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#21
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The Osprey Goes to War
On Oct 2, 5:14?pm, Typhoon502 wrote:
On Oct 2, 5:20 am, Walt wrote: On Oct 2, 2:48?am, Roger Conroy wrote: BlackBeard wrote: On Oct 1, 6:11 pm, Kerryn Offord wrote: *** Maybe no more vulnerable to being shot at.. but the effect of being hit? Although there are no perfect survivability systems out there, the systems on the Osprey are 1) more numerous and 2) more advanced, than the survivability systems on the CH-46 SNIP If it has a cobra escort.. Well.. It loses it's altitude/ speed advantage over alternative modern helicopters.. Rendevous scenario. The Cobras launch from a forward base and meet at the LZ with the Osprey which has travelled from a base further away. BB Is the Cobra really the only possible escort? I'm thinking that the AV-8 could do a pretty decent job during the high speed transit phase. Roger- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - AV-8's go too fast to really see what is on the ground. An AV-8 can't supress a treeline the way a Cobra can. I recall reading in the Marine Corps Gazette back in the early 1980's what you've seen me post: 1. Doesn't matter what the range and speed of the V-22 is. It is limited to the range and speed of the escorts I'm not really sure why you think the Cobras will slow the V-22s down...operationally, it would be idiocy for the troop carriers to arrive over the battlefield at the same time as the gunships, since you want the gunships (and Harriers, to boot) to have arrived overhead and begun destroying targets and softening the LZ well before the larger birds are in the threat zone. If you've got troop carriers, be they CH-46s, Blackhawks, or V-22s cruising in looking for a place to land WHILE the first wave of Cobras is coming in, then it doesn't matter what airframe you're in, the bad guys will target the low, slow, fat with Marines birds and hope they can kill those before the snakes spot them. But with the increased speed of the V-22s, they can make more trips between the boat or base and the LZ in the same amount of time, which means more boots getting on the ground while the enemy is still recovering from the gunships' attention. Let the Cobras and Harriers come and go as fuel and weapons are expended...there will be enough that one flight can always be hitting the target zone while others are en route to or from the launch point.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - That is mostly good info, thanks. 1. The Osprey is still limited to how far from the boat/field the Cobras can go. 2. It is a violation of basic common sense to think they can zip around at no escorts. Maybe that is how the Marines rationalized buying the damn thing. But that would be, yes, why they are limited to the speed of the Cobra. You need en route escorts. 3. Referencing the above, saying that the Ospreys can zip around with no escorts makes plans based on assumptions versus capabilities. That is what the Japs did at Midway. They made plans based on how they thought the Amercians -would- react, not based on how they -could- react. This is how the epitaph of the MV-22 should read: "Finally cancelled due to common sense" Walt |
#22
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The Osprey Goes to War
Walt wrote:
On Oct 2, 5:14?pm, Typhoon502 wrote: On Oct 2, 5:20 am, Walt wrote: On Oct 2, 2:48?am, Roger Conroy wrote: BlackBeard wrote: On Oct 1, 6:11 pm, Kerryn Offord wrote: *** Maybe no more vulnerable to being shot at.. but the effect of being hit? Although there are no perfect survivability systems out there, the systems on the Osprey are 1) more numerous and 2) more advanced, than the survivability systems on the CH-46 SNIP If it has a cobra escort.. Well.. It loses it's altitude/ speed advantage over alternative modern helicopters.. Rendevous scenario. The Cobras launch from a forward base and meet at the LZ with the Osprey which has travelled from a base further away. BB Is the Cobra really the only possible escort? I'm thinking that the AV-8 could do a pretty decent job during the high speed transit phase. Roger- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - AV-8's go too fast to really see what is on the ground. An AV-8 can't supress a treeline the way a Cobra can. I recall reading in the Marine Corps Gazette back in the early 1980's what you've seen me post: 1. Doesn't matter what the range and speed of the V-22 is. It is limited to the range and speed of the escorts I'm not really sure why you think the Cobras will slow the V-22s down...operationally, it would be idiocy for the troop carriers to arrive over the battlefield at the same time as the gunships, since you want the gunships (and Harriers, to boot) to have arrived overhead and begun destroying targets and softening the LZ well before the larger birds are in the threat zone. If you've got troop carriers, be they CH-46s, Blackhawks, or V-22s cruising in looking for a place to land WHILE the first wave of Cobras is coming in, then it doesn't matter what airframe you're in, the bad guys will target the low, slow, fat with Marines birds and hope they can kill those before the snakes spot them. But with the increased speed of the V-22s, they can make more trips between the boat or base and the LZ in the same amount of time, which means more boots getting on the ground while the enemy is still recovering from the gunships' attention. Let the Cobras and Harriers come and go as fuel and weapons are expended...there will be enough that one flight can always be hitting the target zone while others are en route to or from the launch point.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - That is mostly good info, thanks. 1. The Osprey is still limited to how far from the boat/field the Cobras can go. {snip} Assuming that the Cobras and Osprey come from the same boat. Also that chick of Osprey does not have a longer range. Andrew Swallow |
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The Osprey Goes to War
So it comes down to the ability to auto rotate versus lack of that
ability (Once you get hit...)?- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - It is a confluence of things. If you try and fly it without escorts you'll get hit. You'll need to auto-rotate. If you try and descend at a constant rate into a zone you'll get hit. You'll need to auto-rotate. If you don't have effective armament on the bird you'll get hit. You'll need to auto-rotate. So it is is ignoring these vulnerability factors and saying, "We'll ignore even the modicum of survivabilty provided by auto-rotation." The ability to auto-rotate was originally required, but it was dropped. I wonder how many retired Marines are making 2-3 times (or more) of their retirement pay to work on this thing. It is the poster child for problems with the Military-Industrial- Complex of the type that Eisenhower warned about. Walt |
#24
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The Osprey Goes to War
On Oct 4, 6:05?am, Andrew Swallow wrote:
Walt wrote: On Oct 2, 5:14?pm, Typhoon502 wrote: On Oct 2, 5:20 am, Walt wrote: On Oct 2, 2:48?am, Roger Conroy wrote: BlackBeard wrote: On Oct 1, 6:11 pm, Kerryn Offord wrote: *** Maybe no more vulnerable to being shot at.. but the effect of being hit? Although there are no perfect survivability systems out there, the systems on the Osprey are 1) more numerous and 2) more advanced, than the survivability systems on the CH-46 SNIP If it has a cobra escort.. Well.. It loses it's altitude/ speed advantage over alternative modern helicopters.. Rendevous scenario. The Cobras launch from a forward base and meet at the LZ with the Osprey which has travelled from a base further away. BB Is the Cobra really the only possible escort? I'm thinking that the AV-8 could do a pretty decent job during the high speed transit phase. Roger- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - AV-8's go too fast to really see what is on the ground. An AV-8 can't supress a treeline the way a Cobra can. I recall reading in the Marine Corps Gazette back in the early 1980's what you've seen me post: 1. Doesn't matter what the range and speed of the V-22 is. It is limited to the range and speed of the escorts I'm not really sure why you think the Cobras will slow the V-22s down...operationally, it would be idiocy for the troop carriers to arrive over the battlefield at the same time as the gunships, since you want the gunships (and Harriers, to boot) to have arrived overhead and begun destroying targets and softening the LZ well before the larger birds are in the threat zone. If you've got troop carriers, be they CH-46s, Blackhawks, or V-22s cruising in looking for a place to land WHILE the first wave of Cobras is coming in, then it doesn't matter what airframe you're in, the bad guys will target the low, slow, fat with Marines birds and hope they can kill those before the snakes spot them. But with the increased speed of the V-22s, they can make more trips between the boat or base and the LZ in the same amount of time, which means more boots getting on the ground while the enemy is still recovering from the gunships' attention. Let the Cobras and Harriers come and go as fuel and weapons are expended...there will be enough that one flight can always be hitting the target zone while others are en route to or from the launch point.