What's the latest on tilt rotors?
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To: Sultan
In answer to your questions about my involvement with the CH-53 and the EH-101, No and Yes.
To: Everyone else on this thread
The argument used by the US Marines about comparing the V-22 to a helicopter in that the V-22 has a higher speed and a longer range is pure bull s**t. This argument would hold up only if the Marines were discussing redeployment from one edge of the battle zone to another or if it was being re-deployed from one area of the world to another. In all other cases the speed and range are non-starters.
In my statement to Sultan I noted my involvement with the CH-53 and the EH-101. Although he didn’t ask these questions I will supply the answers. I did work on the V-22 and I did work on the LHA. The LHA if you didn’t know is the assault ship that the V-22s fly from and to in the performance of their assigned duties.
In the deployment of the LHA and the Marine battle group as it was originally designed the Navy had a prescribed eleven day scenario that the ship had to comply with. This scenario was broken down into elements that were timed down to the last minute. The typical deployment started with cold Iron or with no steam in the boilers. The orders to move out would be given and the ship had eleven days to get to the battle area. Once at the battle area, the LHA would steam in an elongated oval pattern parallel to the shore and would start discharging landing craft and deployment of the helicopters. There was a mix of 32 helicopters consisting of CH-53s, CH-46s and a few UH1s.
As the battle progressed the ship would then start to recover the landing craft and the helicopters and they would be reloaded and sent off again. This operation would continue until all of the 1800 marines and their support elements had been offloaded and then they would start to bring the wounded and the dead back aboard.
All of this was taking place while the LHA was steaming just a few miles offshore. At the time the LHA was designed, the V-22 had not even been conceived. The battle scenario was overtaken by events in the fact that the V-22 and Air cushion landing craft had been added to the mix. This in itself would allow the LHA to steam further offshore and maybe the V-22s speed might come into play. However the marines were also being offloaded in amphibious tracked vehicles which are not that seaworthy and as such could only travel a minimum distance from ship to shore which required the LHA to stay close to shore.
In light of this, it is my contention that the CH-53 or some other helicopter with the capabilities of the CH-53 is still better and a lot cheaper to procure and maintain than a squadron of V-22s. And, there would be no degradation in the scenario or the efficacy of the equipment involved.
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The Cat
[This message has been edited by Lu Zuckerman (edited 09 March 2001).]
In answer to your questions about my involvement with the CH-53 and the EH-101, No and Yes.
To: Everyone else on this thread
The argument used by the US Marines about comparing the V-22 to a helicopter in that the V-22 has a higher speed and a longer range is pure bull s**t. This argument would hold up only if the Marines were discussing redeployment from one edge of the battle zone to another or if it was being re-deployed from one area of the world to another. In all other cases the speed and range are non-starters.
In my statement to Sultan I noted my involvement with the CH-53 and the EH-101. Although he didn’t ask these questions I will supply the answers. I did work on the V-22 and I did work on the LHA. The LHA if you didn’t know is the assault ship that the V-22s fly from and to in the performance of their assigned duties.
In the deployment of the LHA and the Marine battle group as it was originally designed the Navy had a prescribed eleven day scenario that the ship had to comply with. This scenario was broken down into elements that were timed down to the last minute. The typical deployment started with cold Iron or with no steam in the boilers. The orders to move out would be given and the ship had eleven days to get to the battle area. Once at the battle area, the LHA would steam in an elongated oval pattern parallel to the shore and would start discharging landing craft and deployment of the helicopters. There was a mix of 32 helicopters consisting of CH-53s, CH-46s and a few UH1s.
As the battle progressed the ship would then start to recover the landing craft and the helicopters and they would be reloaded and sent off again. This operation would continue until all of the 1800 marines and their support elements had been offloaded and then they would start to bring the wounded and the dead back aboard.
All of this was taking place while the LHA was steaming just a few miles offshore. At the time the LHA was designed, the V-22 had not even been conceived. The battle scenario was overtaken by events in the fact that the V-22 and Air cushion landing craft had been added to the mix. This in itself would allow the LHA to steam further offshore and maybe the V-22s speed might come into play. However the marines were also being offloaded in amphibious tracked vehicles which are not that seaworthy and as such could only travel a minimum distance from ship to shore which required the LHA to stay close to shore.
In light of this, it is my contention that the CH-53 or some other helicopter with the capabilities of the CH-53 is still better and a lot cheaper to procure and maintain than a squadron of V-22s. And, there would be no degradation in the scenario or the efficacy of the equipment involved.
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The Cat
[This message has been edited by Lu Zuckerman (edited 09 March 2001).]
