Thought this was an interesting look at the V-22:



Military

Agony and Adjustment: The Odyssey of the Osprey


Overhaul & Maintenance Jun 01 , 2009 , p. 65
Jerome Greer Chandler


The V-22 Osprey finally is coming of age.

A quarter century since development began—four crashes and 30 lives later—the most-maligned aircraft ever to enter the inventory of the U.S. military is finding its sea legs. The V-22 Osprey finally is coming of age. Eighty-seven of an authorized fleet of 458 tilt-rotor, vertical take-off and landing aircraft are operational. Plans call for 360 MV-22Bs for the Marines, 50 CV-22Bs for the Air Force and 48 MV-22Bs for the Navy, although none of the Navy’s have yet been built. The first fleet Ospreys went to war for the Marines in October 2007, when 10 MV-22Bs flown by the VM-263 “Thunder Chicken” squadron started sorties in Iraq’s formerly volatile Al Anbar province, northwest of Baghdad. According to a Jan. 2, 2009, report by Christopher Bolkcom of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the aircraft completed more than 2,000 air support requests, in the process racking up more than 2,000 combat flight hours. The average mission-capable rate: 68%.

While that 68% isn’t where the Marine Corps wants to be, it’s light years ahead of where the problem-plagued aircraft was. Consider some context:

June 11, 1991. The fifth V-22 prototype crashed on its first flight. The cause, according to the CRS report: “incorrect wiring in a flight control system;”

July 20, 1992. The fourth Osprey prototype crashed on landing at Quantico Marine Air Station, killing seven. The CRS cites the reason as “a fire resulting from hydraulic component failures and design problems in the engine nacelles;”

April 8, 2000. A V-22 crashed near Tucson, Ariz., killing 19. CRS says an investigation determined the aircraft descended “in excess of the recommended flight envelope,” setting up something called “power settling”—the infamous “ring vortex state.” The military suspended flight testing for two months in the aftermath of the human factors accident;

Nov. 17, 2000. While deeming the V-22 “operationally effective,” the Department of Defense’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation says the aircraft still was not “operationally suitable, primarily because of reliability, maintainability, availability, human factors and interoperatiability issues;”

Dec. 11, 2000. An MV-22 crashed near Jacksonville, N.C. All four on board died. The Marine Corps later determined the crash was caused by what CRS cites as a “burst hydraulic line in one of the Osprey’s two engine casings, and a software malfunction that caused the aircraft to accelerate and decelerate unpredictably when the pilots tried to compensate.” The Marines ground the V-22 fleet;

December 2000. An anonymous letter was mailed to the media by someone claiming to be a V-22 mechanic, the CRS report says. In it, the author claims that Osprey maintenance records had been falsified for two years—this at the “explicit direction of the squadron commander.” Later reports show the V-22 squadron commander admitted to falsifying maintenance records, and the Marine Corps relieved him of command;

June 2005. CRS says a U.S. grand jury indicted a company for allegedly falsely certifying the quality of titanium tubing for the Osprey. The test program was suspended for 11 days.

By any metric—men, money, material—V-22’s learning curve has been astoundingly steep. Now, the people charged with the care and feeding of this decidedly different flying machine believe its problems are less dramatic and more tractable.


Sandy Solutions

One of the more proximate problems confronting the V-22 is powerplant longevity. The aircraft’s two Rolls-Royce AE1107Cs “are not lasting as long as expected,” says the CRS report. Initially, the Marine Corps anticipated the engines would stay on-wing approximately 600 flight hours. “However,” says the CRC, “fleet-wide engines are lasting about 420 flight hours, while aircraft deployed to Iraq are requiring engine change-outs about every 380 flight hours.”

“Three hundred and eighty [hours] is certainly less than we wanted,” conceded Marine Col. Matt Mulhern, the V-22’s joint program manager. Responsible for the maturation of both the Marine’s MV-22Bs and the Air Force’s CV-22Bs, Mulhern says on-wing time “is a function of the environment” in Iraq. Specifically, it’s the sand. “The make-up of the dirt and dust over in Iraq is different [than in the continental U.S.]. It’s more like fine talcum powder, as opposed to coarser-grained stuff that suffuses other arid areas.

The engine air/particle separators (EAPS) have had a tough time dealing with the fine airborne effluent. “Nothing is going to separate all that stuff,” says Mulhern. “Eventually you’re going to collect dust and dirt in the engine.” When it gets to the compressor section, it erodes the blades. That changes the airflow and cuts the power produced by the ostensibly 6,150 shp Rolls-Royce engines. “The turbine tends to cake up, and glass up,” he said.

The Marines responded by washing both the turbine and compressor sections. Mulhern says maintainers have increased on-wing time to “about 480 hours” in Iraq. That’s a 25% improvement. In more benign environments such as at the Marine Corp.’s New River, N.C., facility, he says the engines are getting about 1,300 hours on-wing.