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - That is mostly good info, thanks. 1. The Osprey is still limited to how far from the boat/field the Cobras can go. {snip} Assuming that the Cobras and Osprey come from the same boat. Also that chick of Osprey does not have a longer range. Andrew Swallow- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Saying that the Osprey and Cobras can fly from different fields and meet up violates the KISS rule. Their is a tremendous amount of coordination involved in a troop lift. Implicit in what you are saying is that the different units would not be able to attend the same brief before they launch. And I guess you are seeing a scenario where the Cobras have a base 50 miles inland and the MV-22's are maybe 50 miles out at sea -- then they can comfortably reach the same distance inland. Walt |
#25
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The Osprey Goes to War
Walt wrote:
[snip] And I guess you are seeing a scenario where the Cobras have a base 50 miles inland and the MV-22's are maybe 50 miles out at sea -- then they can comfortably reach the same distance inland. Walt I was thinking more of the situation where the the helicopters were coming from a carrier (or destroyer) and the Ospreys were coming form a marine transport ship. Fleet actions frequently involve more than 1 ship and land artillery finds it difficult to hit ships that are over the horizon because it cannot see them. Andrew Swallow |
#26
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The Osprey Goes to War
On Oct 4, 6:12 am, Walt wrote:
Saying that the Osprey and Cobras can fly from different fields and meet up violates the KISS rule. Their is a tremendous amount of coordination involved in a troop lift. Implicit in what you are saying is that the different units would not be able to attend the same brief before they launch. And yet different aircraft types all over the world fly from different fields and meet up in a point in space and time daily. You're so focused on making things fit the KISS rule that you're overlooking the reality of combat aviation for the past...oh, let's be generous and say 50 years. That's about how long routine air-to-air refueling has been occurring, right? |
#27
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The Osprey Goes to War
On Oct 1, 4:33 pm, Mike wrote:
USNI Proceedings Magazine Issue: October 2007 Vol. 133/10/1,256 The Osprey Goes to War By Richard Whittle After a tumultuous quarter-century in development, the Marines' V-22 tiltrotor aircraft is ready to fly combat missions in Iraq. The Marines start learning in October whether the cost of fielding their top aviation priority-24 years, $22 billion, 30 lives, and unrelenting criticism-was worth it. The V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft is going into battle. As this issue of Proceedings went to press in late September, the first operational squadron of Ospreys-Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 out of Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina-was due at al Asad air base for a scheduled seven-month deployment. VMM-263 was to start flying combat missions in October. The first operational use of the Osprey could help settle a debate that has raged for years about the safety, survivability, reliability, utility, and value of the helicopter-airplane hybrid. Grounded for 17 months after two fatal crashes in 2000, the Osprey has been re- engineered and retested over the past seven years, but critics still insist the V-22 is too fragile and vulnerable for Iraq. A report issued this year by the Center for Defense Information, a Washington think tank often critical of the Defense Department, said the V-22 was "poised to reveal fundamental design flaws that may cost even more lives." Marines who fly and maintain the Osprey, Marine Corps leaders, and officials in the V-22 program couldn't disagree more. The MV-22B version that VMM-263 will fly in Iraq still has numerous maintenance "gripes," as mechanics call them, but hasn't experienced the hydraulic line chafing and other problems of earlier models. It's a different aircraft, they say. Ready to Go "It is not a science experiment, it's a fielded aircraft," VMM-263's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Rock, told reporters at a V-22 media day at the Quantico, Virginia, Marine base last spring. "The people who fly the plane, we have families. We wouldn't be flying something that we thought was going to kill us." Ospreys flown by the Marines and Naval Air Systems Command's test squadron, VMX-22, have logged more than 26,000 flight hours without a serious mishap since the V-22 returned to flight in May 2002, NAVAIR program spokesman James Darcy said. During a 36-day deployment-for-training to Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona, VMM-263 flew 631 hours and made all 72 scheduled sorties during Desert Talon combat exercises. Major General Kenneth Glueck, commander of 2d Marine Air Wing, said during an impromptu interview as he visited VMM-263 at New River in August that he expects the V-22 to "add great combat capability to the Marine air-ground task force that we have in place over there today. It's truly a transformational capability." Built by Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. of Fort Worth, Texas, and Boeing Co.'s helicopter division in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, the Osprey tilts two huge wingtip rotors upward to take off and land like a helicopter and swivels them forward to fly like a fixed-wing aircraft. That gives it about twice the speed and up to four times the range of the 1960s-era CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters the Marines are buying 360 Ospreys to replace. Hot LZs "Definitely it'll be less vulnerable when you start talking about en route portions of the flight," Glueck said. "They take off from the zone and they fly to high altitudes, where they're outside the weapons engagement envelopes." The Osprey cruises at about 230 knots, roughly 265 mph, and the CH-46 at 110 knots, or just over 125 mph. Critics have contended that the Osprey must come into landing zones slowly and will be especially vulnerable in hot LZs. Pilots and others say that's a misimpression. "I don't think it's going to be any more vulnerable than the 46 or the 53," Glueck said. A CH-46 can "usually come into a zone a little bit quicker than the 53s. The V-22 is kind of in between the two." The V-22 will have fighter or helicopter gunship escorts when going into zones where there's a known threat, Glueck said, and the Marines have mounted a 7.62-caliber M240G machine gun on the rear ramp. The Osprey also has chaff dispensers, infrared suppressors, and electronic defenses. The Marine version of the Osprey, the MV-22, currently costs $69.3 million to $110 million per aircraft, depending on whether all program costs are averaged into the price, NAVAIR spokesman Darcy said. The Air Force is buying 50 CV-22 Ospreys packed with special operations gear that raises the "flyaway" cost to $86 million. Death in the Desert V-22 supporters point out that the Osprey actually suffered fewer crashes in development than did many other aircraft when they were experimental. But much of the controversy over the V-22 stems from an operational test in April 2000 at Marana, Arizona, in which one of the earliest versions of the Osprey crashed while carrying a crew of four and 15 Marine infantrymen in the back. All were killed. An investigation blamed the crash on "vortex ring state," a phenomenon in which a rotor that descends too quickly into its own downwash can stop producing lift. The V-22 that crashed at Marana descended as much as three times faster than the flight manual limit of 800 feet per minute at speeds of less than 40 knots, the investigation found. All Ospreys were grounded for 17 months after another crash in December 2000 at New River