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If Lu is taking LSD then so is the US Navy...
http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/.../ship-lha.html
I love this bit: "They must be able to sail in harm's way..." Personally, I prefer to go in the opposite direction.
http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/.../ship-lha.html
I love this bit: "They must be able to sail in harm's way..." Personally, I prefer to go in the opposite direction.
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LU:
One statement you made summarizes the problem with the rest of the post:
"At the time the LHA was designed, the V-22 had not even been conceived."
With the V-22 we are talking about FUTURE battles with modified battle plans which change continuously as modern technology is introduced. Battle scenarios for the V-22 will be updated and modifed continuously well into the 21st Century.
You bring up the point that the primary factor which creates the "weak link in the chain" is that the "amphibious tracked vehicles which are not that seaworthy and as such could only travel a minimum distance from ship to shore which required the LHA to stay close to shore."
Lu, we have to remember that at one time the Navy "amphibious vehicles" were horses, and they had to practically drive the ship up on the beach to deploy them. If we decided not to use helicopters or modernize any of our capabilities becasue they are too fast or have too much range compared to the weakest link, we'd still be using horses!! We should not cancel modern technology that IMPROVES our capabilities- we should make that advancement AND IMPROVE those OTHER areas that then become "weak links in the chain" (like the amphibious tracked vehicles).
The battle plans will surely be changing with the addition of the V-22 and its far superior capabilities. The Marines may require new non-amphibious vehicles that can be carried by the V-22. Or after the LZ is secured they could sling load in other vehicles (the V-22 set the world sling load speed record slinging a humvee at well over 200kts!!).
Anyway, these may NOT be the answers, but the point is we need to move forward in our capabilities, not limit ourselves because of the weakest link.
In the area of maintainability and serviceability concerns I think you are right. The problems need to be sorted out before full scale V-22 acquisition starts. Once the bugs are worked out and the reliability is proven- then it is time to move ahead.
Tricky Woo:
Hopefully with the stand-off capability of the V-22, the LHA won't have to "sail in harms way"!!
Lu:
Tricky Woo's link shows that the LHA carries six AV-8Bs along with the helicopters. I've heard people complain there was no available air support to match the V-22's capabilities. Wouldn't the Harrier be the perfect aircraft for that?
[This message has been edited by HeliFlight (edited 12 March 2001).]
One statement you made summarizes the problem with the rest of the post:
"At the time the LHA was designed, the V-22 had not even been conceived."
With the V-22 we are talking about FUTURE battles with modified battle plans which change continuously as modern technology is introduced. Battle scenarios for the V-22 will be updated and modifed continuously well into the 21st Century.
You bring up the point that the primary factor which creates the "weak link in the chain" is that the "amphibious tracked vehicles which are not that seaworthy and as such could only travel a minimum distance from ship to shore which required the LHA to stay close to shore."
Lu, we have to remember that at one time the Navy "amphibious vehicles" were horses, and they had to practically drive the ship up on the beach to deploy them. If we decided not to use helicopters or modernize any of our capabilities becasue they are too fast or have too much range compared to the weakest link, we'd still be using horses!! We should not cancel modern technology that IMPROVES our capabilities- we should make that advancement AND IMPROVE those OTHER areas that then become "weak links in the chain" (like the amphibious tracked vehicles).
The battle plans will surely be changing with the addition of the V-22 and its far superior capabilities. The Marines may require new non-amphibious vehicles that can be carried by the V-22. Or after the LZ is secured they could sling load in other vehicles (the V-22 set the world sling load speed record slinging a humvee at well over 200kts!!).
Anyway, these may NOT be the answers, but the point is we need to move forward in our capabilities, not limit ourselves because of the weakest link.
In the area of maintainability and serviceability concerns I think you are right. The problems need to be sorted out before full scale V-22 acquisition starts. Once the bugs are worked out and the reliability is proven- then it is time to move ahead.
Tricky Woo:
Hopefully with the stand-off capability of the V-22, the LHA won't have to "sail in harms way"!!
Lu:
Tricky Woo's link shows that the LHA carries six AV-8Bs along with the helicopters. I've heard people complain there was no available air support to match the V-22's capabilities. Wouldn't the Harrier be the perfect aircraft for that?
[This message has been edited by HeliFlight (edited 12 March 2001).]
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"I've heard people complain there was no available air support to match the V-22's capabilities. Wouldn't the Harrier be the perfect aircraft for that?"
Agree. They can pass back the positions of the downed V-22's and, with their built-in cameras, photograph the wrecks. Onboard the LHA, Marine photographers can enhance the wreckage photo's so that damage doesn't look so bad to the decision-makers. Chinooks will then be flown in to retrieve the wrecks and Bell/Textron can make a motza out of wreck rebuilds. Rebuilds are much easier to authorize than budgeting replacements, as it comes out of a different (static) vote. Just have to make sure you at least get the compliance plate. That's how it was done in SVN. A great deal. Everybody wins.