Despite the best projections and the most arduous simulations, nothing remotely resembles the rigors of field. “True operational hours. [That’s] where you start to learn about an airplane,” says Mulhern. During developmental tests, the aircraft sits in a hangar when it’s not flying. It’s maintained by a cadre of top-flight technicians. “You treat [the aircraft] with kid gloves,” says the V-22 program manager. “They never get rained on.” It’s the operational environment that takes them to the edge.

In the maturational scheme of things, the Osprey still is a fledgling. While the program has been around for a quarter of a century, all V-22s combined have just racked up approximately 55,000 flight hours. And Mulhern said, “85% of those have just come in the last four years.”

Planners anticipated some issues, such as rotor blade erosion—this by virtue of what aircraft encountered at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., and Twentynine Palms, Calif. But that was stateside sand. When the aircraft actually got to Iraq, “We didn’t have near the [rotor blade erosion] problems we thought we were going to have,” says the colonel.

What drove maintainers crazy, at least at first, was that insidious dust. If EAPS had a hard time handling Iraqi particulate infiltration, so did the V-22’s wiring system. The micro-fine, talc-like stuff “was actually working its way into the conduit of the wires,” says Mulhern. Because the Marines were performing essential engine washes, moisture mixed with the dust to produce a fast-hardening muck the colonel described as a kind of “Quikrete…It would just turn into a very hard little ball. And that would chafe the wire.” Technicians spent an inordinate amount of time troubleshooting shorts.

Things got so bad that one squadron commander told Mulhern his people were spending one hour of troubleshooting and wire repair for every flight hour. That wreaks havoc on the mission capability rate. The solution? Changing the wiring bundle parts code from strictly repairable to repairable or replaceable. “Once we did that, it settled itself down,” he said.


Sophisticated Schoolhouse

A whole array of Osprey issues seems to be settling down just now. One of the reasons is the concerted effort the U.S. military is making to better maintain the aircraft. It all starts with training, and that begins in a new 40,000-sq.-ft. V-22 Maintenance Training Facility at New River, N.C. The plant is a full-up, full-tilt training arena, replete with a 26,900-sq.-ft. bay that can accommodate as many as four full-size aircraft.

The facility sports a sophisticated fault-insertion system that allows future Osprey technicians to simulate specific squawks in a less intimidating environment. “Usually, when you’re training a maintainer, you take them out on a real airplane, which everybody is real antsy about,” says Mulhern. “You have some master sergeant breathing down your neck, and if you break anything he’s going to kill you.”

On a depot level, Marines are maintaining V-22s in existing facilities nearby, at the Fleet Readiness Center East (FRC-East) in Cherry Point, N.C.

So, how much of the facility commander’s time is the high-profile airplane taking up just now? “Frankly, not very much,” says Col. David Smith, FRC-East’s commanding officer. “That’s because we just inducted our first aircraft in March.” A second Osprey is set for June induction.

Look for intake to pick up steam at a slow but steady clip. Smith says V-22s are scheduled to roll into his depot-level maintenance plant after they’ve been operational for 60 months. The Marine Corps pegs its depot maintenance to months, rather than flight hours. The colonel estimates Fleet Readiness Center East will handle nine of the tilt-rotors over the next two years, but noted, “that cycle is not etched in stone yet, because we’re in the prototype phase.” The specific flow is “an engineering decision,” a decision predicated by data gathered for the craft’s Integrated Maintenance Program, or IMP.

The way things stand as of this writing, V-22 programmed depot maintenance will take 3,500 man-hours and consume 90 days, although Smith again emphasized these figures are “just an engineering estimate…That’s what we’re operating from as a baseline.”

While the cycle time is still subject to change, the mettle of the maintainers the Marines intend to employ is not. “We made a conscious, deliberate plan for staffing our initial V-22 stand-up,” says Smith. “We took people that were skilled artisans off of our other [aircraft] lines to bring in some A-Team type guys.”

The trick, of course, is to attract a cadre of accomplished technicians without eviscerating current aircraft lines—AV-8 Harriers, EA-6B Intruders, CH-53 heavy-lift helos and venerable CH-46 Sea Knights.

“We obviously did not want to stumble coming out of the gate,” says Smith. “We [also] did not want to undermine our other four aircraft lines.”

The solution: In addition to bringing in grey beards from other lines, FRC-East peppered the ranks of V-22 maintainers with younger people entering the workforce through co-op training programs. Helping to anchor the mix are former Marines with V-22 experience who used to work on the aircraft. “Now they’re in civilian clothes,” says Smith, “and they’re working on that same bureau number right here at FRC-East.”

All the Osprey mechanics are receiving decent doses of training, not just at the Marine Corp.’s New River training facility, but at “Bell Helicopter, where they’re making some of the large composite pieces and other components,” says Smith.

The V-22, a product of a Bell-Boeing collaboration, makes significant use of composite structures. Boeing Rotorcraft Systems is responsible for the fuselage, all subsystems, digital avionics and fly-by-wire flight control systems. Partner Bell Helicopter Textron’s territory takes in the wing, transmissions, empennage, rotor systems and engine installation, from its completion facility in Amarillo, Texas.


Depot-Level Surprises?