in which an hydraulic leak and a software glitch in the flight-control computer combined to bring down a V-22 flying in airplane mode, killing the crew of four. A blue-ribbon commission appointed by the Pentagon in 2001 concluded there was no evidence to support contentions that tiltrotor technology was fatally flawed, as some critics had charged. Bell-Boeing later re-engineered the layout of electrical and hydraulic lines whose close proximity was found to be the cause of hydraulic leaks. Company test pilots also made numerous flights trying to put the V-22 into vortex ring state at high altitude. They found that, with sufficient warning and altitude, an Osprey pilot could escape vortex ring state simply by tilting the rotors forward and flying out of the downwash. Following those tests, NAVAIR added a warning tone and warning light to the V-22 to alert pilots when an Osprey is bordering on vortex ring state. The V-22's troubled past has left many Marines wary of riding in the aircraft, but VMM-263 and the Corps' other Osprey squadrons have been giving familiarization rides to various Marine and Army units. After two such flights in July for 2d Battalion/24th Marines, a Reserve unit in Chicago, VMM-263 received a letter from the battalion commander saying, "VMM-263 has turned 2/24 from Osprey doubters to Osprey supporters." Cheney Tried to Cancel Critics who say the tiltrotor is too costly have long contended that the Marines should have given up on the V-22 and instead bought cheaper helicopters for the medium-assault mission. The Osprey originally was supposed to go into service in 1991, eight years after it was begun, and cost about $20 billion for a program expected to produce 1,086 aircraft for all four armed services. The projected cost for the 410 Ospreys now in service or being built is more than $54 billion, including the money spent on development. When he was Defense Secretary in 1989, Vice President Dick Cheney tried to cancel the Osprey, giving up only after a four-year political battle with the Marines and V-22 backers in Congress. The alternative most often proposed has been a combination of UH-60 Black Hawks to carry up to 11 Marines at a time and CH-53 Sea Stallion heavy-lift choppers to haul cargo, both built by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. The Marines have steadfastly insisted they need the speed and payload of the Osprey, whose cabin is sized to carry 24 fully combat- loaded Marines or 12 litters for casualties. The Marines' and NAVAIR's greater concern during final preparations for the Iraq deployment was a list of maintenance problems, including malfunctions of the Osprey's de-icing gear, high failure rates of "air cycle machines" that cool the cockpit and avionics, cracks in panels that cover the infrared suppressors, fuel system leaks, and more minor problems. Those issues were highlighted in a June message from 2d Marine Air Wing's aviation logistics department to the Osprey fleet discussing steps needed to cope with the maintenance deficiencies. NAVAIR and the Marines said measures to resolve all the issues in the memo had been dealt with or fixes were under way by mid-summer, and a Bell-Boeing team of technicians worked feverishly at New River before VMM-263 left to install modifications to the squadron's Ospreys. Bell-Boeing also was sending 14 technicians to Iraq with VMM-263 and engine-maker Rolls Royce was dispatching two more to help the squadron's mechanics and technicians. The companies and NAVAIR also have taken pains to provide extra stockpiles of spare parts to support VMM-263 in Iraq, and the Marines have given the squadron first claim on parts and personnel, in some cases taking them from the two other operational V-22 squadrons. The de-icing issue was a major factor in a decision to send the squadron's aircraft and crews to the eastern Mediterranean aboard the USS Wasp (LHD-1) amphibious assault ship and have them fly into Iraq from there rather than "self-deploy" by flying all the way with aerial refueling. The rejected plan to self-deploy would have sent the squadron of ten Ospreys and six to eight KC-130 tankers across the north Atlantic with five stops along the way. Even in summer, aircraft flying that route can suffer icing after they fly through clouds. One of two Ospreys that flew a similar route to the July 2006 Farnborough International Airshow in England made a precautionary landing in Iceland after ice caused compressor stalls in one of its engines. Avoiding Wear and Tear The Marines ... read more » The bucket made the cover of Time too. http://www.time.com/time/politics/ar...665835,00.html Wednesday, Sep. 26, 2007 V-22 Osprey: A Flying Shame By Mark Thompson It's hard to imagine an American weapons program so fraught with problems that Dick Cheney would try repeatedly to cancel it - hard, that is, until you get to know the Osprey. As Defense Secretary under George H.W. Bush, Cheney tried four times to kill the Marine Corps's ungainly tilt-rotor aircraft. Four times he failed. Cheney found the arguments for the combat troop carrier unpersuasive and its problems irredeemable. "Given the risk we face from a military standpoint, given the areas where we think the priorities ought to be, the V-22 is not at the top of the list," he told a Senate committee in 1989. "It came out at the bottom of the list, and for that reason, I decided to terminate it." But the Osprey proved impossible to kill, thanks to lawmakers who rescued it from Cheney's ax time and again because of the home-district money that came with it - and to the irresistible notion that American engineers had found a way to improve on another great aviation breakthrough, the helicopter. Now the aircraft that flies like an airplane but takes off and lands like a chopper is about to make its combat debut in Iraq. It has been a long, strange trip: the V-22 has been 25 years in development, more than twice as long as the Apollo program that put men on the moon. V-22 crashes have claimed the lives of 30 men - 10 times the lunar program's toll - all before the plane has seen combat. The Pentagon has put $20 billion into the Osprey and expects to spend an additional $35 billion before the program is finished. In exchange, the Marines, Navy and Air Force will get 458 aircraft, averaging $119 million per copy. The saga of the V-22 - the battles over its future on Capitol Hill, a performance record that is spotty at best, a long, determined quest by the Marines to get what they wanted - demonstrates how Washington works (or, rather, doesn't). It exposes the compromises that are made when narrow interests collide with common sense. It is a tale that shows how the system fails at its most significant task, by placing in jeopardy those we count on to protect us. For even at a stratospheric price, the V-22 is going into combat shorthanded. As a result of decisions the Marine Corps made over the past decade, the aircraft lacks a heavy-duty, forward-mounted machine gun to lay down suppressing fire against forces that will surely try to shoot it down. And if the plane's two engines are disabled by enemy fire or mechanical trouble while it's hovering, the V-22 lacks a helicopter's ability to coast roughly to the ground - something that often saved lives in Vietnam. In 2002 the Marines abandoned the requirement that the planes be capable of autorotating (as the maneuver is called), with unpowered but spinning helicopter blades slowly letting the aircraft land safely. That decision, a top Pentagon aviation consultant wrote in a confidential 2003 report obtained by TIME, is "unconscionable" for a wartime aircraft. "When everything goes wrong, as it often does in a combat environment," he said, "autorotation is all a helicopter pilot has to save his and his passengers' lives." The Plane That Wouldn't Die In many ways, the V-22 is a classic example of how large weapons systems have been built in the U.S. since Dwight Eisenhower warned in 1961 of the "unwarranted influence" of "the military-industrial complex." The Osprey has taken years to design, build, test and bring to the field. All that time meant plenty of money for its prime contractors, Bell Helicopter and the Boeing Co. As the plane took shape and costs increased, some of its missions were shelved or sidelined. And yet, with the U.S. spending almost $500 billion a year on defense - not counting the nearly $200 billion annually for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan - there's plenty of money for marginal or unnecessary programs. Pentagon reform and efficiency are far less of a cause among lawmakers today than during the years of Ronald Reagan's comparatively