Jack,
In order to establish a baseline for design does one not need to consider the customer requirements? The aircraft the Marines wanted had to be able to take off and land vertically, operate from a ship, have an internal payload larger than the CH-46E (not the 53), a mission radius of over 200 nm, airspeed of 275 kts, etc. What helicopter or fixed aircraft fulfills all those requirements? None. Therefore any comparison of the V-22 to a fixed wing is useless since the fixed wing aircraft can only do the enroute portion of the mission. If nothing meets the requirements then you either need a new design baseline or the customer needs to change their requirement (which is really what the V-22 argument comes down to). From my point of view, and it’s strictly mine, you are using engineering data to make an argument against the operational effectiveness of the aircraft. What your baseline does not consider is the flexibility the V-22 adds to the operational capabilities of the MEU commander. The ability to “reduce the ops area in half” which also implies that the enemy has twice the operational area to defend, the reduction by ½ of the time required for reinforcements, beans, bullets and band aids to arrive in zone during combat operations, the elimination of FARP requirements for what would be a long range mission for helicopters (FARP security which reduces your combat forces available for the assault and for reinforcement, do you use 53’s to refuel which reduces the MEU commanders 53 assets available by ½, or do you take over an airfield for the C-130’s which requires it’s own assault force to secure the airfield (a further reduction in forces available for the assault), plus just the general risk and exposure of FARP operations), the more than doubling of Marines it can carry compared to the aircraft it’s replacing. The sole purpose of Marine aviation is to support the grunts, and they want their support now, not later. Given that, in order to meet the airspeed, combat radius, shipboard operations, vertical takeoff and landing and pax requirements established by the USMC, what aircraft other than the V-22 meets or exceeds those requirements?