This article should raise some questions.
800 Hour Time Life Component based upon what criteria and data?
Engagement issues seen quite differently by the USMC and USAF.....are they sharing information and working off the same sheet of music?
Why the inability to determine what is actually causing the problem seen in all versions of the aircraft that is seen as a "just live with it" kind of problem?
This accident investigation is going to be very closely scrutinized by Safety experts I am thinking.....as much for how the three services have approached the problem.
The official report into that crash said Ospreys suffered 15 hard clutch engagement failures in roughly 680,000 flight hours. The investigation couldn’t find the root cause but found older aircraft tended to be more vulnerable, so the military mandated that a key gearbox part be replaced after 800 flight hours. It said that would reduce the odds of the problem occurring by 99%, without explaining how it reached that figure.
The Pentagon has awarded the joint venture between Textron’s Bell unit and Boeing contracts worth more than $60 million for new gearbox designs and systems to detect vibrations that might lead to failures. The Pentagon has already undertaken a range of design fixes for the Osprey, many of them ongoing, and revised training programs.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/nationa...le_email_share