Marine pilots and crew members liken to momentarily riding on a roller coaster or being in a wind tunnel. Barrie Grubbs, one of 35 Boeing field service representatives assigned to the Marine station at New River, compares the moment to sitting in a race car. “It’s like a top-fuel dragster,” Grubbs said. “You slide backward when they punch it”—that is, go from helicopter to airplane mode—“and you lean forward when you come back out of the power, like when they pop the chute on the racetrack.” A button the size of a large coin, called a thumbwheel, is located on each pilot’s thrust control lever in the cockpit. It is responsible for putting the Osprey transformation in motion. Rolling the thumbwheel backward lifts up the nacelles into helicopter mode; moving it forward rotates the nacelles forward and down into airplane mode. It takes 12 seconds to go from one position to the other. “It’s just like learning to drive a stick and getting comfortable with it,” Dyer said, referring to an automobile’s manual transmission. “But if you injure your left thumb, you can’t fly this aircraft.” New River is located on the North Carolina coast not far from Kitty Hawk—home of the world’s first powered-airplane flight—and directly across an inlet from Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. Visitors are greeted by a sign at the front entrance that proclaims, “Pardon Our Noise: It’s the Sound of Freedom.” The air station is considered the military helicopter and tiltrotor hub for the Eastern Seaboard, the Marines say. Seven squadrons of Ospreys, or 80 aircraft overall, are stationed at New River, which they share with AH-1 Cobra and CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters, each type in operation since the Vietnam War. The different rotorcraft are deployed together on a small amphibious ship. Typical assignments are to a Marine Expeditionary Unit, or a Special Marine Air-Ground Task Force. Among FEBRUARY 2016 | 17
Frontiers February 2016 Issue
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