modest defense-spending boom. "Almost every program the U.S. military is now buying takes longer to develop, costs more than predicted and usually doesn't meet the original specifications and requirements," says Gordon Adams, who oversaw military spending for the Office of Management and Budget during Bill Clinton's Administration. The Marine Corps likes to boast that it spends only a nickel out of every Pentagon dollar and makes do with cheaper weapons than the other services. The story of the V-22 belies that image: It's a tale of how a military service with little experience overseeing aircraft programs has wound up with a plane that may be as notable for its shortcomings as for its technological advances. First, some history. Because Marines deploy aboard ships, the service's chiefs have always hungered for vertical lift - aircraft that could take off and land from small decks and fly far inland to drop off combat-ready troops. As the Marines' Vietnam-era CH-46 choppers became obsolete, commanders started to dream of an aircraft that would give them more options when considering an amphibious assault. The dreams intensified following the failed Desert One mission in 1980 to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran. In the course of the operation, three helicopters broke down, leading to an order to abort the entire endeavor, and a fourth chopper collided with a C-130 aircraft at a desert base, killing eight U.S. troops. That sent Pentagon bureaucrats hunting for a transport that could be used by all four military services and prevent another fiasco. Reagan, who took office the year after Desert One, began to pour money into the Pentagon, particularly for research and design into new weapons and combat systems. The Osprey was born. Originally, the program was designed to churn out the first of more than 1,000 tilt-rotors in less than 10 years for $40 million each. But this was no conventional plane. The Osprey may cruise like an airplane, but it takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter. The technical challenge of rotating an airplane's wings and engines in midair led to delays, which in turn led to an ever higher price tag. As expenses rose, the Pentagon cut the number of planes it wanted to buy, which in turn increased the unit price. Citing rising costs, the Army abandoned the project in 1983. That left the relatively tiny Marine Corps footing most of the bill for the project - the V-22 accounts for nearly 70% of its procurement budget - and overseeing a program larger and more technically challenging than any the service was accustomed to managing. Sensing weakness at the Pentagon, congressional supporters, largely from the V-22's key manufacturing states of Texas (Bell Helicopter) and Pennsylvania (Boeing), created the Tilt-Rotor Technology Coalition to keep the craft alive, despite Cheney's opposition. They were aided by nearly 2,000 V-22 suppliers, in more than 40 states, who pressured their lawmakers to stick with the program. And so, despite Cheney's doubts, the Osprey survived. By 1993, as the Osprey program approached its 12th birthday and Bill Clinton became President, the Marines had spent $13 billion on the planes. None were ready for war. In 1991 one of the first V-22s crashed when taking off for its maiden flight - because of improper wiring. A second crash killed seven in 1992. The Clinton Pentagon stuck with the program through the 1990s, but in 2000 two more V-22s crashed, killing 23 Marines. With that, the Marines grounded the Osprey for 18 months. Probes into the deadly 2000 crashes revealed that in a rush to deploy the aircraft, the Marines had dangerously cut corners in their testing program. The number of different flight configurations - varying speed, weight and other factors - flown by test pilots to ensure safe landings was reduced by half to meet deadlines. Then only two-thirds of those curtailed flight tests were conducted. That trend continues: while a 2004 plan called for 131 hours of nighttime flight tests, the Marines managed to run only 33 on the Osprey. Why the shortcuts? Problems with a gearbox kept many V-22s and pilots grounded. That meant many pilots lacked the hours required to qualify for night flying. Similarly, sea trials were curtailed because the ship designated to assist with Osprey tests could spare only 10 of the 21 days needed. There's also been controversy over a sandstorm test for the craft. The V-22's tendency to generate a dust storm when it lands in desert-like terrain wasn't examined because "an unusually wet spring resulted in a large amount of vegetation that prevented severe brownouts during landing attempts," the Pentagon's top tester noted. But the program continued, albeit with a caution about the aircraft's ability to fly in dusty conditions. The Engine-Failure Problem After the 2000 grounding, Osprey pilots were told to fly less aggressively, which critics say is the only reason no V-22 has crashed since. "They keep talking about all the things it can do, but little by little its operations are being more and more restricted," says Philip Coyle, who monitored the V-22's development as the Pentagon's top weapons tester from 1994 to 2001. The V-22 can fly safely "if used like a truck, carrying people from one safe area to another safe area," he says. "But I don't see them using it in combat situations where they will have to do a lot of maneuvering." The Marines contend that the V-22 is an assault aircraft and that no pilot who finds himself dodging bullets is going to fly it gently. "The airplane is incredibly maneuverable," says Lieut. Colonel Anthony (Buddy) Bianca, a veteran V-22 pilot. But the dirty little secret about an aircraft that combines the best features of an airplane and a helicopter is that it combines their worst features too. The V-22 can't glide as well as an airplane, and it can't hover as well as a helicopter. If a V-22 loses power while flying like an airplane, it should be able to glide to a rough but survivable belly-flop landing. Its huge, 19-ft.-long (5.7 m) rotors are designed to rip into shreds rather than break apart and tear into the fuselage. But all bets are off if a V-22 is flying like a helicopter, heading in or out of a landing zone, and its engines are disabled by enemy fire or mechanical malfunction. As originally designed, the V-22 was supposed to survive a loss of engine power when flying like a helicopter by autorotating toward the ground, just as maple seeds do in the fall. Autorotation, which turns a normally soft touchdown into an very hard emergency landing, is at least survivable. It became clear, however, that the design of the Osprey, adjusted many times over, simply could not accommodate the maneuver. The Pentagon slowly conceded the point. "The lack of proven autorotative capability is cause for concern in tilt-rotor aircraft," a 1999 report warned. Two years later, a second study cautioned that the V-22's "probability of a successful autorotational landing ... is very low." Unable to rewrite the laws of physics, the Pentagon determined that the ability to perform the safety procedure was no longer a necessary requirement and crossed it off the V-22's must-have list. "An autorotation to a safe landing is no longer a formal requirement," a 2002 Pentagon report said. "The deletion of safe autorotation landing as a ... requirement recognizes the hybrid nature of the tilt-rotor." Indeed it does, but that doesn't make the aircraft any safer. The plane's backers said that the chance of a dual-engine failure was so rare that it shouldn't be of concern. Yet the flight manual lists a variety of things that can cause both engines to fail, including "contaminated fuel ... software malfunctions or battle damage." The lone attempted V-22 autorotation "failed miserably," according to an internal 2003 report, obtained by TIME, written by the Institute for Defense Analyses, an in-house Pentagon think tank. "The test data indicate that the aircraft would have impacted the ground at a ... fatal rate of descent." That prospect doesn't concern some V-22 pilots, who believe they'll have the altitude and time to convert the aircraft into its airplane mode and hunt for a landing strip if they lose power. "We can turn it into a plane and glide it down, just like a C-130," Captain Justin (Moon) McKinney, a V-22 pilot, said from his North Carolina base as he got ready to head to Iraq. "I have absolutely no safety concerns with this aircraft, flying it here or in Iraq." Helicopter expert Rex Rivolo, who called the decision to deploy the V-22 without proven autorotation capability "unconscionable" in that confidential 2003 Pentagon