Osprey - is that gold blinking under the crust of dirt?
 

http://blogs.forbes.com/beltway/2011...nding-critics/

It seems one learns to like it.

its long....:oops:

It takes a while for something like this to slot in. The Harrier took a while to come into its own after some big engine problems in the early years.

I've alsways been a fan of the osprey. Figured it would just take time to figure out how to build and fly them properly. Now that that it's serving well in the marines, I see it moving into other branches of the miltary, mainly the Army and Navy. Air Force has their Pave Low, and that thing is huge. If they need bigger, they got planes.

But I really seeing this come into play in the Coast Guard, just imagine the huge benefits this thing will have as a SAR platform!

http://www.vtol.org/vertiflite/IMAGE014.JPG

I love the V-22's airframe. SOOO much potential. I would love to see an carrier based ASW version of the bird. Imagine the mission hardware of a S-3 and SH-60F installed in the payload bay! Plus it could roll sub/mine hunting UUVs out its stern.

Or install a large air search radar for AWACS duities. We could then base AWACS, MR MPAs, and Strike Fighters (JSFs) on a carrier without catapults.

The V-22 has the potential to be a game changer for more than just the Marines.

I can also see it becoming more common place to see this type of airframe in a civilian setting. Along with the lift capabilities, the passenger service could be a game changer too. Use existing heliports while being able to do high speed inter-city runs. Imagine Boston-NY-Baltimore-DC type transports from rooftops or urban areas in short amounts of time.

I always loved the look of the Osprey... it just looks awesome... A RTS game I used to play had them and I always found a way to use them.... That game also had a Varient of the osprey with Tilting Jet Engines heh. :hmmm:

I remember reading that Navy had troubles using Osprey onboard carriers. That was because engine exhaust caused damage to flight deck. Do anyone know have they solved that problem yet?

Nice article and welcome news, thanks for posting, Sky. :salute:

You'd think the prop wash would handle that?

For what we spent on it and how impossibly long it took us to develop it someone had better like it, not to mention the casualties involved in testing it.

Don't get me wrong, the of the tilt-rotor is tactically and even strategically brilliant, but it was way too far ahead of its time when it got in the works, and it was handled very poorly. As (comparatively) fast as the Osprey is, it is little less vulnerable than a helicopter in every important respect. The AA countermeasures installed are no more sophisticated than those already employed by every other VTOL craft, and it has virtually no onboard offensive capability whatsoever. It's just a slightly faster and much more expensive CH-53, but without the lift capacity.

For what we spent in time and resources to build this POS we could have built thousands of AH-1W SuperCobras and CH-53s, or better yet, developed a cheaper, and more maneuverable design with contra-rotating blades like the Hokum with slightly less cargo capacity, but much more survivability an ECM capability. Actually, we could have just re-invented the Hind-D and done better. What a pitiful waste:nope:

There's so much dirt covering this gold that it's not even worth the resources needed to extract it, at least not yet.

Last time I heard that - unfortunately - wasn't enough but U.S. Navy was forced to use plates on deck under engines when they were tilted upwards to prevent damage to deck.

Again when I last heard Osprey's engines directed their exhaust gassed behind the engine which is perfectly working solution except when engines are tilted 90 degrees upwards. Hot exhaust gasses are (or were) just too hot for deck to withstand it.

That is same reason why behind catapults those jet blast deflectors are made of concrete instead of just using regular deck plating.

Well, that is what the article says: that other branches jumped off the project somewhat, with the Marines being the only ones seeing its potential very early, and stubbornly sticking with it, no matter what derals they were offered to tempt them to leave it behind (your thosuands of Cobras etc. :DL ). It seems they nevertheless are shown to have been right now. Slowly, but surely. The thing seems to work reliably now since years, with better accident statistics since years than helicopters. I think the Corps got it right, and the dirt is blasting off the gold core now.

I agree they managed to get it right, the Corps always gets it right.... eventually. I just wish we didn't constantly insist on getting it right through the tried-and-true combination of stubbornness and stupidity that seems to inimical to our service.

Well method of progress may not be perfect but without some stubborn people (with some stupidity mixed in) we would propably still happily live in treetops without evil technology.

