape as you can see in the pics in the previous post.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #12 on: May 15, 2018, 01:52:18 AM »
I decided that this AV-22 was going to have a chin turret in typical helicopter gunship style. I've used all the turret bits from an Airfix P-61. What you have is the turret body which gets pinned to a mounting plate which would then be glued to the inside of the fuselage, but a problem arose where I didn't have enough room for it all under the cockpit tub. But the solution to it was very simple, I cut the floor off the front cockpit tub and then glued the mounting plate in it's place (you can just see the black mounting plate under the seat in the top pic).  I then removed the four .5's from the elevating part and mounted an M61 Vulcan taken from an AC-130 kit. I had to make the fuselage under the nose so it would lay parallel with the ground because the gun elevating bit doesn't go upwards and so that the turret fairing is positioned correctly.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #13 on: May 15, 2018, 02:03:58 AM »
As I said previously, I've used an A-10 fuselage, the shape of it without the engines looks a bit like a Cobra, only bigger. The fuselage is almost the same length as a V-22.  Because I wanted the classic helicopter gunship cockpit arrangement for it, I noticed that if I tilted the nose downwards so that the top of the rear fuselage was parallel with the ground, it would give quite a good 'stepped-cockpit' (top pic). What I did was removed the GAU-8, the nose wheel bay and the A-10 cockpit out of the nose area altogether. Then I extended the A-10 canopy rail line further down towards the nose until I found a spot where the A-10 windshield fitted naturally (which is quite close to the nose). I used a cockpit tub from an F-14 (switching them around) and then the modified V-22 instrument panel. I then found that the F-14 canopy has a very similar profile where the windshield to canopy face is. The front cockpit is still an 'in-progress' position at the moment though.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2018, 02:06:44 AM by kitnut617 »

Offline elmayerle

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #14 on: May 15, 2018, 02:05:28 AM »
Looking good!!  I was happy to help sort this one out.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #15 on: May 15, 2018, 02:08:22 AM »
Thanks Evan, all your help has been really appreciated ---

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #16 on: May 15, 2018, 02:16:14 AM »
Couple of interesting things about the V-22 and the A-10, they're practically the same length, the horizontal tail plane are almost the same span and have similar chord lengths and the fins are very similar. I'm going to keep the A-10 tail plane but use the V-22 fins, all I had to do was reposition the tail plane from the bottom of the A-10 fuselage and attach it to the top side (top pic).


Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #17 on: May 15, 2018, 02:17:54 AM »
These pics show how it will look once it's finished. What I've been doing is working on one side first, figure out what problems are arising, then I'll do the other side.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #18 on: May 15, 2018, 03:24:10 AM »
Right now I'm trying to decide how the sponson stub wing will attach to the fuselage, I could just trim the end to match the fuselage or I could get a little technical and do it like how I've seen airliners do it. I've read that the most efficient way aerodynamically, is to have the mating surface perpendicular to the wing spar center line, the airliners have a square-ish wing box which the wing chord butts up to. This makes the perpendicular inter-face. I'm thinking of something along the same lines. What I'll do is have the box side angled outwards at the top because the stub wing is anhedral but then have it continue past the underside of the stub wing a couple of mm's and then turn it downwards so it then goes vertical to the ground. The idea then is to have a couple of under fuselage pylons.  The pylons that I cut off the C-130 tanks would work quite well here.

Offline Brian da Basher

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #19 on: May 15, 2018, 04:39:13 AM »
I always greatly enjoy your play-by-play Robert. Your engineering skills are a wonder to behold.

Both are fantastic concepts but I'm especially liking that AV-22 gunship!

Great stuff!

Brian da Basher

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #20 on: May 15, 2018, 05:42:41 AM »
Cheers BdB ------

Offline Gingie

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #21 on: May 15, 2018, 07:16:50 AM »
oh, this is so cool!!

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #22 on: May 15, 2018, 07:59:09 AM »
Thanks Gingie

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #23 on: May 19, 2018, 10:01:38 PM »
Summer construction season has started at the airport so model building might slow down a bit for a while. But it's the May long weekend and I'll try to get some things done to this project. Mainly it will be repairing the fuselage where it had got broken when the A-10 came down from where it was hanging on the ceiling. Plus the two areas where I have removed the engines and switched the tail planes from bottom to top. Need to get these all finalized before I can progress to other details.

Offline kitnut617

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Re: AV-22 and E-22 Tilt Rotors
« Reply #24 on: June 06, 2018, 12:56:19 AM »
Well things haven't gone to plan, been doing lots of work around the property instead of model building, problem of wanting to do the acreage thing I suppose.

But I have done some to the AV-22.

I had cut out sections of the fuselage to remove the large wing root fairings but when I went to put in some replacement styrene, to my horror, the whole rear end of the fuselage broke off  ---    :o

For the repair I decided to remove the wing from the top of the fuselage, which came off a whole lot easier than what I thought it would (I don't think I'll use the liquid cement I used when it comes to re-gluing it back on though). On the plus side, it made repairing the fuselage much easier to do. On top of that I decided to lengthen the fuselage by half an inch.

Here's where I'm at now. all the holes and gaps I'm filling in are done, and the gap you see in the top is where the rear end of the V-22 wing fairing will fit.  I can now visualize how my new wing stub connection to the fuselage better so things are now progressing along quite nicely.

In the side view here, you can see very well the different top and bottom fuselage profile lines. Usually on the A-10, the bottom line is parallel with the ground, but making the top line parallel, tilts the forward fuselage profile line down to give it quite a good cockpit step.

EDIT: added the photos I thought I had attached.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2018, 06:39:21 AM by kitnut617 »