DuPont UV-19 Petrel
| UV-19 Petrel | |
|---|---|
 A schematic of the UV-19 Petrel as featured in a Bazza's Sinowatch cassette. | |
| General information | |
| Type | VSTOL Military Transport Aircraft |
| National origin |  United States |
| Manufacturer | duPont Aerospace Company, Inc. |
| Primary users | United States Marine Corps Japan Ground Self-Defense Force |
| History | |
| Introduction date | 10 November 2039 |
The DuPont UV-19 Petrel is a vertical and short takeoff and landing transport aircraft operated by the United States Marine Corps. It is a militarized version of the DuPont DP-4 civilian aircraft. After being introduced on the Marine Corps' birthday in 2039, it was fielded to Marine Assault Transport Squadrons (VMRA) for the purposes of transporting Marines and cargo during amphibious and conventional operations.
The UV-19 is visually distinct for its two nose air intakes feeding two forward-mounted turbofan engines. This has resulted in it gaining the nickname "Dumbo" within Marine aviation, referencing an elephant's nostrils.
Concept of operation
The UV-19 Petrel and the tiltrotor aircraft it replaced had two main impetuses: conventional operations in the Pacific and operations on a nuclear battlefield.
Because of the vast distances between land mass in the Pacific, the U.S. Marine Corps required a long-range, fast aircraft that could operate from U.S. Navy amphibious assault ships and improvised rearm/refuel points on remote islands. Its range had to be sufficient to allow for inter-island transport of Marines and allow amphibious assault ships to hold a significant distance from an objective island to avoid detection and targetting. It also had to be fast enough to allow transit to take place in a reasonable amount of time. The UV-19 accomplished these requirements, with a combat range of 2,750 nautical miles (5,093 km) and maximum speed of 630 knots (1,167 kph).
From the 1950s the Marines had to evolve to face that new challenge of nuclear weapons on the Atomic battlefield. This was compounded by the complexity and scale of amphibious operations, which required masses of naval vessels to concentrate close to the coast for extended periods of time—a prime target for a nuclear strike. It was believed at the time that expanding Marine aviation would allow amphibious assault ships to stage much farther off the coast, disperse to reduce vulnerability to nuclear weapons, allow for assaulting Marines to land behind beach defenses, and lessen the waterborne landing requirements of a task force, reducing time spent offloading men and materiel. At the time helicopters were the best technical solution to the problem, but helicopters were slow, relatively short-range, and had low-service ceilings. In the 1980s, early tiltrotor aircraft were introduced by the Marine Corps to address the issue. While those tiltrotors ultimately had long service lives, they were flaw and still did not maximize range and speed. The UV-19, introduced in 2039, was touted as the ultimate evolution of Marine Corps thinking for atomic combat. It combined the range of a strategic airlifter without the need for fixed basing (lucrative nuclear targets), capable of operating from Navy flattop ships and landing troops in small clearings (a vital capability to act as a helicopter and tiltrotor replacement). Further, with a capacity of 52 Marines, the Petrel had double the carrying capacity of past vertical takeoff platforms, reducing the number of sorties required to move the Marine Corps' relatively large 4-company battalions configured for dispersed nuclear combat.
The Petrel did not replace all helicopters in Marine Air Wings due to its lacking combat capabilities and a need for smaller helicopters for the delivery of special forces, but in a Marine Expeditionary Brigade configured for amphibious assault the majority of aircraft aboard the task group's landing aircraft assault ships (LVAs) are UV-19s.