Now if we can just improve their ditching and flotation qualities.
--may I borrow your rose-coloured glasses?
Agree. They can pass back the positions of the downed V-22's and, with their built-in cameras, photograph the wrecks. Onboard the LHA, Marine photographers can enhance the wreckage photo's so that damage doesn't look so bad to the decision-makers. Chinooks will then be flown in to retrieve the wrecks and Bell/Textron can make a motza out of wreck rebuilds. Rebuilds are much easier to authorize than budgeting replacements, as it comes out of a different (static) vote. Just have to make sure you at least get the compliance plate. That's how it was done in SVN. A great deal. Everybody wins.
Now if we can just improve their ditching and flotation qualities.
--may I borrow your rose-coloured glasses?
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That was very constructive, OverFart...
Hope somebody got a photograph of the wreck you were in>>>
Sikorsky could have flown in an S-58 to photograph the damage, but rebuilding your nose would probably have broken the national budget!
...and if you were in SVN...I now understand the outcome!
PS: You won't be needing the glasses...you can't see past the nose on your face anyway
[This message has been edited by HeliFlight (edited 10 March 2001).]
Hope somebody got a photograph of the wreck you were in>>>
Sikorsky could have flown in an S-58 to photograph the damage, but rebuilding your nose would probably have broken the national budget!
...and if you were in SVN...I now understand the outcome!
PS: You won't be needing the glasses...you can't see past the nose on your face anyway
[This message has been edited by HeliFlight (edited 10 March 2001).]
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To: Heli Flight
I checked the website provided by Tricky Woo and it obviously was created prior to the V-22 being introduced as a participant in the battle plans. I agree with you that the V-22 would allow the LHA/LHD to stay out of harms way however the V-22 is not he only player in the battle scenario. There are LCACs (air cushion) landing craft and this too is quite fast and could allow the ships to stay out of harms way. But you must consider the small landing craft and the amphibious tracked vehicles and the distance they must travel to get to the shore and return for more cargo and troops. To remain 20 miles offshore as opposed to three to five miles offshore you expose the supply and other vehicles to the treachery of the open sea and make them more vulnerable to air attack. The purpose of the AV8s is manifold. They must neutralize the shore defenses; they must defend the landing ships and protect the troop movements towards shore and return. To move the ships further offshore would increase the area that the AV8s had to defend by several orders of magnitude.
The amphibious landing craft have minimal offensive capability but they do have some defensive capability. I don’t know if the V22 can sling load one of these vehicles let alone carry one inside the cargo compartment. What you have suggested is that these vehicles be resized so that they can be carried inside or out side of a V-22. This defeats the entire purpose of the AACs as they are designed to move troops onto a hostile shore in a protected environment. It wouldn’t do much good to carry one onto the shore with no troops inside and then load them aboard under enemy gunfire.
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The Cat
I checked the website provided by Tricky Woo and it obviously was created prior to the V-22 being introduced as a participant in the battle plans. I agree with you that the V-22 would allow the LHA/LHD to stay out of harms way however the V-22 is not he only player in the battle scenario. There are LCACs (air cushion) landing craft and this too is quite fast and could allow the ships to stay out of harms way. But you must consider the small landing craft and the amphibious tracked vehicles and the distance they must travel to get to the shore and return for more cargo and troops. To remain 20 miles offshore as opposed to three to five miles offshore you expose the supply and other vehicles to the treachery of the open sea and make them more vulnerable to air attack. The purpose of the AV8s is manifold. They must neutralize the shore defenses; they must defend the landing ships and protect the troop movements towards shore and return. To move the ships further offshore would increase the area that the AV8s had to defend by several orders of magnitude.
The amphibious landing craft have minimal offensive capability but they do have some defensive capability. I don’t know if the V22 can sling load one of these vehicles let alone carry one inside the cargo compartment. What you have suggested is that these vehicles be resized so that they can be carried inside or out side of a V-22. This defeats the entire purpose of the AACs as they are designed to move troops onto a hostile shore in a protected environment. It wouldn’t do much good to carry one onto the shore with no troops inside and then load them aboard under enemy gunfire.
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The Cat
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Lu:
I understand what you are saying about the small landing craft and amphibious tracked vehicles. But I still believe that these "weak links in the chain" are the problem (a "solveable" problem)- not the increased capabilities of the V-22. And when you mention exposure to the treachery of the open seas if the LHA remains at a greater stand-off distance, it seems that would be the better option compared to coming in closer to a high threat environment. The increased range of the V-22 would also give them much greater capability to deploy hundreds of miles inland, because the "target" is not always 'on the beach.' I would imagine there would be a number of missions (inland) where the small landing craft and amphibious tracked vehicles would be eliminated from the equation (especially deep-strike/insertion missions).