study, declined to be interviewed. But in his report, Rivolo noted that up to 90% of the helicopters lost in the Vietnam War were in their final approach to landing when they were hit by enemy ground fire. About half of those were able to autorotate safely to the ground, "thereby saving the crews," Rivolo wrote. "Such events in V-22 would all be fatal." Faced with killing the program - or possibly killing those aboard the V-22 - the Marines have opted to save the plane and have largely shifted responsibility for surviving such a catastrophe from the designers to the pilots. While the engineers spent years vainly trying to solve the problem, pilots aboard a stricken V-22 will have just seconds to react. But tellingly, pilots have never practiced the maneuver outside the simulator - the flight manual forbids it - and even in simulators the results have been less than reassuring. "In simulations," the flight manual warns, "the outcome of the landings varied widely due to the extreme sensitivity to pilot technique and timing." The director of the Pentagon's testing office, in a 2005 report, put it more bluntly. If power is lost when a V-22 is flying like a helicopter below 1,600 ft. (490 m), he said, emergency landings "are not likely to be survivable." The Pea-Shooter Problem While the aerodynamics of autorotation may be challenging for outsiders to grasp, a second decision - sending the V-22 into combat armed with only a tiny gun, pointing backward - is something anyone can understand. The Pentagon boasts on its V-22 website that the aircraft "will be the weapon of choice for the full spectrum of combat." That's plainly false - and by a long shot. Retired General James Jones, who recently led a study into the capabilities of the Iraqi security forces, is a V-22 supporter. But when he ran the Marines from 1999 to 2003, he insisted the plane be outfitted with a hefty, forward-aimed .50-cal. machine gun. "It's obviously technically feasible. We've got nose-mounted guns on [helicopter gunship] Cobras and other flying platforms, and I thought all along this one should have it too," he says. The Marines saluted, awarding a $45 million contract in 2000 for the development of a swiveling triple-barreled .50-cal. machine gun under the V-22's nose, automatically aimed through a sight in the co-pilot's helmet. "All production aircraft will be outfitted with this defensive weapons system," the Marine colonel in charge of the program pledged in 2000. The weapon "provides the V-22 with a strong defensive firepower capability to greatly increase the aircraft's survivability in hostile actions," the Bell-Boeing team said. But the added weight (1,000 lbs., or 450 kg) and cost ($1.5 million per V-22) ultimately pushed the gun into the indefinite future. So 10 V-22s are going to war this month, each with just a lone, small 7.62-mm machine gun mounted on its rear ramp. The gun's rounds are about the same size as a .30-06 hunting rifle's, and it is capable of firing only where the V-22 has been - not where it's going - and only when the ramp used by Marines to get on and off the aircraft is lowered. That doesn't satisfy Jones. "I just fundamentally believe than an assault aircraft that goes into hot landing zones should have a nose-mounted gun," Jones told TIME. "I go back to my roots a little bit," the Vietnam veteran says. "I just like those kinds of airplanes to have the biggest and best gun we can get, and that to me was a requirement." He doesn't think much of the V-22's current weapon: "A rear-mounted gun is better than no gun at all, but I don't know how much better." The Marines say combat jets or helicopter gunships will shadow V-22s flying into dangerous areas. And backers say the V-22's speed will help it elude threats. It could, for example, zip into harm's way at more than 200 m.p.h. (320 km/h), convert to helicopter mode and then land within seconds. It could pause on the ground to deliver or pick up Marines and then hustle from the landing zone. Various missile- warning systems and fire-extinguishing gear bolster its survivability. If it is hit, redundant hydraulic and flight-control systems will help keep it airborne. Finally, Marines say, if the V-22 does crash, its crumpling fuselage and collapsing seats will help cushion those on board. It's good that such protection is there. It's needed. For the V-22 continues to suffer problems unusual in an aircraft that first flew in 1989. In March 2006, for example, a just-repaired V-22 with three people aboard unexpectedly took off on its own - apparently the result of a computer glitch. After a 3?sec. flight to an altitude of 6 ft. (about 2 m), according to the V-22's flight computer, or 25 ft. (about 8 m), according to eyewitnesses, it dropped to the ground with enough force to snap off its right wing and cause more than $1 million in damage. There's more. Critics have had long-standing concerns about the poor field of view for pilots, the cramped and hot quarters for passengers and the V-22's unusually high need for maintenance. A flawed computer chip that could have led to crashes forced a V-22 grounding in February; bad switches that could have doomed the aircraft surfaced in June. In March the Government Accountability Office warned that V-22s are rolling off the production line in Amarillo, Texas, and being accepted by the Marines "with numerous deviations and waivers," including "several potentially serious defects." An internal Marine memo warned in June that serious and persistent reliability issues could "significantly" reduce the aircraft's anticipated role in Iraq. V-22s built before 2005, the report said, are fully ready to fly only 35% of the time, while newer models, like those in Iraq, are 62% ready. But "sustained high-tempo operations in [Iraq]," the memo warns, could drive down the readiness rates for the newer V-22s. Into Iraq Soon enough, the marines will know if those warnings are on target. "My fervent desire is to get the V-22 into the fight as soon as we can," General James Conway, commandant of the Marines, said in March. "I think it's going to prove itself rapidly." But then he said something that stunned V-22 boosters: "I'll tell you, there is going to be a crash. That's what airplanes do over time." Conway is not alone. Ward Carroll, the top government spokesman for the V-22 program from 2002 to 2005, believes that six Ospreys, about 5% of the fleet, will crash during its first three years of operational flight. Carroll says new pilots flying at night and in bad weather will make mistakes with tragic consequences. So he's reserving judgment on the aircraft and suspects that many of those who will be climbing into the V-22 are too. "I'm still not convinced," he says - echoing comments made privately by some Marines - "that the Marine ground pounders are in love with this airplane." A former F-14 aviator, Carroll likens the V-22 to another Marine favorite, the AV-8 Harrier jump jet. "The Harrier," he notes, "is actually a good analogy for the V-22." Like the AV-8, the V-22 is a radical aircraft crammed with compromises that may change combat forever. And like the AV-8, it may also kill a lot of Marines while doing little of note on the battlefield. Since 1971, more than a third of Harriers have crashed, killing 45 Marines in 143 accidents. But there's a critical difference between the two warplanes. Each Harrier carries a single pilot, nestled into an ejection seat with a parachute. But after all the debate about tilt-rotor technology - after all the vested interests have argued their case and all its boosters and critics have had their say - this much we know: within days, a V-22 will begin carrying up to 26 Marines into combat in Iraq, with no ejection seats - and no parachutes. * Find this article at: * http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...665835,00.html |
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The Osprey Goes to War
On Oct 4, 3:08 am, Walt wrote:
So it comes down to the ability to auto rotate versus lack of that ability (Once you get hit...)?- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - It is a confluence of things. If you try and fly it without escorts you'll get hit. You'll need to auto-rotate. If you try and descend at a constant rate into a zone you'll get hit. You'll need to auto-rotate. If you don't have effective armament on the bird you'll get hit. You'll need to auto-rotate. Your statements make a false assumption that poor susceptability = poor survivability. They are two different subsections of the overall vulnerability of the platform. Flight parameters/performance can certainly make a platform more susceptable to receiving hostile fire. However the survivability of the platform is determined by completely different parameters. Every hit does not mean a mission kill. I wonder how many retired Marines are making 2-3 times (or more) of their retirement pay to work on this thing. Unfortunately probably about the same number as the Admirals that pushed for NMCI . :/ BB I guess everybody has some mountain to climb. It's just fate whether you live in Kansas or Tibet... |
