from http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/v-...ial?a=1&c=1129

V-22 Is Proving Its Unique Potential

Author: Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.
Date: Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Issue Brief

Two months ago the co-chairmen of the president's bipartisan deficit
commission issued a series of proposals for narrowing the gap between
federal income and expenses. One section of their proposals concerned
how annual defense spending could be trimmed $100 billion by fiscal
year 2015. That was a reasonable goal, and many of the ideas that the
co-chairs advanced for meeting it made sense. However, their findings
were marred by a series of "illustrative" weapons cuts that did not
make sense. Some of the suggested cuts would raise Pentagon costs
rather than reduce them, and others would squander multi-billion-
dollar investments made by past administrations.
A case in point was the recommendation to end procurement of the V-22
Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft due to a "troubled history" of
developmental and maintenance problems. Whoever wrote the superficial
rationale for prematurely terminating Osprey production was ignorant
of both the current status of the program and the needs of its
prospective users. In their very next recommendation, the co-chairmen
contradicted themselves by proposing cancellation of a Marine Corps
amphibious vehicle, arguing that the capabilities of the V-22 were
more relevant to future warfighting needs. Obviously, somebody on the
commission's staff is a bit confused. So here are some basic facts
about V-22.

The Osprey is the world's first production tilt-rotor, meaning it is
designed to combine the vertical ascent/descent capabilities of a
helicopter with the speed and range of a fixed-wing turboprop. It
achieves this unique mix of features by pivoting ("tilting") its two
rotors while in flight. The program was conceived in the Reagan years
to equip all of the military services with a flexible warfighting
system that could execute diverse missions. The Army dropped out
early, but the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have remained in the
program. The Marine Corps is the lead service, with a stated
requirement for 360 MV-22 variants around which it has built its plans
for future warfare. The Air Force is purchasing an additional 50 CV-22
variants for special operations missions, and the Navy may buy its own
variant for missions such as carrying supplies to aircraft carriers.

The defense department spent $25 billion over 25 years to develop the
V-22. An additional $31.8 billion has been expended to manufacture
production Ospreys, with $13.6 billion remaining to be spent. In other
words, 80 percent of the money needed to meet Air Force and Marine
requirements has been expended. The 150th V-22 was delivered in
December under a multiyear production contract extending through 2012.
The Osprey has flown nearly 100,000 hours to date, including in 13
successful overseas deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The current production version of the MV-22 has a mission-capable rate
of 70 percent, which the Marine Corps expects will rise to 80 percent
or higher.

Much has been written about the safety of the Osprey, but the aircraft
has only suffered one fatal accident in the last ten years despite
harsh operating conditions in overseas deployments. In that one
accident, an Osprey hit the ground at high speed, killing four of the
20 personnel on board. In general, though, the V-22 has exhibited good
performance in all three facets of survivability -- susceptibility to
being hit by fire, vulnerability to damage when hit, and
crashworthiness in protecting occupants. So the "troubled history" of
the tilt-rotor appears to be largely behind it, and it retains the
support of its home services. Terminating it now would waste much of
the investment past administrations have made to give U.S. warfighters
a unique edge in combat.