Don't get me wrong, I think helicopters are more than capable to perform many missions. I'm sure there are scenarios when helicopters would perform at least as well as the V-22, and would be much more cost effective. But the speed and range advantages of the tilt rotor open up a lot of other mission capabilities that are not available with helicopters today. The Marines obviously believe that...
Back to the AV-8Bs- do they have a great enough range to support V-22s on their missions (out and back, plus loiter time while the operation is in progress)?
[This message has been edited by HeliFlight (edited 11 March 2001).]
I understand what you are saying about the small landing craft and amphibious tracked vehicles. But I still believe that these "weak links in the chain" are the problem (a "solveable" problem)- not the increased capabilities of the V-22. And when you mention exposure to the treachery of the open seas if the LHA remains at a greater stand-off distance, it seems that would be the better option compared to coming in closer to a high threat environment. The increased range of the V-22 would also give them much greater capability to deploy hundreds of miles inland, because the "target" is not always 'on the beach.' I would imagine there would be a number of missions (inland) where the small landing craft and amphibious tracked vehicles would be eliminated from the equation (especially deep-strike/insertion missions).
Don't get me wrong, I think helicopters are more than capable to perform many missions. I'm sure there are scenarios when helicopters would perform at least as well as the V-22, and would be much more cost effective. But the speed and range advantages of the tilt rotor open up a lot of other mission capabilities that are not available with helicopters today. The Marines obviously believe that...
Back to the AV-8Bs- do they have a great enough range to support V-22s on their missions (out and back, plus loiter time while the operation is in progress)?
[This message has been edited by HeliFlight (edited 11 March 2001).]
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The following has been relayed from John Farley regarding the AV-8B question:
(Thanks John)
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Not an easy question to answer, because I don't know the details of the MV-22 mission in terms of radius, altitude and cruise speed and so on.
In general terms I assume the MV-22s would be at about 300 kts and low level. If I had to escort people low down at that speed my first choice would be to fly faster and higher so as not to be a sitting duck with them. I would plan to leave later than them and pick them up just before indian country and then how I flew top cover from then on would depend on the nature of the threat. An AV-8B with jugs and only air to air weapons would have no trouble with a two hour mission, perhaps longer depending on the average height. I would see nowt wrong with a handover to other AV-8s which could have cruised out high and arrived at the site as the MV-22s started their work, leaving me to go home high if short.
I have little doubt the USMC would have plans for all this stuff from wayback when they conceived the MV-22 programme.
My gut feeling is that there would not be a problem at all, although it might not be the same AV-8s for the complete mission
Regards
John
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(Thanks John)
*********************************************
Not an easy question to answer, because I don't know the details of the MV-22 mission in terms of radius, altitude and cruise speed and so on.
In general terms I assume the MV-22s would be at about 300 kts and low level. If I had to escort people low down at that speed my first choice would be to fly faster and higher so as not to be a sitting duck with them. I would plan to leave later than them and pick them up just before indian country and then how I flew top cover from then on would depend on the nature of the threat. An AV-8B with jugs and only air to air weapons would have no trouble with a two hour mission, perhaps longer depending on the average height. I would see nowt wrong with a handover to other AV-8s which could have cruised out high and arrived at the site as the MV-22s started their work, leaving me to go home high if short.
I have little doubt the USMC would have plans for all this stuff from wayback when they conceived the MV-22 programme.
My gut feeling is that there would not be a problem at all, although it might not be the same AV-8s for the complete mission
Regards
John
********************************************
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Technical Problems Plague Osprey
By JOSEPH NEFF, Staff Writer The News & Observer
March 26, 2001
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OSPREY REPORTS
COYLE REPORT: Philip Coyle was the Pentagon's chief weapons' tester from 1994 to 2000. Here is the presentation he made in January to the V-22 Blue Ribbon Panel, in which he discusses the problems with vortex ring state, false alarm rate, autorotation, maintenance problems and more.
http://newsobserver.com/osprey/coylepanel.pdf
(The file is a 3.19 MB PDF file. You will need Adobe Acrobat to read this report.)
MARINE POSITION PAPER: This is the Marine's position paper on the Osprey's ability to autorotate, a procedure that helicopter pilots use to land if they have lost power.
http://newsobserver.com/osprey/AutorotationsFinal.html
MORE STORIES
http://www.newsobserver.com/osprey/
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The Marines have bet $12 billion and 30 lives on the V-22 Osprey, the revolutionary aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane.
But the Osprey is grounded now, as questions fly about whether the Marines and contractors have pushed the Osprey into production too fast, deleting crucial flight tests and waiving core performance requirements along the way.