While earlier Osprey iterations gained notoriety for nasty surprises, Smith contends that’s not the case with the aircraft coming into FRC-East. “All of the surprises we’ve found have been pleasant [ones].” That’s because the aircraft he’s seeing in Cherry Point fly regularly. “And an aircraft that’s exercised regularly, and has daily turnaround and pre-flight inspections” is—by definition, he insists—better maintained.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t issues. Like Mulhern, Smith understands there’s plenty of room to ratchet up reliability. The depot already is ferreting out problems, like nacelle center bodies. Those structures diffuse the V-22’s heat signature, a critical capability in hostile areas of operation where heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles are a constant threat.

The nacelle center body is a $100,000 consumable part. “It was supposed to last a long, long time,” says Smith. “It’s lasted a fraction of that.” FRC East engineers and maintainers came up with a way to replace the tenth-of-a-million dollar part “at a fraction” of that cost.

Despite the gradual leveling of this aircraft’s tortuous learning curve, it’s still too early to make sweeping conclusions about whether the V-22 Osprey will ever be the resolute, reliable warfighter the U.S. military first envisioned at the program’s launch back in 1981. For now it is, perhaps, comfort enough that its growing pains mimic those of more mundane flying machines. Given the Osprey’s background, that’s progress. ◗

Thanks for finding and posting that article; it's an enlightening read.

"Despite the best projections and the most arduous simulations, nothing remotely resembles the rigors of field."

If only the naysayers would give heed to this little gem...

It's interesting to see DARPA's Heliplane project for a new high-speed gyrodyne. A much simpler and safer technology than the V-22, but offering similar advantages of VTOL plus high speed.

Of course, the Fairey Rotodyne delivered that fifty years ago...oh, what a lost opportunity!

That comment reveals more about the times than about the V-22. Take a look at the mishap rates of 1950s military jets. Just as an example, for the period 1 July 1954 to 30 September 1955, the F7U-3 Cutlass had 6.77 accidents per 1000 carrier landings. And that is just carrier landings -- the Cutlass had numerous other ways of killing its pilots. Or how about the B-47, perhaps the most technologically influential jet aircraft ever and of enormous strategic importance. I have a book which lists every single B-47 built and its disposition. Some rather large % of B-47 aircraft were splattered. Shall we take a look at the F-100A or the B-58A, two marginally airworthy death traps. The KC-135A or the B-52 in their early days were no shining examples of safety either. The idea that the V-22 is some uniquely dangerous aircraft is just untrue.

Side question, how'd the Rotodyne get by without a tail rotor?

The rotor wasn't driven by a shaft, but by jets in the blade tips. So there was no torque effect to overcome.

Compared with the V-22, it was amazingly simple but also effective. At the time there was no requirement expressed for a VTOL transport able to carry a good load at a far higher speed and a longer range than any helicopter, so the military never bought any.

The usual reason given for its commercial failure as a small airliner was the noise from the tip jets (which were "hot jets" - they burned fuel) but this was being tackled at the time of the cancellation. I think that a more fundamental reason was that to make full use of the VTOL advantage it needed to operate from city-centre heliports, so it needed a network of such heliports to be built before any airline would be interested in buying it. The cost and planning issues involved in that probably had a bearing on its demise.

Ken Katz, don't forget the Boeing/Vertol/Piasecki tandem rotor helicopters. I don't remember reading much about the earlier designs' problems, but the CH-46 and -47 had really bad teething problems. Once, at OCS, I heard a sergeant refer to the -46 as a "Crowd Killer". When I asked him about it, he replied, "They fall out of the sky a lot." This was in 1975, and the -46 had been in service for over ten years. (Back then, I never heard them called "Phrogs")

The Chinook was in (great) danger of cancellation at one point, due to crashes--at a much greater rate than V-22s.

It would have made LZ ops a nightmare, both for the aircrew and personnel on the ground, with those turboprop blades spinning around so close to the deck.

I believe that a military version would have had a rear loading ramp, so it would be a question of training (always approach from the rear).

All weapon systems are compromises. That seems a small one to make to get the vastly increased speed and range over a helo. After all, the V-22 has massive compromises inherent in the design (the props are too big to be efficient propellers, too small to be efficient rotors, and too small to provide a safe engines-out autorotating descent - or indeed, any kind of safe descent!).

Bloomberg also had an article on the V-22 problems:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=axdXXwjEYNYc

V-22’s Iraq Performance Should Prompt Program Review, GAO Says
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By Tony Capaccio

June 23 (Bloomberg) -- The V-22 Osprey’s performance during its 19 months in Iraq was substandard and the Pentagon should review whether the aircraft’s cost and reliability merit continuing the program, according to congressional auditors.

The tilt-rotor plane’s components wear out too soon, making it too costly to maintain and grounded too much of the time, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said.

The Defense Department has spent $28 billion on the aircraft developed and built by Textron Inc. and Boeing Co. and has bought 206 planes to date. It plans to spend $25 billion more on upgrades and the purchase of the remaining 252 planes in the 458-aircraft program for the Marine Corps and Air Force Special Operations Command.

