[pulqui]

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_stor...0b7e1005369a80

[Hoverbug]

More info:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/news....aspx?id=32802

[bsmith13]

OOOHHHHH! V-22 video. Which is cool. I just thought for a second that Osprey Publishing was releasing videos, and I was excited.

[FormerViperDriver]

Regarding the video, don't you love it when armchair pundits who've never held a stick in their hand think they know more about flying than the pilots who actually fly the thing day-in day-out (and trust their lives to it)? That guy just cracked me up. If he wants to talk about costs, fine, but please leave the operational employment/flying characteristics part to actual experts, doofus-brain...

FVD

[pulqui]

Or he works for Sikorsky....

[FormerViperDriver]

Originally Posted by pulqui

Or he works for Sikorsky....

Yeah, good one. Hadn't thought of that possibility!

FVD

[Hoverbug]

I've read his "report" and it is pretty biased. That said, the General was also giving some serious spin. The Osprey is not everything its critics fear nor is it everything its advocates hoped for - like any complex weapon system. The Osprey is difficult to maintain, it's incredibly complex and has many failure points as a result. On the other hand it offers a capability that has never before existed. It's not its speed that is significant per se, it is its range. The CH-46 cannot even make a combat assault at 75 nm at its gross weight, while the Osprey can go three times as far with twice the gross weight of the 46 and is capable of inflight refueling.

The problem comes in the LZ. The general's "6 times more survivable" statement is highly conjectural and I've spoken with people involved in the Osprey's survivability testing and let's just say if I have to crash in a rotorcraft, it's going to be a Blackhawk. Also, while you can "yank and bank" in airplane mode just fine, helicopter mode is another issue entirely. With the proprotors as highly loaded as they are, "yanking and banking" in the LZ would be a recipe for disaster, and given its size, would be impractical. The biggest mark against survivability relative to the 46 may well be the lack of armament. Because of the complex aerodynamics involved in the rotor downflow, the only place to put armament is on the ramp (a turret project was cancelled). This gives the enemy an easy target. The lack of a Marine escort that can keep pace with the Osprey and then stay on station is another matter entirely.

I attended a briefing with the General in charge of the Osprey program and he stated that the solution to these issues was good intel and that the Marines would be landing their Ospreys where the enemy wasn't. Unfortunately, we all know how reliable "intel" can be and if the Ospreys are landing under fire, it will be ugly because the airframe literally does not have a cubic inch containing some part of a critical system. Redundancy has been the means to address this, but when you stary pokling holes in it, things will start getting real interesting for the Osprey pilot, much more so than for the CH-46 pilot.

To sum up, the Osprey is a great operational improvement, but it requires totally different doctrine than for the aircraft that it is "replacing". The learning curve will be high.

[FormerViperDriver]

Thanks for the info, Hoverbug. Just as I thought, an entirely new type of aircraft requires new employment concepts. Those who think in terms of the Osprey as just a faster helicopter are making a very basic mistake.

I do think going in outside of hot landing zones would be good advice to helicopter pilots as well anyway. Their survival record under opposed conditions is simply dismal, whether in Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan, or Iraq. And that's against small arms and RPGs. Imagine against SA-14/16/18s, ZSU-23-4s, 2S6s, etc... No way. Maybe the Osprey will make certain circles see the light...

FVD

[Hoverbug]

The really biased parts of that NYT piece were the showing of the 1991 crash, which had nothing to do with anything as it was due to an incorrectly installed FCS component and then the discussion of vortex ring state. Yes, the Osprey's worst crash was caused by this, but it was due to operating way way outside the approved envelope and a major effort was undertaken to define this critical flight regime. There are now aural and visual cues that will alert the approach of this condition and there is a recovery procedure now in place, which there was not before. At Pax River, I got to see the flight test data modeling of vortex ring state demos conducted in actual aircraft at 10,000'. Pretty terrifying. If you did get into asymmetric vortex ring state in a V-22, you're dead unless you have 5,000' to spare.

The War on Terror is a pretty good use of the Osprey because it plays to most of its strengths and few of its weaknesses. Something like Vietnam, with more ambushes and much greater amounts of anti-aircraft ordnance would be a really bad scenario for it though.

[Old Crow]

I have to say that this guy is no average armchair pundit. Winslow Wheeler spent 30+ years on Capitol Hill and, by all accounts, is legendary for his spot on, scathing indictment of Congressional pork in spending with the goal being to do everything to support the military and enhance its readiness. He was also an author of the War Powers Act. I have to believe his evaluation takes into account the reports and evaluations of pilots.

He lambasted Congress after 9/11 for loading up war appropriations bills with personal pork barrel projects. He apparently is the only expert to ever serve on Democratic and Republican Congressional staffs at the same time.

I also take with a certain grain of salt the assessment of the general officer in charge of the program.

That said, this is an amazing machine and I hope they work out the bugs and develop an operational concept that enhaances the Marine mission.