Three months ago, the V-22's chronic problems with safety and reliability were thrust into the national spotlight by the crash of yet another Osprey, this time into the woods of Eastern North Carolina.
Four Marines died in the Dec. 11 crash near the Camp Lejeune Marine Base. Of 20 Ospreys built, this was fourth to go down and the second in eight months. The body count now stands at 26 Marines and four civilians.
Sometime in the next few weeks, a panel of four defense and technology experts appointed after the December crash to review the V-22 program will deliver a report to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The panel's findings will do much to determine the fate of an aircraft that Marine leaders regard as essential to their corps' future.
These are the Osprey's biggest problems, based on a review of crash reports, outside audits, Department of Defense reports, flight manuals, e-mail messages and other documents:
Test pilots have unexpectedly lost control of the Osprey on at least two occasions. One instance of uncontrolled flight, in April 2000, led to a crash in Arizona that killed 19 Marines.
If it loses power, the Osprey cannot land safely in helicopter mode. Conventional helicopters can.
The complex hydraulics system that shifts the engines and rotors from vertical to horizontal is plagued by leaks and requires constant maintenance. A hydraulics failure was the primary cause of the December crash.
Most of the warning signals from the Osprey's diagnostic system -- nearly nine out of 10 -- are false alarms, rendering the warnings all but useless. If a squadron equipped with 12 V-22s had to contend with the current level of false alarms and maintenance problems, five or six craft would be in the repair shop at any one time.
The price per craft has doubled, from $45 million in 1997 to $89.7 million today.
These problems are emerging into public view late in the Osprey's development, but they come as no surprise to those familiar with the craft's history.
For more than a decade, auditors at the Government Accounting Office have warned of the dangers of pushing forward into production before testing was complete.
The Defense Science Board, a Pentagon advisory panel generally supportive of defense contractors, has criticized the Marines and the V-22's chief contractors, Boeing and Bell Helicopter Textron, for cutting corners on tests and waiving performance standards while pushing the craft into production.
"Buy before you fly" is the phrase often used to describe the practice of buying an expensive weapon system before the technology has been fully developed and tested. In military jargon, this is known as concurrency, meaning that development and production proceed at the same time.
Concurrency problems are not new: Half of the B-1 bombers were delivered before crucial tests began. The F-22 fighter is embroiled in a similar buy-before-you-fly wrangle. Many experts predict the same for the National Missile Defense system.
Even so, the Osprey stands out for the extent to which its tests have been waived or canceled. For example, crucial tests on "vortex ring state" -- a loss of lift that occurs when a helicopter descends into its own turbulence, and the cause of the April crash that killed 19 -- were called off in 1998.
The next year, the Chief of Naval Operations issued 22 waivers so the Osprey could move ahead to the critical Operational Test and Evaluation -- the final set of tests before full-scale production of 30 Ospreys a year.
It's not just the Marines who are eager to move to full production. For Bell Helicopter and Boeing, that green light would begin more than a decade of steady revenue, as well as potentially lucrative change orders.
Top Navy and Marine officials had planned to decide in December whether to proceed into full-scale production but postponed the decision after the latest crash.
Some of problems are regarded as fixable with additional engineering and testing; most people associated with the program are confident that the diagnostics and hydraulics systems eventually can be made to work, for example.
The aerodynamic problems, particularly the loss of controlled flight, are more worrisome. Even past Osprey advocates are beginning to question whether the plane can be made safe and reliable.
"I'm starting to get a dark feeling about this aircraft, that maybe we don't understand it," said Bill Lawrence, a former Marine pilot who flew the tiltrotor predecessor to the Osprey and headed the V-22 testing and evaluation program in the early 1990s.
Top-flight technology
A safe and reliable Osprey would be a powerful weapon for the Marines.
The new craft is intended to replace Vietnam-era helicopters, and promises to be better in many ways. It can fly five times as far and carry three times the payload. It can fly twice as fast, so it is less vulnerable to enemy fire. It is also quieter.
It would give the Marines a powerful tool to carry out their bread-and-butter mission: to take off from a ship over the horizon, land assault troops and seize hostile territory.
Advocates have suggested dozens of scenarios in the chaotic post-Cold War world in which the Osprey would be invaluable: thwarting an Iranian invasion of Saudi Arabia; flying Marines from Europe to rescue hostages in East Africa; or ferrying Marines from the United States straight to Central America.
But only if it works.
In 1990, the GAO warned that it was risky for the Marines to begin producing the Osprey while still developing it. Production went forward nonetheless.
The Osprey has now been in the low-rate initial stage of production for four years, but by the Defense Department's schedule, testing will continue until June 2004.
Chuck Spinney, an analyst in the Pentagon's Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation, contends that no company spending its own money would develop a product this way.