Given the “significant funding needs” to complete the program, “now is a good time to consider the return on this investment as well as other, less costly alternatives that can fill the current requirement,” the watchdog agency said.

The report, scheduled for release at a congressional hearing today, is the first independent assessment of the V-22’s performance in Iraq. The aircraft has been in development for 20 years and Marine Corps officials say it is likely to be deployed in Afghanistan this year.

The Osprey has rotors that tilt, allowing it to take off and land like a helicopter. The military sees it as useful for long-range Marine Corps and commando missions such as those the Marines anticipate in Afghanistan.

Pentagon Response

David Ahern, a Pentagon acquisition official, defended the aircraft’s effectiveness in Iraq but said the GAO “properly identifies reliability and availability concerns.”

“Correcting the reliability and availability problems is a priority and actions are being taken,” Ahern stated in comments included in the report. “Neither the Defense Department nor the Marine Corps is satisfied,” he wrote in comments coordinated with the Marine Corps.

Ahern said the Pentagon sees no need for a reassessment of the program of the scope recommended by GAO, but “as more is learned about the V-22’s performance, future adjustments to planned quantities may be appropriate.”

Pentagon performance reviews of the Osprey in 2000 and 2001 criticized the aircraft for a host of deficiencies, including problems with its design, safety and reliability. Subsequent reviews concluded that the problems had been largely corrected.

No Heavy Combat

The V-22 didn’t face heavy combat conditions in Iraq. The first squadron of 12 arrived in October 2007, after the once- heavy fighting in Anbar province between U.S. forces and al- Qaeda insurgents had died down because local Sunni tribesmen had turned against the insurgents.

While the V-22 flew its assigned missions successfully, maintenance problems left the planes available for flight at rates “significantly below minimum required levels,” the GAO said.

During three periods studied during the V-22’s deployment from October 2007 through April 2009, the planes were available for combat operations on average 68 percent, 57 percent and 61 percent of the time, “while the minimum requirement” is 82 percent, said the GAO.

And these low rates “were not unique to the Iraq deployment” but were on par with other V-22 squadrons in the U.S., GAO said.

In addition, the 12 planes arrived with nearly three times the spare parts required, yet some parts wore out more quickly than expected, creating shortages that forced maintenance crews to cannibalize components from these planes or get them from Ospreys based in the U.S.

In addition to keeping the plane grounded, these constant repairs put the plane’s flying cost at $11,000 per hour, double the original estimate.

Design ‘Challenges’

The V-22’s continuing design “challenges have raised questions over whether the aircraft is best suited to accomplish” the full range of missions of the older aircraft it’s replacing, the agency said.

Ahern defended the V-22’s performance in Iraq.

“The aircraft was pressed into combat operations in Iraq at the first opportunity,” he wrote. “The V-22 is arguably the most survivable, versatile and capable medium-lift airframe in the Iraq theater” and “evidence in the report leads to a conclusion that the V-22 was operationally effective in Iraq,” Ahern wrote.

Providence, Rhode Island-based Textron’s Bell Helicopter unit co-produces the Osprey with Boeing’s Ridley Township, Pennsylvania, facility. Chicago-based Boeing makes the fuselage. Fort Worth, Texas-based Bell mates the wings and the tail to the fuselage and conducts flight tests.

Bell Helicopter spokesman Tom Dolney said that, while the companies haven’t seen the GAO report, “We have a plan in place and an ongoing program to improve the availability of the entire V-22 fleet.”

“We’ve been working with our customers and the Osprey industry team to identify components, support activities and designs that will improve aircraft availability. Several improvements are already in place,” Dolney said in an e-mail statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Capaccio at at acapaccio@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 23, 2009 11:48 EDT

GAO report:


http://www.militarytimes.com/static/projec...prey_062309.pdf

It seems to me that the articles referred to are emphasizing problems more than the solutions, which are being implemented. It's like earlier "exposes" that blast a program because of failed tests, ignoring the fact that testing is supposed to cause failures.

Ken,
IIRC, something like 1-out-of-5, fully 20% of all the B58's that ever flew, crashed eventually. That sound about right?
There is or used to be a website that chronicled all the B58 crashes.

It was still worth building, if only for the beauty and performance.

D.

Army Times Story



Lawmaker: Time to put Osprey out of its misery

By Amy McCullough - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jun 23, 2009 19:56:22 EDT

The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recommended Tuesday that the production of all MV-22 Ospreys be halted, saying that after more than two decades the hybrid aircraft still can’t complete the missions for which it was designed.

“It’s time to put the Osprey out of its misery, and time to put the taxpayers out of their miseries,” Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., said following testimony on Capitol Hill from leading Marine aviation officials, representatives of the Government Accountability Office and defense analysts. Towns said he plans to present his recommendation to the House Appropriations Committee.

His comments come after the release Tuesday of a scathing report from the GAO questioning the Osprey’s ability to operate in high-threat environments — namely Afghanistan — and on Navy ships. Moreover, the program’s research, development, test and evaluation costs soared more than 200 percent — from $4.2 billion to $12.7 billion — between 1986 and 2007, according to the report, which notes also that the cost to procure the aircraft has jumped from $34.4 billion to $42.6 billion, even though the total buy has dropped from nearly 1,000 aircraft to less than 500.

