Washington 2/09/2015 @ 11:44AM 14,192 views
Search And Rescue: Arab Ally In Fight Against ISIS Demands U.S. Deploy V-22 Osprey
Something unusual happened in December, shortly after a Jordanian fighter pilot whose plane had crashed was captured by ISIS militants in Syria. The United Arab Emirates, an early participant in the anti-ISIS bombing campaign, told Washington it would cease air operations until the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor was deployed nearby to conduct search-and-rescue operations when pilots were downed. As Helene Cooper reported in the
New York Times on February 3, “The country’s pilots will not rejoin the fight until the Ospreys, which take off and land like helicopters but fly like planes, are put in place in northern Iraq.”
The Emirates have now apparently relented in their demand, but the insistence of their government that the V-22 is specially suited to conducting combat search and rescue will be remembered — and not just because the demand threatened to unravel Washington’s carefully crafted coalition of regional partners in the campaign to take down the jihadists. The world’s first production tilt-rotor is gradually becoming a global standard for tactical flexibility, eclipsing more conventional rotorcraft that lack the speed, reach and versatility to perform diverse military missions.
This is quite a transformation for a program that defense secretary Dick Cheney spent four years trying to kill when the Cold War ended. Cheney managed to do in a hundred weapons programs – everything from the B-2 bomber to the Seawolf submarine — but he didn’t succeed in terminating the Osprey because its was steadfastly defended in each budget cycle by the Marines and a handful of dedicated Congressmen (most notably Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania). Today, that perseverance is paying off as U.S. military services and overseas allies increasingly embrace the V-22 with an enthusiasm seldom exhibited for other programs.
In January,
BreakingDefense.com revealed the Navy would retire its existing fixed-wing planes for delivering time-critical supplies to aircraft carriers at sea, opting instead for the Osprey because it could fly directly to all the warships in the fleet, saving time and money. Also in January, Japan’s parliament approved a defense budget that would make that Asian ally the first foreign customer for the Osprey — a path that Israel is expected to follow too after March elections. The Emirates are also a likely customer. Past experience indicates that when these three countries want a particular U.S. weapon system, other allies will too.
(Disclosure: V-22 co-producers Bell Textron and Boeing contribute to my think tank.)
What makes the Osprey different – unique, in fact – is that it combines the speed and range of a fixed-wing turboprop with a helicopter’s ability to land anywhere. That means it is inherently more capable than either a plane or a helicopter in conducting missions such as search and rescue. Compared with the helicopters normally used for rescue missions, it can fly much farther on a single tank of fuel, and its cruising speed is a hundred miles faster. So of course military leaders in the Emirates thought it was a good match for the harrowing task of retrieving downed pilots in ISIS-held territory. The Air Force used CV-22B Ospreys last year for an attempted rescue of hostages in Syria, and Marines used MV-22B Ospreys in 2011 to retrieve downed pilots in Libya.
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The Marine MV-22B Osprey is the first production tilt-rotor ever. The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps are all buying versions of the versatile airframe. (Retrieved from Wikimedia)
After successful initial deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Marines now use the Osprey routinely whenever Amphibious Ready Groups are dispatched to regional hot spots such as the Middle East. They say tilt-rotors have transformed expeditionary operations, multiplying the productivity of units while enabling missions that previously would not have been feasible. Air Force special operators say much the same thing, although they are somewhat more circumspect since so many of their missions are secret. As V-22s have spread across the force, operational readiness rates have gradually increased to above the Navy’s targeted 85% while costs per hour have fallen — the typical profile of a successful program.
But Osprey is hardly typical: despite the danger and diversity of the missions it executes, the Marines now rate it as the safest rotorcraft in their fleet. A series of design features make it less likely than conventional helicopters to experience catastrophic accidents, and less likely to kill occupants on the rare occasions when such accidents occur. Its speed and maneuverability also contribute to the safety of passengers, enabling it to evade hostile fire more readily than other rotorcraft. And the pivoting rotors at the tips of its wings don’t just deliver speed and vertical agility — they can be pivoted over 90 degrees, permitting the airframe to fly backwards. No other aircraft in the world affords so many options for maximizing maneuverability and safety.
The Marines are currently developing a roll-on/roll-off tanking capability that will permit Osprey to refuel fighters in the air and ground vehicles at forward operating locations. After that, the next refinement likely will be the addition of lightweight missiles to the V-22′s armaments, so that troops on board do not need to rely on slower helicopter gunships for protection. The munitions most likely to be used are a precision-guided version of the Hydra rocket manufactured by BAE Systems or Raytheon’s Griffin missile. Further modifications are probable as the joint force tests the full potential of tilt-rotor technology.
Once you grasp the full functionality of the V-22 Osprey, the insistence on its in-theater deployment by Emirates leaders is not hard to understand. The Marine Corps dream of game-changing tactical flexibility has been realized, and the rest of the world has begun to take notice. It is just a matter of time before other allies get on board the program, because this is one form of tactical air power that no other aircraft can match.