Narrow interests, not the national interests, have pushed the Osprey program, Spinney argued. The defense companies seek profit, while the Marines, who have always used hand-me-down aircraft built for other service branches, are hungry for a machine of their own.
"The guy forgotten in this is the taxpayer and the soldier," he said. "We use other people's money and spill other people's blood."
In December 2000, the Defense Science Board sharply criticized the Pentagon for cutting corners when testing weapons systems and cited the Osprey as a prime example.
The board, the pre-eminent advisory board to the Secretary of Defense, accused the Defense Department of viewing the testing process simply "as an impediment" to buying weapons.
Waived or skipped tests, the report argued, raise the likelihood that bugs and glitches will first be found on the battlefield, not the testing ground.
"We should maximize testing to discover any weakness or flaws as early as possible," the board wrote. "Combat is the ultimate test, finding a fault in combat is the ultimate cost of not testing."
The GAO, Congress' watchdog arm, reached a similar conclusion.
"In contrast to best commercial practices, our work has shown that numerous weapon system programs suffer from persistent problems associated with late or incomplete testing," the GAO said in a report on the Osprey last month.
Weapon systems managers actually had incentives to postpone difficult tests or hide negative results, the GAO investigators wrote.
This criticism goes to the heart of a recent Osprey scandal that has damaged the Marines' credibility. In January, the Marines removed the commander of its only Osprey squadron for allegedly ordering mechanics to doctor maintenance records to make the craft look more reliable.
The Navy will not decide whether to go ahead with production of all 458 Ospreys (360 for the Marines and 98 for other branches) until several investigations are complete:
The Defense Inspector General's inquiry into the falsification of maintenance records.
The Naval Safety Center's probe into the December crash.
The examination by the blue-ribbon panel appointed by the Secretary of Defense.
Here is a closer look at the biggest issues:
Uncontrolled flight
For a pilot, there is probably no scarier phrase than "loss of controlled flight."
The most serious instance came last April, when the Osprey crashed in Arizona, killing 19 Marines.
The cause was a phenomenon common to helicopters, known as "vortex ring state" or "power settling."
During rapid descents with low forward speed, a helicopter drops into its own turbulence and loses lift. Applying more power aggravates the problem, increasing the turbulence and causing the helicopter to fall even faster.
To recover, a helicopter escapes the column of disturbed air by dropping its nose and flying forward. A big double-rotor transport helicopter actually self-corrects because the forward rotor loses lift first, causing the nose to drop.
But the Osprey reacts differently in vortex ring state: It tips over sideways. In Arizona, the Osprey turned on its side in less than a second and then smashed nose-first into the ground.
The Marines say the pilot caused the crash by exceeding the Osprey's flight envelope. The flight manual warned the pilot to avoid descending more than 800 feet per minute (FPM) at forward speeds of less than 40 knots. The pilot was operating within the recommended limits until three seconds before he crashed, when his forward speed dropped to 39 knots and the craft abruptly flipped on its side.
"He never had a warning until that second where he departed from flight," said Brian Alexander, a former Army helicopter pilot and lawyer representing several families of the Marines killed in the crash. "The margin is a sheer cliff. It's that razor-thin. He's at 39 knots and whammo, he's ass over teakettle."
Less than a month after the crash, the Marines changed the warning in the flight manual to a blanket prohibition: In helicopter mode, "DESCENT RATE SHALL NOT EXCEED 800 FPM."
This limitation, if it stays, would severely cramp the Osprey's mission capability, pilots said. Descending into combat at 800 FPM would make the Osprey an easy target.
"That makes it a taxicab, not a tactical airplane," said Lawrence, the former V-22 program manager. In Vietnam, Lawrence said he often descended into hot landing zones at 3,000 or 4,000 FPM to avoid enemy fire.
The Osprey fell into uncontrolled flight at least once before.
Marines were testing an Osprey aboard the carrier USS Saipan in 1999. While hovering 10 feet above the deck, one side of the Osprey suddenly banked 37 degrees and narrowly missed crashing into the ship. The pilot applied power, gained altitude and made a safe landing.
Seven other planned incidents occurred last summer as pilots at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland attempted to re-create the conditions of the Arizona crash. Flying at 8,000 to 10,000 feet, the pilots pushed the Osprey into vortex ring state and fell more than 1,000 feet before regaining control.
Philip Coyle, until recently the chief weapons tester at the Pentagon, told the blue ribbon panel in January that the side-by-side configuration of the Osprey's rotors makes it susceptible to vortex ring state, especially when the craft is turning.
"Such a characteristic is fundamental and cannot be remedied by minor design changes," he wrote.