And while its three consecutive deployments to Iraq prove the Osprey can complete its mission, “challenges may limit its ability to accomplish the full repertoire of missions of the legacy helicopters it is replacing,” the report says.

Marine officials staunchly defended the aircraft, saying it has the ability to save lives by flying high above the threats that insurgents and traditional combat weapons present.

The GAO report makes several observations, including:

• The Corps has been forced to “cannibalize” its MV-22s and the Osprey production line because parts wear out much quicker than anticipated.

• The aircraft lacks an integrated weapon system capable of suppressing threats while approaching a landing zone.

• The Osprey’s size prohibits it from fully using all the deck spots aboard Navy ships, and its “large inventory” of spare parts takes up too much room on the hangar deck space.

Retired Lt. Col. Dakota Wood, senior fellow for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, has suggested the Corps reconsider its plan to replace all of its CH-46E Sea Knight and CH-53D Sea Stallions and consider a mixed fleet instead.

“A mixed medium-lift fleet composed of MV-22s and a new helicopter would provide more options and increased flexibility for the service at less cost than a fleet composed only of MV-22s,” Wood said.

Using overall GDP deflator numbers, the increase in nominal prices from 1986 to 2007 were 167%, so an increase in RDT&E costs of only 200% is fucking miraculous.

True for almost every vehicle in the sandbox, from what I hear. All the way down to Humvees.



So do UH-1, UH-60, CH-46, ...

The Osprey has a fairly big (wide, actually) footprint on deck. We kinda knew that back in the 1980s. The Marines seem to accept its characteristics w.r.t. LHA operation, just as they worked around the challenges of CH-53 operation.

And how much is "too much" w.r.t. parts inventory? 5% of deck area? 300%?



Oh yeah, that's exactly what the Marines need right now; a new aircraft procurement in an era of high optempo and massive federal budget deficits. Brilliant.

...remains curious, as all USN amphib ships from LHD-1 have been designed to V-22 deck spots and servicing. LHA class and LPH class is gone.


The mixed heavy/medium fleet has been doctrinal for two generations. Why would a mixed medium fleet be better?? Who is this Dakota Wood??


[edit to add]: Sorry I asked:

Dakota L. Wood, Senior Fellow

Dakota L. Wood is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

He is currently involved in studying the operational challenges of irregular warfare, complex contingencies under high-technology conditions, and proliferated nuclear environments.

Before his retirement from the U.S. Marine Corps in 2005, LtCol Wood served in a wide variety of operational and staff assignments, including the Corps’ Military Assistant to the Director of the Office of Net Assessment – Mr. Andrew Marshall; and, providing defense issues analysis support to the Commandant of the Marine Corps on assignment to the Strategic Initiatives Group. Operationally, LtCol Wood was recognized for logistical planning and execution contributions to several operations, to include Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

Immediately following his retirement, he provided support to the Department of Homeland Security as Operations Officer for the National Biosurveillance Integration System.

Mr. Wood received a BS from the U.S. Naval Academy and holds an MA from the Naval War College, where he graduated with distinction, in addition to meritorious recognition from the Marine Corps’ School of Advanced Warfighting.

High maintenance may be ok for special applications where you can baby them -- this is a very complex piece of machinery after all, even when compared to other aircraft. But making them the standard replacement for the CH-46... I'm more concerned at how maintenance intensive and costly the aircraft will be in 20-30 years when they're worn out and there's nothing to replace them with.

Cherry-picking axe-grinding.

USMC veterans as a group seem to have a lot of very definite opinions about a lot of different things. Maybe it's what they were fed in boot camp or something.

It would be comforting to review the equally horrendous events of the CH-46 debut in Vietnam, complete with doomsday forecasts, etc. Were that nothing more than the same for Osprey now, but my fears continue that the concept/design may be against the wall.

Should the Osprey be *put out of its misery*, what would be the most appropriate replacement (limiting the scope to what's available off-the-shelf or so in terms of medium / heavy helicopters) ?

The easiest thing would be to just go all CH-53, but that is not the Marines requirement. I don't think there is an indigenous design in the medium lift range in production. What's that euro thingie, the 101? Think that would be closest.

That said Osprey won't be put out of its misery, so no worries...in that sense, anyway.

True, but that's what the GAO always does. Its not like they've ever looked at a .mil procurement and thrown roses at it. When someone wants a procurement killed, they set the GAO on it and publish the report. Had GAO looked at the Garand development, the Springfield would still be the issue rifle going into 1950.

There are a number of current or recent production helos that could do the medium mission, more or less. EH-101, NH-90, S-92, Super Puma, to name a few. None quite as practical as the CH-46 in terms of layout and suitability for shipboard ops, but had DOD decided to go OTS back in 1995 rather than wait for V-22 things would be a lot different now. Of course, the Interim Replacement Medium Marine Helo procurement would have been starved of funding in the 90s just as V-22 and others.