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The Osprey Goes to War
Kerryn Offord wrote:
BlackBeard wrote: On Oct 1, 6:11 pm, Kerryn Offord wrote: *** Maybe no more vulnerable to being shot at.. but the effect of being hit? Although there are no perfect survivability systems out there, the systems on the Osprey are 1) more numerous and 2) more advanced, than the survivability systems on the CH-46 SNIP At least the CH-46 gets to auto-rotate if hit... And the Osprey switches to powering both props off one engine and, in plane mode, keeps on flying. Losing an engine while heavily loaded and in hover would present power problems, but the pilot would still have a chance to make a powered landing. OTOH, if either bird loses a *prop* in hover, they're both equally screwed. The Osprey would probably be able to survive losing one prop in "plane" mode, whereas the CH-46 would still be screwed, but most helicopter combat losses take place in/near LZs. so the overall effect of the Osprey's superior survivability in this flight regime probably doesn't shift the overall survivability numbers much. But every bit helps. And comparing the "brand new" V-22 with the CH-46 which is how old? (And last up-graded?) says a lot for just how good the V-22 must be... The Osprey is intended to replace the 46s, so the comparison is not inappropriate. Also, in hover mode the Osprey is more similar to a CH-46 than most other helicopters due to the dual-rotor configuration, so some comparisons are better made against the more similar airframe. How does it compare with a modern military helicopter? Heck, how does it compare in survivability with even a Blackhawk? The Osprey probably has better survivability against engine hits, since its engines are so far apart and the props are cross-connected at all times, IIRC. A serious engine hit or prop hit while in low hover will probably be equally bad for both airframes (although the prop cross-connect might make a survivable landing more possible for the Osprey), but in plane mode the Osprey probably has better odds -- the BH might be able to autorotate (though I've heard from some pilots that the BH autorotates about the way a B-52 glides), but the Osprey has a decent chance of staying airborne. The Osprey lacks a vulnerable tail rotor, though as I mentioned above it shares the CH-46's vulnerability to single-rotor/engine loss while in hover. Just from a perspective of geometry and aerodynamics, the Osprey shouldn't be any more vulnerable while hovering in an LZ than the CH-46, and probably somewhat less than the Blackhawk. Once in full "plane" mode, the Osprey probably has somewhat superior survivability due to higher speed, and the ability to fly on one engine. During transition... hard to say. There might be a window of increased vulnerability, but if so it won't be very long. |
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Time magazine: V-22 Osprey: A Flying Shame
On Oct 2, 9:58 am, Vince wrote:
Walt wrote: On Oct 2, 2:48?am, Roger Conroy wrote: BlackBeard wrote: On Oct 1, 6:11 pm, Kerryn Offord wrote: *** Maybe no more vulnerable to being shot at.. but the effect of being hit? Although there are no perfect survivability systems out there, the systems on the Osprey are 1) more numerous and 2) more advanced, than the survivability systems on the CH-46 SNIP If it has a cobra escort.. Well.. It loses it's altitude/ speed advantage over alternative modern helicopters.. Rendevous scenario. The Cobras launch from a forward base and meet at the LZ with the Osprey which has travelled from a base further away. BB Is the Cobra really the only possible escort? I'm thinking that the AV-8 could do a pretty decent job during the high speed transit phase. Roger- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - AV-8's go too fast to really see what is on the ground. An AV-8 can't supress a treeline the way a Cobra can. I recall reading in the Marine Corps Gazette back in the early 1980's what you've seen me post: 1. Doesn't matter what the range and speed of the V-22 is. It is limited to the range and speed of the escorts 2. The V-22 needs guns of its own, and not one that fires backwards either. If the rotors are tilted forward then no door gunner can get a useful firing arc forward due to the arc of the rotors. 3. A chin turret was discussed (being the only reasonable option) but that was eliminated due to cost. I remember seeing this info in the MCG about 25 years ago. The freaking thing is a grotesque boondoggle. It will never be anything else. I posted a video of a V-22 crash and some of the info I am posting now on the website togetherweserved.com, which is for Marines only, and I was banned within 24 hours. Walt The chin turret is not just a question of cost. It uses about 10-15% of the already small payload and also "unbalances" the aircraft Vince The bucket made the cover of Time too. http://www.time.com/time/politics/ar...665835,00.html Wednesday, Sep. 26, 2007 V-22 Osprey: A Flying Shame By Mark Thompson It's hard to imagine an American weapons program so fraught with problems that Dick Cheney would try repeatedly to cancel it - hard, that is, until you get to know the Osprey. As Defense Secretary under George H.W. Bush, Cheney tried four times to kill the Marine Corps's ungainly tilt-rotor aircraft. Four times he failed. Cheney found the arguments for the combat troop carrier unpersuasive and its problems irredeemable. "Given the risk we face from a military standpoint, given the areas where we think the priorities ought to be, the V-22 is not at the top of the list," he told a Senate committee in 1989. "It came out at the bottom of the list, and for that reason, I decided to terminate it." But the Osprey proved impossible to kill, thanks to lawmakers who rescued it from Cheney's ax time and again because of the home-district money that came with it - and to the irresistible notion that American engineers had found a way to improve on another great aviation breakthrough, the helicopter. Now the aircraft that flies like an airplane but takes off and lands like a chopper is about to make its combat debut in Iraq. It has been a long, strange trip: the V-22 has been 25 years in development, more than twice as long as the Apollo program that put men on the moon. V-22 crashes have claimed the lives of 30 men - 10 times the lunar program's toll - all before the plane has seen combat. The Pentagon has put $20 billion into the Osprey and expects to spend an additional $35 billion before the program is finished. In exchange, the Marines, Navy and Air Force will get 458 aircraft, averaging $119 million per copy. The saga of the V-22 - the battles over its future on Capitol Hill, a performance record that is spotty at best, a long, determined quest by the Marines to get what they wanted - demonstrates how Washington works (or, rather, doesn't). It exposes the compromises that are made when narrow interests collide with common sense. It is a tale that shows how the system fails at its most significant task, by placing in jeopardy those we count on to protect us. For even at a stratospheric price, the V-22 is going into combat shorthanded. As a result of decisions the Marine Corps made over the past decade, the aircraft lacks a heavy-duty, forward-mounted machine gun to lay down suppressing fire against forces that will surely try to shoot it down. And if the plane's two engines are disabled by enemy fire or mechanical trouble while it's hovering, the V-22 lacks a helicopter's ability to coast roughly to the ground - something that often saved lives in Vietnam. In 2002 the Marines abandoned the requirement that the planes be capable of autorotating (as the maneuver is called), with unpowered but spinning helicopter blades slowly letting the aircraft land safely. That decision, a top Pentagon aviation consultant wrote in a confidential 2003 report obtained by TIME, is "unconscionable" for a wartime aircraft. "When everything goes wrong, as it often does in a combat environment," he said, "autorotation is all a helicopter pilot has to save his and his passengers' lives." The Plane That Wouldn't Die In many ways, the V-22 is a classic example of how large weapons systems have been