As it happens, the Osprey program cut or canceled key tests for vortex ring state. The original plan called for tests of 103 flight conditions -- different configurations of descent, speed, altitude and cargo. In 1998, Osprey program managers reduced this to 49 flight conditions to cut costs and get the program back on schedule. In the end, only 33 were actually flown. Some of the deleted test conditions involved descents at slow forward air speeds with full loads -- the conditions present in Arizona.
"To save dollars and make up for schedule slips, the important ... testing was severely curtailed -- roughly one third of the planned test events were actually flown -- and particularly critical test points were not flown at all," the Defense Science Board Report said.
Autorotation
A helicopter can land without power by "autorotating," a technique that resembles a maple seed spinning to earth. As the helicopter descends, air rushes through the rotors and spins them with enough force to allow the pilot to control the rate and direction of descent. Just before landing, 25 or 50 feet above ground, the pilot pulls up the chopper's nose in a flare. The rotors take a big bite of air, like an umbrella catching in a wind gust. This cuts the helicopter's forward speed and descent, and the helicopter can land.
Early Pentagon specifications called for the Osprey to autorotate. But so far it can't.
The craft's flight manual reads: "WARNING: Practice autorotations, to include entry or glide, are prohibited."
In a position paper published in February for the media and investigators, the Marines danced around this issue.
"It has been asked whether the V-22 can autorotate. Because the answer is yes and no, a detailed discussion is necessary for fully understanding this issue."
The Marines contend that it is unlikely that the Osprey would ever lose power. The plane has two powerful and reliable Rolls-Royce engines. If one fails, the other can power both rotors.
And if it does lose power in both engines, the Marines say the Osprey can successfully glide to a landing in airplane mode.
The Marines have never attempted a glide landing, which would destroy the Osprey's huge rotors. They are 38 feet in diameter and extend below the wheels; they would hit the ground first. The Marines say the rotors are designed to shred into fibrous chunks, not shrapnel-like shards.
When it loses power in airplane mode, the Osprey descends 3,500 feet a minute at a glide ratio of 4.6, meaning it goes forward 4.6 feet for every foot it falls.
"That's a rock," said Tony Mineo, an aviation lawyer in Raleigh who worked eight years as an aeronautical engineer with the Marines. "I'd like to meet the test pilot willing to try this maneuver."
In comparison, a Boeing 707 that loses power has a glide ratio of 15, and falls just 1,200 feet a minute.
The Osprey's rotor design causes yet another problem that would hamper Marine missions. The downwash from its rotors is so powerful -- twice that of the helicopter it replaces -- that the Osprey has not been able to pick people up by rope ladder or at sea. Downwash makes landings difficult in the desert or at night.
Diagnostics
The Osprey's diagnostic systems, its equivalent of the warning lights in a car, have a false alarm rate of 88 percent.
Most times, nothing is wrong when a warning light comes on.
"This is a double killer," said Jim Crouse, a former Army helicopter pilot and aviation lawyer. "The warning light goes on, you kill the mission and land the craft. After awhile you start ignoring the warning light, and then you tape it over or disconnect it. Then it kills the pilot."
The false-alarm rate contributes to the Osprey's unreliability. Records show that the Osprey spends an average of 36 minutes in flight before a mechanical failure or aborted mission. The Marines are shooting for a minimum of 84 minutes on this measure.
"If you talk to the pilots' widows, they'll tell you -- if they weren't flying it, they were fixing it," said Alexander, the former pilot and lawyer representing families in the Arizona crash.
Hydraulics
The complicated hydraulics system accounts for the biggest share of mechanical problems.
Besides deploying landing gear, wing flaps and other parts, the hydraulic system tilts the rotors and engines from airplane to helicopter mode. The system works at high pressure -- 5,000 pounds per square inch, compared with 2,000 to 3,000 pounds in most aircraft.
The higher pressure requires less fluid and smaller parts. This saves weight and allows for a heavier payload. But at 5,000 psi, the system is leak-prone and hard to control. Fluid doesn't ooze at 5,000 psi: It atomizes, like mist from a perfume bottle.
In the December crash near Jacksonville, a software glitch compounded a hydraulic leak.
Twenty-five seconds before the crash, a hydraulic warning light came on.
The pilot followed the flight manual to a T: He pushed the reset button that tells a computer to isolate the leaking system and switch to a backup.
The pilot "did this 15 times, 16 times before he hit the ground," said Coyle, the Pentagon's former chief weapons tester. "Every time he did it, the software did the wrong thing and caused him to lose altitude even faster."
Coyle said making the Osprey safe and reliable will involve more than fixing each troubled piece of it.
The bigger task is to make sure all the pieces and subsystems work together. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, he said.
"The Marine Corps and contractors have to go over how all this stuff works," Coyle said. "If you have hydraulic failure here, and a fuel failure there, how does the software interact with it? They have a lot of technical work to do."