As for NIH, jobs, and politics, Yurrupeens have been very willing to move fab to CONUS (inverse offsets, you might say). Hell, if forced to they could sub either component fab or assembly to Bell, Boeing, and Sikorsky. On any of the existing Eurobirds, its not like the American aerospace firms are going to learn any competitive technlogies, at least on airframes, engines, gearboxen, etc.

The MV-22B has deployed to western Iraq, an absolutely terrible environment for any complex piece of mechanical equipment due to the fine dust. The relevant metric is whether the Osprey's problems in that environment are worse than any other rotorcraft. I doubt it. Presumably there will be some enhancements to improve component reliability and durability in that environment. This is most likely somebody making a molehill into a mountain. I remember all the horror stories about how the M1 Abrams tank could never work in a dusty environment. It just took some good engineering, it was nothing fundamental. I assume the same thing with the Osprey.

The only real controversy with the Osprey is whether its superior capabilities, which are extremely valuable when needed but unnecessary for routine operations, are worth the incremental cost. Since we can't predict how often those superior capabilities will be needed, there is not a clear answer to the question.

The only plausible alternative to the Osprey that could be available in a few years would be a USMC assault variant of the MH-60S. The other airframes which are plausible candidates (EH101, S-92, NH90) would require substantial engineering to be "Americanized", meaning time and $$$.

The V-22 is getting a gun installation. It is questionable that arming transport aircraft is such a good idea. It cuts into their payload, and that's why transports are escorted into LZs.

When I was in the Air Force, I dealt with the GAO. I was underwhelmed. To me, their investigation looked like an unfocused fishing expedition. If I recall correctly, the lead investigator liked coming to Edwards AFB because he could spend the weekend in Las Vegas.

I recall reading such opinions during Desert Shield, stuff like "M1, Bradley and Apache are too fragile for the desert, they were designed for a European battlefield!" or something to that effect.

Fast forward to 2003 and present - hehe I'd love to see the guys who made such doom-and-gloom predictions back then.

Nice to see they finally settled on a system. Still, the MV-22 will always be under a microscope for cause.

Have they desided how to perform the escort?

Fixed wing or do they have to slow down to the pace of the AH-1's?

I still say I will not get on a convertiplane until the president is flying in one.

Why does it matter? There's no need for AH-1s to fly formation with the MV-22s to and from the LZ. Or for AV-8s or F/A-18s to do the same. From a single big-deck, launch the AH-1s, spot the MV-22s, load up, then launch the MV-22s timed to meet with the "escort" at the LZ, prep & launch the AV-8s. The USN has been running strike packages in a similar fashion for decades--launch the slow planes first and let the fast ones catch up later. In a heavy AD environment, none of the packages are going anywhere until EA-18s/EA-6s, F/A-18E/Fs, & F-35s have cleared out the transit corridor. Where close escort is needed is at the landing zone.

If you just HAVE to provide close escort for the MV-22, develop an AV-22 version, or take Boeing up on their offer to restart OV-10 production.

Maybe we should kill the MV-22 program and start a new helo acquisition program. That'd probably be the only thing that would take the criticism spotlight off of the Osprey. Remember all the complaints about the B-1B? Strangely silent after production ended and the B-2 became the new squeaky toy for cost over runs. Which has been replaced at the pillory by the F-22. When the F-22 production closes, the F-35 will really hit center stage.

A navalized CH-47F would be just the thing to refocus attention away from the V-22--it worked for the USAF with CSAR-X. Ever notice you never hear about the CV-22? Sneaky zoomies.

As I've said before, I'll take a ride on the V-22, if I'm ever lucky enough to be offered the chance. The annoying thing is that it will probably serve very capably for many years and let us do things the legacy force couldn't, but will always be dogged by its reputation as a money hog, maintenance nightmare, and lawn dart. Not unlike the way the early public rep followed the Spruances or the Bradley. The F-22 is lucky that it can point to easily quantifiable (if not easily verifiable) victories in exercises as proof of superiority. A transport like the V-22 doesn't have a simple, one-number answer to wave at critics. Frankly, the MV-22 is in production and is performing the mission. Do the MV-22 cancellation advocates have a viable CH-46 replacement plan that they can GUARANTEE won't turn into another protracted procurement program like CSAR-X, US101, KC-X, DDX, LCS, EFV, etc.? Be realistic, here, it's still going to be a DOD program and the procurement process is not going to be magically "reformed"...

The best thing is to take the operational lessons and work on a MV-22C. Followed by a D. And an E, F, and G, if necessary. Heck, the CH-46 it replaces is an E-model. The latest H-53 program is a -K, the H-47 is on "F" and the H-1 family is on "Y" and "Z." That's what "spiral development" should be, not the nonsense that gets spread around as "Systems Engineering."

Douglas

So in other words one provides escort at the target.
I thought what a cookie with conventional helos would generally be provided with close escort all the way.

So is the transit made above effective ceiling of MANPAD's of just above the effective ceiling of smallarms?



