[ADDED B696] V-22 Osprey minimal flight altitude

[Luidzi]

I've found a minor bug with minimal flight altitude of Osprey. I've been trying to experiment with a MV-22 equipped with a dipping sonar to imitate a potential ASW variant, SV-22 Osprey. During tests I've found a couple of situations where a hovering Osprey had a status "Deploying dipping sonar", but in Sensors tab there was a "Not Operating - platform is not hovering and deploying sensor" message.

I've managed to trace this behavior to the time and weather conditions. From dusk to dawn and during light (and stronger) rain or sea state 6+, modern conventional aircrafts without terrain avoidance have a minimum flight altitude 91m, even with experience set to Ace. During similar time and weather, helicopters have minimum flight altitude 30m. Osprey behaves same as aircrafts, with minimum altitude 91m.

The way the dipping sonar is currently programmed, it becomes active only at the height of exactly 46m. Because Osprey (at the conditions mentioned above) cannot descend to this height, it won't be used even if the plane status says otherwise.

[mikmykWS]

DB adjustment. Goes there. This is not a bug as the aircraft isn't designed now to do that!

Mike

[ComDev]

Hm didn't we add the hypothetical SV-22 ASW variant to the database some time ago?

[Luidzi]

There are no hypothetical variants of Osprey in the database, only Army CV-22 and two Navy MV-22 (2007 and 2010) variants. In the thread for DB3000 database problems, updates or issues is already a proposal for some of them: tm.asp?m=3436106&mpage=31

Edit: Flight International magazine from 31.10.1987 (PDF) mentions following:

Carrier-based, but deployed forward to destroyer-sized ships
Potential development mid-1989, deliveries beginning 1996
APS-137 surveillance radar
dipping sonar
60 sonobuoys
FLIR
multimode radar

[ComDev]

Thanks guys!