Bell Helicopter and Boeing Vertol joined forces during the early 1980s to develop a larger scale aircraft of the XV-15 tilt-rotor demonstrator program for the Joint Services Advanced Vertical
Lift Aircraft program, which combined the vertical takeoff capabilities of a helicopter and the efficiencies of a fixed-wing aircraft. The V-22 was awarded with full-scale development in 1985. Flight testing of
the V-22 started on March 19, 1989, and it successfully demonstrated airborne transition from helicopter to wing-borne flight in September 1989.
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