Navy special operations command version of the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft

"Bill Silvey" wrote in message m...
"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
om

I guess the lesson here is supposed to be that if there are
developmental problems, the program should be immediately killed, huh
Bill? One wonders how many aircraft that kind of thinking would have
left us with in the past...

Brooks

Kevin, we've been around this before. It's *twenty years on* and the thing
still hasn't shown much capability beyond filling up body bags.

So you say. Just this past week the National Guard expressed interest
in the MV-22 (for the homeland defense role; they like the idea of
being able to load up one of their WMD teams and go straight to the
objective at sppeds and ranges exceeding helo capabilities, and the
potential it has for the firefighting role, etc.). The USAF wants to
continue with the CV-22. The USMC wants to continue with the MV-22.
And Bell has teamed with Agusta to market the AB 609 civil tilt rotor,
with some seventy reserved advance orders (from operators around the
world) on the books. So, I guess your claim that this is a deadend
program trumps all of these disparate groups? What do you know that
*all* of them are apparently ignorant of? Bill, at some point you have
to figure that all of these different groups have to have some idea of
what is what.

I just
think it's a bad project. And bad projects themselves aren't the problem;
The M247 DIVAD was crap, too, but it (thankfully) didn't kill bunches of
people when stuff went wrong with it.

leaving some aircraft in the past, I don't think you could qualitatively
argue the difference between say, a last-generation prop fighter like the
Mustang or Spitfire and first-generation jets. There was an obvious and
serious tactical advantage to jets. They were, no pun intended, taking off.
Was a P-80 that much better than a P51? Perhaps, perhaps not. But it was
evident that the evolutionary track for jets was the way to go.

I just don't see what possible purpose or advantage building the Osprey has
over building (not refitting or rebuilding or re-engineering) new Helos has.
The helo is proven technology, and it continues to get better.

It is limited interms of its upper speed limits, for one thing. You
can make a pretty fast helo, but it will tend to lack legs and
carrying capacity; the tilt rotor blends the VTOL capability of the
helo with the cruise capabilities of a fixed wing, meaning greater
operational latitude. How many current helos can fly a 500 mile
insertion mission at between 230-240 knots? Answer--none.

Then there is deployability--the MV-22 offers a 2500 naut mile ferry
range, and compared to the current CH-46, cuts the number of required
supporting strategic airlift sorties for a squadron deployment from,
for the 46, four C-5 sorties *and* two C-141 sorties, to two C-141
sorties for the MV-22.

And finally versatility:

"…the MV-22 would be compatible for conducting aerial refuel/tanker
support to both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft."

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...97/Bullard.htm

How many helos can do *that*?


Let me ask you this, Kevin, and I'm not being sarcastic when I ask: would
you, knowing what we know about the Osprey and it's development issues, take
a hop in one if the opportunity presented itself? Say, tomorrow?

Yep. I had three of them pass directly overhead my position a couple
of years back (very different noise they make--sort of
"whoosh-whoosh-whoosh" with their turbine sound tossed into the mix).
Believe it or not, not *one* of those critters fell on my poor little
pointy head. I'd much rather jump onboard a USMC crewed MV-22 as refly
that one commuter airflight (on a Bandierante, IIRC) where I asked the
pilot upon deplaning if that little access panel thingie on the port
nacelle was supposed to be flapping throughout the flight (no, it was
not one of those little flapper inlets--the guy asked me to show him
and said, "We gotta get somebody to fix that...").

Brooks


Understand I respect your opinion and I'm not trying to incite anything.