My Two Cents Worth
By Randy Mains
ing to a little vertical thumb wheel on the throttle control lever handgrip. “Where your left thumb is, Randy, you see this lit- tle grey thumb wheel here?” “Yep, got it.” He demonstrated, “Roll it forward, the
nacelles tilt down, roll it back, the nacelles tilt up. Simple.” “Yeah, simple,” I said with more than a little sarcasm in my voice. Jeff pointed to a very small round gauge
on the instrument panel. “All you have to do in the transition is keep this needle here, in the green arc, and you will know the thrust vector is where it should be for the mode of flight you are trying to achieve. As you accelerate, just use the thumb wheel, moving it forward or aft to move the needle up or down to keep it in the green. You do that and you’ll be just fine.” “Yeah, just fine,” I repeated, not con-
FLYING THE V-22 OSPREY IS A DREAM I COULD NOT HAVE IMAG- INED HAPPENING IN MY LIFETIME. HOWEVER, THROUGH A SERENDIPITOUS MEETING WITH DR. KEVIN HUTTON, CEO OF MEDEVAC FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL (THE ORGANIZATION THAT SPONSORED ME TO BE THE KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT THE ASSOCIATION OF AIR MEDICAL SERVICES, AIR MEDICAL TRANSPORT CONFERENCE) KEVIN SAID HE COULD ARRANGE FOR ME TO ‘FLY’ THE OSPREY SIMULATOR. IT WAS AN INVITATIONTOO GOOD TO PASS UP.
Marine Major Jeff White sat in the
right-hand seat of the Marine MV-22B Os- prey simulator, patiently going over the controls with me prior to my first attempt to lift off from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, California. “He- licopter pilots suffer what we call ‘heli- copter dyslexia’ the first time they try to fly the Osprey,” he said. “The stick in front of you is the cyclic, just like in any helicopter, and it works the same way.” He pointed to the throttle control lever, what I recognized to be the collective pitch lever. “Here is where the dyslexia comes in. In helicopter mode, push this forward and the aircraft will go up. Pull it back, it’ll go down. In airplane mode, forward is faster and back is slower, just like in a conventional fixed wing.” Hmmmm, I thought, this is going to be interesting, with “interesting” being a eu- phemism for scary and potentially embar-
8 June 2013
rassing, and knowing I’ll need to fight 44 years and over 13,000 hours of flight time doing the opposite. I was aware that my ingrained habit had to be broken if I didn’t want to crash this thing. I’d know soon enough. Jeff continued his briefing, now point-
vinced.
“Ready then?” he said. “OK, ready.” With my right hand on
the cyclic, I put my left hand on the throt- tle control lever. No pressure. Just my king-size ego ready to be trounced in front of this very experienced Marine pilot and his Marine buddy, Patrick Robinson, an- other sim instructor observing, plus Dr. Kevin Hutton, observing from behind. Last but never least, my wife, Kaye, had the video camera ready to capture for pos- terity me rolling this thing up into a ball! But surprisingly, I didn’t. I kept telling
myself to push the power lever forward, as if ‘pushing’ myself away from the ground. That’s how I overcame my dyslexia any- way. The hovering was easy; honestly any helicopter pilot can do it. But I did surprise
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