Dallas Morning News report
Jul. 6
-- The Marine Corps' top aviation officer has asked Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. to study arming its executive jet-sized BA609 tilt-rotor aircraft as an escort for the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor troop transport.
The request by Lt. Gen. Michael Hough, deputy commandant for aviation, is a striking vote of confidence in the V-22 and in the future of tilt-rotor aircraft. The V-22 program was nearly canceled after two crashes in 2000 killed 23 Marines.
"I would have done this earlier, but I didn't even know if I had a V-22," Gen. Hough said, referring to the Osprey's near-cancellation.
Critics still regard the revolutionary method of flight as highly risky.
Gen. Hough said the V-22 will need some type of armed escort to carry Marines into combat zones, and only a tilt-rotor will do. Helicopters are too slow for the job, and jets are too fast.
Bell expects to make a presentation to Gen. Hough and his staff this summer, he said.
The company's other concepts include:
--An attack tilt rotor designed more or less from scratch.
--Replacing the V-22's fuselage with a thin gunship fuselage but using the Osprey's wing and rotors.
--Creating a new type of tilt-rotor aircraft that could take off and land like a helicopter but fold its rotors in flight and use a jet engine in flight.
The BA609 designed for civilian use by Bell and British-Italian partnership AgustaWestland first flew in March 2003 and is in flight tests. Gen. Hough estimated that an armed derivative could be ready for flight testing as early as 2015.
That would be about the time that Bell will finish rebuilding 180 AH-1Z Cobra helicopter gunships for the Marines. The Cobra's missions include escorting the Vietnam-era transport helicopters that the V-22 was designed to replace.
Bell and AgustaWestland have promised to sell between 70 and 80 BA609s for about $10 million apiece to civilians who put down a $100,000 deposit, but the aircraft will cost more in the future.
The General said he asked Bell for a conceptual design of an armed escort because two years of flight tests of the revamped V-22 have left him certain that tilt-rotors will revolutionize military aviation. "It's the wave of the future, and it's going to change military aviation forever," Gen. Hough said.
Three years ago, after two crashes killed 23 Marines, Corps leaders feared they might have to cancel plans to buy 360 of the innovative aircraft to replace their aging troop transport helicopters. But after a special commission studied the causes of the crashes, the Pentagon approved a redesign of the Osprey followed by rigorous new flight testing that began in May 2002.
Gen. Hough said his "greatest fear" today is that once the V-22 receives Pentagon clearance to go into full production, other armed services will try to horn in on the Marines and get Ospreys first. The Marines plan operational tests of the V-22 over the coming year. They hope to win Pentagon approval next August to begin full production.
The Pentagon and Congress have approved purchases of 11 Ospreys a year since 2001 from Bell and its partner, Boeing Co.'s helicopter division, even as the aircraft was being redesigned and tested. If the Pentagon gives the go-ahead next summer, Gen. Hough said, plans call for ramping up that rate to 44 a year.
The Special Operations Command, for example, which is testing two V-22s at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., officially wants 55 Ospreys for commando operations and pilot rescue, but "their requirement's really 77," Gen. Hough said. The National Guard also is interested in V-22s for a range of missions, including homeland security, the general said, and several countries have expressed interest.
After the crashes in 2000, "people lost a hell of a lot of confidence in tilt rotors," Gen. Hough recalled. "As soon as they see that this thing works like a champ, I think they'll sell a lot of them."
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