built in the U.S. since Dwight Eisenhower warned in 1961 of the "unwarranted influence" of "the military-industrial complex." The Osprey has taken years to design, build, test and bring to the field. All that time meant plenty of money for its prime contractors, Bell Helicopter and the Boeing Co. As the plane took shape and costs increased, some of its missions were shelved or sidelined. And yet, with the U.S. spending almost $500 billion a year on defense - not counting the nearly $200 billion annually for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan - there's plenty of money for marginal or unnecessary programs. Pentagon reform and efficiency are far less of a cause among lawmakers today than during the years of Ronald Reagan's comparatively modest defense-spending boom. "Almost every program the U.S. military is now buying takes longer to develop, costs more than predicted and usually doesn't meet the original specifications and requirements," says Gordon Adams, who oversaw military spending for the Office of Management and Budget during Bill Clinton's Administration. The Marine Corps likes to boast that it spends only a nickel out of every Pentagon dollar and makes do with cheaper weapons than the other services. The story of the V-22 belies that image: It's a tale of how a military service with little experience overseeing aircraft programs has wound up with a plane that may be as notable for its shortcomings as for its technological advances. First, some history. Because Marines deploy aboard ships, the service's chiefs have always hungered for vertical lift - aircraft that could take off and land from small decks and fly far inland to drop off combat-ready troops. As the Marines' Vietnam-era CH-46 choppers became obsolete, commanders started to dream of an aircraft that would give them more options when considering an amphibious assault. The dreams intensified following the failed Desert One mission in 1980 to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran. In the course of the operation, three helicopters broke down, leading to an order to abort the entire endeavor, and a fourth chopper collided with a C-130 aircraft at a desert base, killing eight U.S. troops. That sent Pentagon bureaucrats hunting for a transport that could be used by all four military services and prevent another fiasco. Reagan, who took office the year after Desert One, began to pour money into the Pentagon, particularly for research and design into new weapons and combat systems. The Osprey was born. Originally, the program was designed to churn out the first of more than 1,000 tilt-rotors in less than 10 years for $40 million each. But this was no conventional plane. The Osprey may cruise like an airplane, but it takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter. The technical challenge of rotating an airplane's wings and engines in midair led to delays, which in turn led to an ever higher price tag. As expenses rose, the Pentagon cut the number of planes it wanted to buy, which in turn increased the unit price. Citing rising costs, the Army abandoned the project in 1983. That left the relatively tiny Marine Corps footing most of the bill for the project - the V-22 accounts for nearly 70% of its procurement budget - and overseeing a program larger and more technically challenging than any the service was accustomed to managing. Sensing weakness at the Pentagon, congressional supporters, largely from the V-22's key manufacturing states of Texas (Bell Helicopter) and Pennsylvania (Boeing), created the Tilt-Rotor Technology Coalition to keep the craft alive, despite Cheney's opposition. They were aided by nearly 2,000 V-22 suppliers, in more than 40 states, who pressured their lawmakers to stick with the program. And so, despite Cheney's doubts, the Osprey survived. By 1993, as the Osprey program approached its 12th birthday and Bill Clinton became President, the Marines had spent $13 billion on the planes. None were ready for war. In 1991 one of the first V-22s crashed when taking off for its maiden flight - because of improper wiring. A second crash killed seven in 1992. The Clinton Pentagon stuck with the program through the 1990s, but in 2000 two more V-22s crashed, killing 23 Marines. With that, the Marines grounded the Osprey for 18 months. Probes into the deadly 2000 crashes revealed that in a rush to deploy the aircraft, the Marines had dangerously cut corners in their testing program. The number of different flight configurations - varying speed, weight and other factors - flown by test pilots to ensure safe landings was reduced by half to meet deadlines. Then only two-thirds of those curtailed flight tests were conducted. That trend continues: while a 2004 plan called for 131 hours of nighttime flight tests, the Marines managed to run only 33 on the Osprey. Why the shortcuts? Problems with a gearbox kept many V-22s and pilots grounded. That meant many pilots lacked the hours required to qualify for night flying. Similarly, sea trials were curtailed because the ship designated to assist with Osprey tests could spare only 10 of the 21 days needed. There's also been controversy over a sandstorm test for the craft. The V-22's tendency to generate a dust storm when it lands in desert-like terrain wasn't examined because "an unusually wet spring resulted in a large amount of vegetation that prevented severe brownouts during landing attempts," the Pentagon's top tester noted. But the program continued, albeit with a caution about the aircraft's ability to fly in dusty conditions. The Engine-Failure Problem After the 2000 grounding, Osprey pilots were told to fly less aggressively, which critics say is the only reason no V-22 has crashed since. "They keep talking about all the things it can do, but little by little its operations are being more and more restricted," says Philip Coyle, who monitored the V-22's development as the Pentagon's top weapons tester from 1994 to 2001. The V-22 can fly safely "if used like a truck, carrying people from one safe area to another safe area," he says. "But I don't see them using it in combat situations where they will have to do a lot of maneuvering." The Marines contend that the V-22 is an assault aircraft and that no pilot who finds himself dodging bullets is going to fly it gently. "The airplane is incredibly maneuverable," says Lieut. Colonel Anthony (Buddy) Bianca, a veteran V-22 pilot. But the dirty little secret about an aircraft that combines the best features of an airplane and a helicopter is that it combines their worst features too. The V-22 can't glide as well as an airplane, and it can't hover as well as a helicopter. If a V-22 loses power while flying like an airplane, it should be able to glide to a rough but survivable belly-flop landing. Its huge, 19-ft.-long (5.7 m) rotors are designed to rip into shreds rather than break apart and tear into the fuselage. But all bets are off if a V-22 is flying like a helicopter, heading in or out of a landing zone, and its engines are disabled by enemy fire or mechanical malfunction. As originally designed, the V-22 was supposed to survive a loss of engine power when flying like a helicopter by autorotating toward the ground, just as maple seeds do in the fall. Autorotation, which turns a normally soft touchdown into an very hard emergency landing, is at least survivable. It became clear, however, that the design of the Osprey, adjusted many times over, simply could not accommodate the maneuver. The Pentagon slowly conceded the point. "The lack of proven autorotative capability is cause for concern in tilt-rotor aircraft," a 1999 report warned. Two years later, a second study cautioned that the V-22's "probability of a successful autorotational landing ... is very low." Unable to rewrite the laws of physics, the Pentagon determined that the ability to perform the safety procedure was no longer a necessary requirement and crossed it off the V-22's must-have list. "An autorotation to a safe landing is no longer a formal requirement," a 2002 Pentagon report said. "The deletion of safe autorotation landing as a ... requirement recognizes the hybrid nature of the tilt-rotor." Indeed it does, but that doesn't make the aircraft any safer. The plane's backers said that the chance of a dual-engine failure was so rare that it shouldn't be of concern. Yet the flight manual lists a variety of things that can cause both engines to fail, including "contaminated fuel ... software malfunctions or battle damage." The lone attempted V-22 autorotation "failed miserably," according to an internal 2003 report, obtained by TIME, written by the Institute for Defense