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FORT WORTH: The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey program's Airframe Fatigue Test Program surpassed the 20,000 Effective Flight Hour (EFH) milestone on Feb. 22, 2007. The Fatigue Test Program, involving a full size V-22 aircraft, began in June, 1998, and is the first ever conducted for a tiltrotor type aircraft.
The Fatigue Test Team members included Werner Idler, Dr. Chang Hong and Mark Southard of Bell and Doug Rhodes, Gary Bachman and Dave Parente of Boeing Rotorcraft Systems comprised the front line of testing with dozens of other Bell and Boeing personnel to demonstrate the V-22 airframe durability.
The Test Team conducted 60,000 simulated flights that included takeoffs, airplane and helicopter maneuvers, landings and ground maneuvers during the 20,000 flight hours of low cycle load testing, covering the equivalent of two lifetimes on control surfaces and aft fuselage structures.
The program soon will begin a block of high cycle loading equivalent to 30,000 flight hours applying up to 18 million load conditions. Bell Boeing fatigue test team and NAVAIR engineers are reviewing the flight load level survey data to evaluate the high cycle testing.
Since the V-22 combines the vertical lift of a helicopter and the speed of an airplane, the test must simulate loads in both air
