Pilots Discuss Use of Osprey

It depends on the environment. All helicopters create a downwash. The Osprey, for its lifting capacity, creates a lot more. In a very dusty/snowy environment, the Osprey will experience "brown out" or "white out" before a helicopter of similar lifting capability. The down wash from the Osprey is so intense that it also makes air/sea rescue much more difficult, if not impossible. Also where even a helicopter cannot land because of trees or other obstructions, the downwash from the Osprey puts the personnel trying to "fast rope" or use an extraction ladder at greater risk. The rotor downwash is also extremely hot since the jet engine exhaust are pointing straight down. This creates a problem for sling load hook up and has caused damage to carrier decks.

The V-22 downwash gets a great deal of discussion, but it does not prohibit landing in a sandy or dusty environment. If your question is about "brownout", the aircraft we fly today has significantly advanced features over the aircraft we flew back in 2000 prior to the program re-structure. The MV-22 has three inertial navigation systems that provide hovering cues to the pilot on a display. Under-laid on the display is a digital map that can scale up or down from 200nm down to a handful of meters across. The aircraft's flight control software uses the inertial reference to track drift angle and rate, and also has auto-pilot functions in a hover. Like you saw during the Desert Talon Exercise shown on the program, this is one of the things we train to do on a regular basis. To be truthful, landing a MV-22 in the dust isn't hard for a trained pilot.