The training squadron is here in Albuquerque, they fly past my house (often level with my house, lol (I'm 1500 ft above town)) all the time. A friend knows a guy with the squadron who told him if you ever see 2 at once flying, that's a good day, and if you see 3, mark you calendar, it's a banner day. Keeping them running is a bit of an issue, but other than that they seem OK so far.

I thought the last article I read said they were intentionally avoiding the more dangerous spots with Ospreys, if that's the case maybe they are still fudging the data.

I'd like to see it die because I'm tired of projecting power, lets go back to landing craft with detroit diesels. Obviously if our gear is too good, there seems to be too much urge to use it.

Not a bad idea, taking the isolationist route that allowed Japan to take over most of the pacific... Or Germany to take over Europe, twice.

Projection of power has prevented more wars than it's caused. Korea? China/Taiwain/HongKong. Germany during the cold war? The fact that each countries allies could mount a rapid response to any invasion kept the aggressors at bay.

As mentioned, Like the Harrier, the Osprey had it's growing pains. Which killed more in testing? Osprey or Harrier? It's gotta be close. And yet when the harrier was taken away from the RN recently, everybody threw a fit.

Once the osprey has settled in, and they start deploying it in all it's usable roles (Insertion, SAR, Transport, etc), people will come to rely on it's presence.

Our nuclear arsenal seems like more of a deterrent to me than an Osprey, would really work great for us now(where is Truman when you need him). Save us the cost of getting rid of nukes later too.

Allow me to be a cynic
 

but it reeks of being a propaganda piece.

It starts by trying to influence our feelings with a positive anecdote. However, it has little to do with the hopes originally pinned on the V-22 - it was not meant to be a SAR aircraft that flies out with maybe 1-2 medics / rescuemen and picks up one passenger, but a transport for 20+ - thus its helicopter performance under load was not tested. Given the slant of the article, if the rescue scene can be written up as risky, it would be, and it was not, so we can assume the rescue was in a relatively leisurely, low-threat environment rather than enemies actually shooting at it - thus conveniently avoiding a weakness pointed out by critics. The article also shies away from actually demonstrating that a slower conventional helo couldn't have performed the rescue.

After some rather bland history and some vague praise for the aircraft from un-named Marine commanders, the article suggests the aircraft has a very good safety record. However, it should be noted that critics suggest this safe record is because:

http://www.g2mil.com/V-22-Iraq.htm

Basically, the critic's argument is that the flight safety was achieved by deliberately giving very safe missions to the V-22 (which means other heloes pick up the dangerous slack, thus worsening their statistics). Of course, it is hard for us to know how true this is, but the anecdote chosen by your pro-V-22 article hardly refutes this hypothesis.

In the next paragraph, the article tries to divert our attention from the fact a V-22 flipped over by saying "only" 4 guys were killed. Oh, how callous. The survivability features might be great, but it is not hard to suspect that the V-22's side by side rotor configuration combined with unreliability created the necessary conditions for a flipover and "high speed collision with the ground" in the first place, so if they were riding something else, they would never flip and never have to test the installed survivability features...

As for the "cheapest cost per seat mile" among "rotorcraft", well, of course, in its plane mode it should be more efficient than a helicopter, but how does it compare to a plane?

After a few bland reassurances that the problems have been solved, article heads to a criticism of Armed Forces procurement system, a game that's played by both sides, and transitions to proposing the Air Force buy V-22 for the SAR role.

First, in advocating it for the SAR role, already the original purpose of the V-22 is being quietly forgotten. And yes, there is certainly a band of ranges where a plane-helo hybrid can go and a helo can't, but whether that it worth paying vastly greater amounts of money is a more complicated problem. Especially when you consider the V-22's disadvantages in size, its ability to get down quickly due to VRS problems (it may be faster on the cruise, but counting more in a hot zone is its ability to get down and finish unloading/loading quickly).

But the article does not go into depth, and tries to play on our feelings with human lives. It then proceeds to vaguely insist it will be superior in other missions, and tries to make the V-22 a victim.

God, what a piece of propaganda. And crappy propaganda - since good propaganda should be almost un-noticeable as such. The V-22 may or may not be getting better (though IMO the critics make sense), but this article clearly will not be the doubt-clearer.