Analyses, an in-house Pentagon think tank. "The test data indicate that the aircraft would have impacted the ground at a ... fatal rate of descent." That prospect doesn't concern some V-22 pilots, who believe they'll have the altitude and time to convert the aircraft into its airplane mode and hunt for a landing strip if they lose power. "We can turn it into a plane and glide it down, just like a C-130," Captain Justin (Moon) McKinney, a V-22 pilot, said from his North Carolina base as he got ready to head to Iraq. "I have absolutely no safety concerns with this aircraft, flying it here or in Iraq." Helicopter expert Rex Rivolo, who called the decision to deploy the V-22 without proven autorotation capability "unconscionable" in that confidential 2003 Pentagon study, declined to be interviewed. But in his report, Rivolo noted that up to 90% of the helicopters lost in the Vietnam War were in their final approach to landing when they were hit by enemy ground fire. About half of those were able to autorotate safely to the ground, "thereby saving the crews," Rivolo wrote. "Such events in V-22 would all be fatal." Faced with killing the program - or possibly killing those aboard the V-22 - the Marines have opted to save the plane and have largely shifted responsibility for surviving such a catastrophe from the designers to the pilots. While the engineers spent years vainly trying to solve the problem, pilots aboard a stricken V-22 will have just seconds to react. But tellingly, pilots have never practiced the maneuver outside the simulator - the flight manual forbids it - and even in simulators the results have been less than reassuring. "In simulations," the flight manual warns, "the outcome of the landings varied widely due to the extreme sensitivity to pilot technique and timing." The director of the Pentagon's testing office, in a 2005 report, put it more bluntly. If power is lost when a V-22 is flying like a helicopter below 1,600 ft. (490 m), he said, emergency landings "are not likely to be survivable." The Pea-Shooter Problem While the aerodynamics of autorotation may be challenging for outsiders to grasp, a second decision - sending the V-22 into combat armed with only a tiny gun, pointing backward - is something anyone can understand. The Pentagon boasts on its V-22 website that the aircraft "will be the weapon of choice for the full spectrum of combat." That's plainly false - and by a long shot. Retired General James Jones, who recently led a study into the capabilities of the Iraqi security forces, is a V-22 supporter. But when he ran the Marines from 1999 to 2003, he insisted the plane be outfitted with a hefty, forward-aimed .50-cal. machine gun. "It's obviously technically feasible. We've got nose-mounted guns on [helicopter gunship] Cobras and other flying platforms, and I thought all along this one should have it too," he says. The Marines saluted, awarding a $45 million contract in 2000 for the development of a swiveling triple-barreled .50-cal. machine gun under the V-22's nose, automatically aimed through a sight in the co-pilot's helmet. "All production aircraft will be outfitted with this defensive weapons system," the Marine colonel in charge of the program pledged in 2000. The weapon "provides the V-22 with a strong defensive firepower capability to greatly increase the aircraft's survivability in hostile actions," the Bell-Boeing team said. But the added weight (1,000 lbs., or 450 kg) and cost ($1.5 million per V-22) ultimately pushed the gun into the indefinite future. So 10 V-22s are going to war this month, each with just a lone, small 7.62-mm machine gun mounted on its rear ramp. The gun's rounds are about the same size as a .30-06 hunting rifle's, and it is capable of firing only where the V-22 has been - not where it's going - and only when the ramp used by Marines to get on and off the aircraft is lowered. That doesn't satisfy Jones. "I just fundamentally believe than an assault aircraft that goes into hot landing zones should have a nose-mounted gun," Jones told TIME. "I go back to my roots a little bit," the Vietnam veteran says. "I just like those kinds of airplanes to have the biggest and best gun we can get, and that to me was a requirement." He doesn't think much of the V-22's current weapon: "A rear-mounted gun is better than no gun at all, but I don't know how much better." The Marines say combat jets or helicopter gunships will shadow V-22s flying into dangerous areas. And backers say the V-22's speed will help it elude threats. It could, for example, zip into harm's way at more than 200 m.p.h. (320 km/h), convert to helicopter mode and then land within seconds. It could pause on the ground to deliver or pick up Marines and then hustle from the landing zone. Various missile- warning systems and fire-extinguishing gear bolster its survivability. If it is hit, redundant hydraulic and flight-control systems will help keep it airborne. Finally, Marines say, if the V-22 does crash, its crumpling fuselage and collapsing seats will help cushion those on board. It's good that such protection is there. It's needed. For the V-22 continues to suffer problems unusual in an aircraft that first flew in 1989. In March 2006, for example, a just-repaired V-22 with three people aboard unexpectedly took off on its own - apparently the result of a computer glitch. After a 3?sec. flight to an altitude of 6 ft. (about 2 m), according to the V-22's flight computer, or 25 ft. (about 8 m), according to eyewitnesses, it dropped to the ground with enough force to snap off its right wing and cause more than $1 million in damage. There's more. Critics have had long-standing concerns about the poor field of view for pilots, the cramped and hot quarters for passengers and the V-22's unusually high need for maintenance. A flawed computer chip that could have led to crashes forced a V-22 grounding in February; bad switches that could have doomed the aircraft surfaced in June. In March the Government Accountability Office warned that V-22s are rolling off the production line in Amarillo, Texas, and being accepted by the Marines "with numerous deviations and waivers," including "several potentially serious defects." An internal Marine memo warned in June that serious and persistent reliability issues could "significantly" reduce the aircraft's anticipated role in Iraq. V-22s built before 2005, the report said, are fully ready to fly only 35% of the time, while newer models, like those in Iraq, are 62% ready. But "sustained high-tempo operations in [Iraq]," the memo warns, could drive down the readiness rates for the newer V-22s. Into Iraq Soon enough, the marines will know if those warnings are on target. "My fervent desire is to get the V-22 into the fight as soon as we can," General James Conway, commandant of the Marines, said in March. "I think it's going to prove itself rapidly." But then he said something that stunned V-22 boosters: "I'll tell you, there is going to be a crash. That's what airplanes do over time." Conway is not alone. Ward Carroll, the top government spokesman for the V-22 program from 2002 to 2005, believes that six Ospreys, about 5% of the fleet, will crash during its first three years of operational flight. Carroll says new pilots flying at night and in bad weather will make mistakes with tragic consequences. So he's reserving judgment on the aircraft and suspects that many of those who will be climbing into the V-22 are too. "I'm still not convinced," he says - echoing comments made privately by some Marines - "that the Marine ground pounders are in love with this airplane." A former F-14 aviator, Carroll likens the V-22 to another Marine favorite, the AV-8 Harrier jump jet. "The Harrier," he notes, "is actually a good analogy for the V-22." Like the AV-8, the V-22 is a radical aircraft crammed with compromises that may change combat forever. And like the AV-8, it may also kill a lot of Marines while doing little of note on the battlefield. Since 1971, more than a third of Harriers have crashed, killing 45 Marines in 143 accidents. But there's a critical difference between the two warplanes. Each Harrier carries a single pilot, nestled into an ejection seat with a parachute. But after all the debate about tilt-rotor technology - after all the vested interests have argued their case and all its boosters and critics have had their say - this much we know: within days, a V-22 will begin carrying up to 26 Marines into combat in Iraq, with no ejection seats - and no parachutes. * Find this article at: *http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...665835,00.html |
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