SPS - well said (and beat me by moments)
HeliFlight
It would be more productive if you addressed specifics instead of waffling on boorishly. It doesn't help your credibility and just makes it apparent that you are either being tasked to respond contrarily on this forum or are a "vested interest" (or both). So please try to keep it professional and in keeping with the high standards of most of this thread. It's probably being read by people who have a personal (and not just a vested) interest. If you disagree, do it point by point - and validate your opinions.
It would seem that there is a REAL problem in getting across to the USMC and some on this forum that Osprey asymmVR and simple settling with power (aka VR) are two different birds (although of the same feather).
VR: Helicopter
Recirculation leading to high rate of descent during steeper approaches to an LZ or OGE hover. Condition exacerbated (i.e. rate of descent increased) by the instinctive addition of power. Recognition sometimes delayed due to diminished depth perception (night) / ground-rush appreciation (at higher levels). Recovery is normally accomplished by forward cyclic and "flying out" of the vortex (an overshoot). Environmental factors include high density altitude, high AUW, steeper approaches and calm (or tail-) wind components on approach. In some types (eg UH-1, Kiowa) it can also be aurally detected as a distinctive background blade-sound level change. Onset is normally rapid and initial instinctive pilot response of increased collective is normally required to accentuate the condition and stimulate recognition. Night and NVG onset is frequently unrecognised due to poorer visual cues. Condition is best avoided by consciously arcing under rather than committing to a constant angle steep approach (or worse, an arcing-over approach - one that becomes latterly steeper due to tailwind). Rarity? Rare enough to almost always make it a nasty surprise.
asymmVR TiltRotor
Induced recirculation on one side only (i.e. always asymmetric due to differential collective inputs). Likelihood of symmetrical encounters remain extremely low. Initiating factors are same as for helo except insofar as the condition can be induced by low IAS roll inputs / wing-drop corrections during high RoD. Recognition/recovery is not a consideration as condition (once encountered) is rapid-rolling and terminal. Attempted (instinctive) recovery inputs simply accelerates the roll-rate. Avoidance is solely by pilot consciousness of the possibility and observation of flight-envelope limits. Avoidance can be enhanced by avoiding tailwind components - however low-level factors such as formation landing positioning, late overshoot, manoeuvre, high RoD, wake turbulence, thermal activity and topographically induced shear can cause onset. Rarity? Will be frequent enough to become an attrition-rate entry argument. Further problems? Acute awareness of the conclusive nature of the condition will become THE inhibiting factor in operational environments (aka "sitting duck").
I'm not against the Osprey or 609, nor am I a doomsayer. However it is apparent why quintessential problems are emerging latterly. Much of the "testing" was via computational number-crunching (resolving the designer's problem that wind-tunnel time was hard to come by at the time). AsymmVR was simply not considered. If you don't concede this then simply email me the relevant paper (or a URL). So the program, being desperately full of yea-sayers, needs a Devil's Advocate. The GAO does its best, but the brokers and lobbyists have gotten to them as well. Would the USMC ever turn it off? The USMC have been waxing doctrinaire about the Osprey's Force Multiplier effect (and its other goodies) since I was at Staff College. So it was really built-to-order and had its gestation as a logical alternative to the problems with the tilt-wing. Not to have it come to fruition would mean generations of (now) senior Military Officers with egg all over their faces. They all left their mark on its promise in their War College essays and staff-paper studies over a decade ago. Possible technological failure of the project was an unacceptable rider for any USMC essayist aspiring to general officer rank. The US Army has always been reticent about it because they see a genuine need to spread resources around, not put all eggs in fragile baskets - and they usually have to apply the KISS Principle anyway. The USMC's future force development is now so irretrievably tied into the MV22 that its cancellation would cause major morale and directional problems. But that's now the direction that it's possibly headed, more's the pity.