V-22 Nacelles Completed for Aircraft Number 7

Fort Worth, Texas, Aug. 23, 1995 -- Left- and right-hand nacelles for V-22 Aircraft number 7 have been completed by assemblers at Bell Helicopter Textron.

The V-22 is being built by Bell and Boeing Defense & Space Group, Helicopters Division under a Naval Air Systems Command V-22 Engineering and Manufacturing Development contract. The nacelles will be mated to a Bell-manufactured V-22 wing in October.

Aircraft number 7's first flight is scheduled for late 1996.

Yale Cason, Bell manager for V-22 Assembly, says the milestone success was accomplished by having the right tooling, an excellent support team and the right people working on the job. "Most of the assemblers and the supervisor worked on the full-scale-development aircraft nacelles, so they provided working knowledge," Cason said. "This let us reduce the man-hours required to accomplish the task."

The nacelle structures were fabricated and assembled using state-of-the-art technology for composite materials. The combination of titanium and carbon epoxy produces a strong, but lightweight component.

The wing, with its nacelles attached, will be mated to the Boeing-built V-22 fuselage in December at the Bell facility. Each nacelle will house an Allison T-406 engine and various gear boxes.

Meanwhile, an upper-wing skin assembly was loaded into the fixture heralding the start of Aircraft number 8. This aircraft is slated to be completed in early 1997.

The Osprey received Department of Defense approval to move into production late last year. First delivery to the Marines is scheduled in 1999. Delivery to Special Operations Forces will follow. Total number of V-22s to be built are 523 over a 25-year period. Target flyaway cost is $29.4 million in 1994 dollars.

The Bell Boeing TiltRotor Team comprises Bell Helicopter Textron Inc., of Fort Worth, Texas, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Textron, Inc., of Providence, R.I., and the Philadelphia-based Helicopters Division of Boeing Defense & Space Group, a unit of The Boeing Company, of Seattle, Wash.