COBI Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey Set 5836

COBI's Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey is a 1:48 model built from 1,090 blocks, 39 cm long with a 50 cm span, produced under licence from Bell. The engine nacelles tilt and can be set at any position, the rotors turn, the cabin doors open with steps, the cockpit takes figures and the rear loading ramp opens. Two pilot figures and a nameplate are included. All markings are printed; no stickers.

Neither a helicopter nor an aeroplane

The Osprey's rotors are mounted on nacelles that rotate through 90 degrees. Pointing up, it takes off vertically like a helicopter. Pointing forward, the rotors become propellers and it flies like a turboprop aircraft at nearly twice a helicopter's speed and far further.

That sounds like having both. What it actually is, is a machine that must transition between two completely different flight regimes while airborne, and the transition is where the difficulty lives. Software manages it; a pilot could not.

There is also one thing it cannot do. A helicopter that loses power can autorotate — the descending airflow keeps the rotor spinning and the pilot flares at the last moment. The Osprey's rotors are too small in diameter and too heavily loaded to autorotate usefully. If both engines fail while hovering, there is no answer. In aeroplane mode it glides, which is why crews are trained to convert forward if they can.

A long and difficult programme

Development began in the early 1980s and the aircraft did not enter service until 2007 — more than two decades, four fatal crashes during testing, repeated attempts in Congress to cancel it, and a cost that became a political argument in its own right.

It is now used by the US Marine Corps, the Navy and Air Force special operations, and by Japan, and it does things nothing else can: carry 24 troops from a ship to a landing zone 700 kilometres inland and come back.

In the COBI range

Set 5835 is the same aircraft in the First Flight Edition.

Specifications

Pieces: 1,090 · Figures: 2 pilots · Scale: 1:48 · Tilting nacelles, opening ramp · No stickers
Model dimensions: 39 × 50 × 15 cm (15.4 × 19.7 × 5.9 in)