The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey

Richard Whittle's "The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey" is the best aviation book I've read in years. It is exactly what I look for, but rarely find, in an "airplane book." I enjoy heavy, detailed tomes about one narrow aspect of aviation, or about one specific aircraft, rather than broad tracts on wider ranges of material. I have little interest in books filled mostly with pretty pictures. I look for meaty, "tell-all" stories that I can sink my teeth into. "The Dream Machine" is just such a book--heavy on fascinating details and light on pictures (although there is an eight-page section of black-and-white photos). It hits my interest target spot-on.Most people have probably at least heard of the "Osprey" tiltrotor, most likely via news reports about several crashes of V-22 prototypes in 1991, 1992 and 2000. These tragic events gave the aircraft a reputation for being unsafe and difficult to fly, even after billions of dollars had been spent trying to make it work. For many years, the "Osprey" was a political football, kicked back and forth by enthusiastic backers and equally vehement opponents. Several times during its 20-year-plus gestation period, especially in the aftermaths of the crashes, the program was on the very edge of cancellation. But it survived, and the radical V-22 entered service with the Marines in 2007 and performed with distinction in Iraq, where the dire predictions of its detractors did not come to pass. At long last, it came close to justifying the faith that its proponents had put in it for decades. "The Dream Machine" tells the whole complicated personal, political, technical and operational story of one of aviation's holy grails--a machine that can take off like a helicopter and cruise like an airplane.Each of the book's 12 lengthy chapters covers a specific aspect or time period of the story. For example, Chapter One, "The Dream," presents an interesting summary of pre-Osprey designs, such as the 1931 Pitcairn Autogiro, most of which were unsuccessful because the technology to do the job simply did not exist at the time. Chapter Two "The Salesman," shows in great detail how aerospace companies sell their products to the military services. Using as an exemplar Bell Helicopter's Richard F. Spivey, the man who deserves most of the credit for selling the Pentagon on the concept of a tiltrotor aircraft (and, even more important, for keeping it sold), this chapter is fascinating, fast-paced and factual. Take it from a former aerospace engineer and marketeer--this is how it really is. Chapter Three, "The Customer," looks at the requirements development and procurement processes that the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps use to buy the military equipment they need. Chapter Four, "The Sale," shows how Bell's years-long marketing efforts, helped out by its experimental XV-15 tiltrotor that flew before enthralled audiences at the 1981 Paris Air Show, finally came to fruition when the Pentagon awarded the team of Bell and partner Boeing a contract for the V-22 "Osprey." The aircraft that the team designed is covered in Chapter Five, "The Machine." In addition to a detailed description of the design itself, this chapter contains an exceptionally good account of the compromises and trade-offs required when engineers try to develop a state-of-the-art aircraft. Technophiles will love this stuff!The remaining chapters cover the trials, tribulations, personalities and political maneuvering involved in the V-22s pre-production, flight testing, maintenance, etc., all with, as far as I know, not one single technical error. Mr. Whittle has a marvelous ability to present complex technical issues (such as the "vortex ring state" phenomenon) in terms that any reasonably astute reader can understand. In particular, his presentations of the sequences of events that led to the four major prototype "Osprey" crashes (three of them fatal) are, bar none, the best descriptions of airplane crashes that I've ever read. As a private pilot who once crashed an aircraft myself, I can say with absolute candor that I felt like I was in the cockpit with the hapless crews when their machines went down. Just reading about the crashes was chilling.I'll say it again: "The Dream Machine" is the best aviation book I've read in years. If you are at all interested in the "Osprey" itself, or in the process of designing, building, testing and operating a modern, high-tech aircraft, you should put it at the very top of your "must read" list. I can't say enough good words about it. BUY THIS BOOK!

Deep dive on the history of this bird. Bell had been playing with the basic design, as the XV-15, for quite some time. They'd been wanting to do something larger, more capable with the basic idea.Operation Eagle Claw, where we tried to rescue the hostages from Iran, made abundantly clear the fact that we did NOT have the capability to pull that off with traditional helicopters. Not even the modern Blackhawk has the reliability, speed and range needed for that. What was needed was something with the range and cruising speed of a turboprop with vertical takeoff and landing capability. In short, an up-scaled XV-15.Learning to fly a single-rotor helicopter is hazardous enough, when ring vortex is encountered. When you have two rotors, and ONE of them hits ring vortex because the fly-by-wire software has never encountered that before ... bad news for all involved. It's one of those "we've never run into this before because no one has attempted this before" situations, nor matter how tragic the results were.Very in-depth on the history and the development. Plenty of amusing anecdotes along the way, such as the guy getting pulled over with a large, black, carbon-fiber construction in the back of his vehicle because he's taking it to a hospital to be scanned for structural defects. I can understand the cop being ... skeptical.

A fantastic read, mainly because Richard Whittle is such a good storyteller. The book is a comprehensive account of the development of the V-22 Osprey from different perspectives, from a Historical, Technical and Political point of view. The most important highlights for me from the book are:- How it had been the dream of early aviators to have a machine that can take off and land vertically and yet still have the speed of a fixed wing aircraft, hence the book title of "The Dream Machine" as that dream has been fulfilled by the Osprey;- The fact that the Osprey's design was constrained because its dimensions were limited to enable it to operate on Landing Platform Docks, hence its Propellers ended up being shorter than ideal and its weight and complexity had to be increased because of the need to incorporate a wing-folding mechanism;- The long and "bloody" battle it had to go thru in terms of funding under the Senior George Bush's administration who wanted it cut from the budget;- How the whole program was nearly shelved after accidents and the scandal about the falsification of its maintenance records;- Since the Osprey was such a new aircraft, much of its flight characteristics weren't really explored properly yet, leading to speculations about its vulnerability to the issue of a flight condition called the "Vortex Ring State (VRS)" and its ability to maneuver at slow speeds. Additional comprehensive tests ultimately proved these concerns to be false, and that in fact what was true was the reverse of what was speculated. The Osprey is much less vulnerable to VRS and much more manueverable and less susceptible to enemy fire than Helicopters.Nowadays the Osprey has proven itself in service and is seen as truly a technological wonder, the only vertical take off and landing fixed wing aircraft in service in the world today. But its wasn't always like this, it had a very troubled development, but look at it now. This should serve a lesson to everyone of how some aircraft tend to have a troubled "teething stage", but ultimately turns out well in the end.Overall a pretty good book, I really enjoyed reading it.

Lo compré en base a opiniones que lo comparaban con Skunk Works y libros por el estilo, pero este se centra principalmente en el aspecto político del desarrollo y deja bastante de lado el aspecto técnico.

未亡人製造機といわれるオスプレーの開発の歴史が航空機産業の専門家の手で克明に描かれる。