It would be kind of silly to kill the Osprey now, wouldn't it?


The error was rather to invest all that money into developing it in the first place.

Furthermore, being so area inefficient (requires 70% more hangarspace then the CH-46)
and having limited abillety to compensate for that by shorter turn around time
(spped being limited by external loads and so on) it just doesn't seem to me, what it is what the USMC needs for the gatornavy.

To insert and extract special forces, for the AEW role abord VTOL-carriers on the other hand...

The MV-22 should be able to take advantage of airplane mode and operate more like a C-130 in transit, with the flight profile being determined by the threat. Generally speaking, even heloes tend to want their air support on hand before the transports start making their landings. With the marginal speed differences between AH-1s and the heloes they are supporting, it makes sense that the transit to the LZ might see AHs and CHs in a kind of loose formation, but the gunships and scouts should be well out front to check out the landing zone and to start working over any resistance--or to warn off the transports. Maybe some of our serving/veteran members could speak to their experiences?

I agree that it would be silly to kill the Osprey--the suggestion to do so was intended to be satirical. I disagree that the investment was in error. For all the promise, it still isn't clear to me that the compound helicopter or some of the other alternatives are superior for the V-22 mission. Time will tell, but the alternative ideas haven't been able to make it to service in a meaningful way, which suggests the trade might not be as simple as is often portrayed. I do think the program should have been much better managed, but that's true of nearly every major procurement program.

For instance, the mention of sling load limitations is not necessarily a problem with the technology so much as it was poor decision-making that produced a door frame too small to accommodate a HMMWV for internal carriage (or a HMMWV incapable of passing through the door frame, depending on how you want to approach the problem). Another question to the operators would be whether slingloads tend to be used in the first wave, or if the heavier equipment is brought in after securing the LZ. I suspect the latter due to the vulnerability and lack of agility of helicopters/tiltrotors so laden. As far as I am aware, the MV-22 isn't any slower than a CH-46 when carrying a sling load, is it? If this is the case, it isn't a capability that's going away, it's an improvement that wasn't made. And goes back to whether the program management traded for the right capability.

Douglas

I'm not arguing weather alternative solutions would be better for the particular mission.
I'm arguing weather one should have built a bird for a very special mission (that requires high transit speed)
if it means that you will end up with an expensive bird, which is very large on the outside, but small on the inside.



That would require a far larger Osprey, and a folded Osprey is already larger in length and width then a CH-46, CH-47 and the EH-101, and it's longer then a CH-53E.
And that's despite the fact that the cargo area is smaller than any of those helos (less than half that of the CH-47 for instance).



Well, considering how big the Osprey is, being as fast as a modern helo isn't enough to make it match a modern helo.
Being so big (i.e. with so few that can fit on board), for the same gods transported in every turn it needs far shorter turnaround times to match a helo.

Say that the alternative was to design a new helo along the lines of the CH-46 (same configuration, same size) but with the power of the Osprey.
Such a beast would certainly be able to carry a heavier sling load than a CH-47, say 13,5-14 metric tons, i.e. twice as much as the Osprey.
As the Osprey is still a larger bird (26% wider and 38% longer then the CH-46) you can vary fewer of them on a gatorship,
so to match a "super H-46" a V-22 might need a turnaround time as little as 30% of that of a conventional helo.

Now, that’s obviously under the assumption that one would opt for a very area efficient and exceptionally strong helo
and under the assumption that both stowed length and width of a helo is equally important.

It's been a couple of years since I last looked at the numbers, but as I recall, the Osprey has the volume/internal dimensions to stow a HMMWV inside. Except the door frame isn't wide enough to do so. Troop capacity is the same as a CH-46 was (24). As I recall, the "typical" air wing for an LHD with CH-46s was 12, with MV-22s it is 12.* Assuming a 220kt cruise vs. 180kt for something like an EH-101/CH-46(Replacement), that makes 15% fewer airplanes travelling 22% faster. Hardly a massive reduction in capability, although the comparison I just did is very hokey.

The thing is, the USN isn't getting closer to shore--they are moving further offshore. So the "very special mission" begins to take on a more important role in the requirements definition. Where the speed and range is needed (initial assault, palletized cargo movement), the MV-22 has that ability. Where duplication of existing capability (sling load) is required, the aircraft does that, as well.

The points you raise really deserve a more detailed analysis/discussion than I'm prepared to try to put together at this time. It'd be a fun comparison to crunch some numbers and see what a comparison of spot-equivalent CH-46, EH101, and UH-60 vs. MV-22 would turn out, but it would take some work to make sure the playing field isn't biased toward one type or another (i.e. multiple scenarios and proper deck spotting layouts). Someone's probably already got one published online.

*Per Global Security: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/sys...p/lhx-specs.htm and http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/sys...lhd-1-specs.htm

Note that the air wing varies depending on the mission and ESG/ARG composition, but this is representative of a "normal" air wing. I did not post displacements for the ships since the LHA has some significant modifications from the LHD (removal of the well deck is a big one), but the flight deck size did not change significantly. The hangar did get bigger, but so did the fixed-wing element (F-35 vs AV-8) and other components of the rotary-wing element (AH-1Z & UH-1Y vs. AH-1W & UH-1N).

Douglas

Back in the mid-'70s, the Marine Corps did a study in which it was determined that a helo would last 30 seconds over a hot LZ. Consequently, the Corps made the doctrinal decision to assault into cold LZs, then move to contact on the ground.

Barack Obama has flown on an MV-22B, although at the time he was a candidate and not the President.

The people who developed the V-22 didn't just choose the tiltrotor configuration for laughs. They had the results of 30+ years of VTOL research into every imaginable configuration, with many of them being flight tested. They chose the tiltrotor configuration for very good reasons.

A V-22 cabin is not large enough for a HMMWV. Neither is the cabin of a CH-47 or a CH-53, both of which are heavy lift helos by design. If one wants to carry that class of ground vehicle internally, you need something like an Mi-6.

No, if you had an aircraft the size of the CH-46 with the power of the V-22 it would not outperform an CH-47 in life because the rotor blades would be too small to efficiently convert the power to lift. And no matter how much power a helicopter has, it is going to be restricted to about 200 knots maximum because of fundamental aerodynamic limitations.

Ken,

Thanks for the correction.

Douglas

From what I've read, USMC practice in RVN was to avoid hot LZs, not a doctrinal thing written back in the States but something worked out by commanders in theater.

Making that choice a doctrinal thumb rule sure seems logical, and it allows shaping the helo fleet differently. And with today's improved space and air reconaissance, odds of a chosen LZ proving to be cold are better than ever. Still, its hard to argue with the Army's ability to bring Apaches and Blackhawks into a running battle. That might be a question of scale more than anything else; losing one trash hauler to SA fire hurts the smaller Corps a lot more than it would hurt the Army, simply due to fleet size.

The study (which I read about in Aviation Week was based on the VN experience; I should have given some sort of time reference. IIRC, the Army was still working with a "fight into the LZ" philosphy, which as you noted was more bearable with more (and smaller, with fewer bodies aboard) helos.

BTW, the CH-47 and -53 were designed around to carry a jeep internally. I don't think you can squeeze a jeep into a -46.

I checked with a buddy who worked for Boeing at Ft. Eustis, where they did depot level repair as well as training for the Apache. During and after OIF, many components on the Apache were wearing out. He mentioned the APU, the windows on the TADS/PNVS, and engine things like the compressor for one of the cooling systems. Things got so bad they were stripping components off the training airframes and flying them to Iraq to keep the deployed birds flyable.

So in the absence of comparative data from other helos in the same theater, I'm skeptical the GAO is in a position to say the V-22 has worse durability than a notional replacement.

Also, its not clear to me from the report how much unavailability is due to things like supplementary inspection teardowns. Between the teething problems and just plain old sand issues, I would expect that the ground crews spend a lot more time addressing worries than other birds; if so, it would be a bad idea to draw much of a conclusion from availability numbers.

Depending on the source, various fact sheets put the internal bay dimensions of the V-22 at 5.7-5.92' while the CH-46 is listed as 6' wide. Ye olde CJ-5s (M38) were about 60" wide at the body. The CJ-3A body was 57.5" wide. Obviously, the M151 fits inside at 64" since this was the Internally Transportable Vehicle (ITV) until recently. The little I can find about the current ITV, apparently known as the Light Strike Vehicle, is that the design requirements set width at 68 inches.

Douglas

I spent much of today photographing Ospreys at an airshow and discussing it with the Marines who operated it and recently came home from a combat tour in Iraq.. My findings:

1. They love it. They adore it.
2. They flew a broad spectrum of missions in Iraq and faced a variety of serious threats, with no losses.
3. The maintenance problems seem to be a combination of immaturity and the hot, dusty, sandy environment. More of the latter than the former. The immaturity problems seem rather minor. In general, they are pleased with reliability, maintainability and availability.
4. Currently the defense armament is a flexible M240 on the aft ramp. The placement of the mount on the ramp would prevent most vehicles that would otherwise fit in the V-22 from rolling on and off.
5. The aircraft is being enhanced in a variety of ways that seem sensible.

My conclusion is that sensationalist press reports, GAO reports and Congresscritter comments lack perspective and context. Imperfect does not mean bad. The V-22 seems to be a successful weapon system. On a personal note, it's a sobering thought that I was telling my V-22 Full Scale Development stories to people who were in elementary school at the time.

"On a personal note, it's a sobering thought that I was telling my V-22 Full Scale Development stories to people who were in elementary school at the time."--Ken Katz

Look at the bright side; you could have been telling BUFF stories to crewmembers who weren't born at the time!

Hey, the youngest BUFF is older than me.

On my first real job, I did a couple of weeks of work for the Apache program back in 1985, about the time many of the Army's current WO pilots were born...

The thing that really kills me is when some newsdroid or historian makes one of those general statements such as "Most Americans have a grandfather or great-grandfather who served in WWII..." No, you tard, my father served.

Ah, but we did get a jeep into a 46. More than once.