Staff writer Joseph Neff can be reached at 829-4516 or [email protected]
© Copyright 2001, The News & Observer.
We shall now standby for the usual insulting acerbic irrelevancies from HeliFlight (alias PTI-UAE)
By JOSEPH NEFF, Staff Writer The News & Observer
March 26, 2001
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OSPREY REPORTS
COYLE REPORT: Philip Coyle was the Pentagon's chief weapons' tester from 1994 to 2000. Here is the presentation he made in January to the V-22 Blue Ribbon Panel, in which he discusses the problems with vortex ring state, false alarm rate, autorotation, maintenance problems and more.
http://newsobserver.com/osprey/coylepanel.pdf
(The file is a 3.19 MB PDF file. You will need Adobe Acrobat to read this report.)
MARINE POSITION PAPER: This is the Marine's position paper on the Osprey's ability to autorotate, a procedure that helicopter pilots use to land if they have lost power.
http://newsobserver.com/osprey/AutorotationsFinal.html
MORE STORIES
http://www.newsobserver.com/osprey/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Marines have bet $12 billion and 30 lives on the V-22 Osprey, the revolutionary aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane.
But the Osprey is grounded now, as questions fly about whether the Marines and contractors have pushed the Osprey into production too fast, deleting crucial flight tests and waiving core performance requirements along the way.
Three months ago, the V-22's chronic problems with safety and reliability were thrust into the national spotlight by the crash of yet another Osprey, this time into the woods of Eastern North Carolina.
Four Marines died in the Dec. 11 crash near the Camp Lejeune Marine Base. Of 20 Ospreys built, this was fourth to go down and the second in eight months. The body count now stands at 26 Marines and four civilians.
Sometime in the next few weeks, a panel of four defense and technology experts appointed after the December crash to review the V-22 program will deliver a report to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The panel's findings will do much to determine the fate of an aircraft that Marine leaders regard as essential to their corps' future.
These are the Osprey's biggest problems, based on a review of crash reports, outside audits, Department of Defense reports, flight manuals, e-mail messages and other documents:
Test pilots have unexpectedly lost control of the Osprey on at least two occasions. One instance of uncontrolled flight, in April 2000, led to a crash in Arizona that killed 19 Marines.
If it loses power, the Osprey cannot land safely in helicopter mode. Conventional helicopters can.
The complex hydraulics system that shifts the engines and rotors from vertical to horizontal is plagued by leaks and requires constant maintenance. A hydraulics failure was the primary cause of the December crash.
Most of the warning signals from the Osprey's diagnostic system -- nearly nine out of 10 -- are false alarms, rendering the warnings all but useless. If a squadron equipped with 12 V-22s had to contend with the current level of false alarms and maintenance problems, five or six craft would be in the repair shop at any one time.
The price per craft has doubled, from $45 million in 1997 to $89.7 million today.
These problems are emerging into public view late in the Osprey's development, but they come as no surprise to those familiar with the craft's history.
For more than a decade, auditors at the Government Accounting Office have warned of the dangers of pushing forward into production before testing was complete.
The Defense Science Board, a Pentagon advisory panel generally supportive of defense contractors, has criticized the Marines and the V-22's chief contractors, Boeing and Bell Helicopter Textron, for cutting corners on tests and waiving performance standards while pushing the craft into production.
"Buy before you fly" is the phrase often used to describe the practice of buying an expensive weapon system before the technology has been fully developed and tested. In military jargon, this is known as concurrency, meaning that development and production proceed at the same time.
Concurrency problems are not new: Half of the B-1 bombers were delivered before crucial tests began. The F-22 fighter is embroiled in a similar buy-before-you-fly wrangle. Many experts predict the same for the National Missile Defense system.
Even so, the Osprey stands out for the extent to which its tests have been waived or canceled. For example, crucial tests on "vortex ring state" -- a loss of lift that occurs when a helicopter descends into its own turbulence, and the cause of the April crash that killed 19 -- were called off in 1998.
The next year, the Chief of Naval Operations issued 22 waivers so the Osprey could move ahead to the critical Operational Test and Evaluation -- the final set of tests before full-scale production of 30 Ospreys a year.
It's not just the Marines who are eager to move to full production. For Bell Helicopter and Boeing, that green light would begin more than a decade of steady revenue, as well as potentially lucrative change orders.
Top Navy and Marine officials had planned to decide in December whether to proceed into full-scale production but postponed the decision after the latest crash.
Some of problems are regarded as fixable with additional engineering and testing; most people associated with the program are confident that the diagnostics and hydraulics systems eventually can be made to work, for example.
The aerodynamic problems, particularly the loss of controlled flight, are more worrisome. Even past Osprey advocates are beginning to question whether the plane can be made safe and reliable.
"I'm starting to get a dark feeling about this aircraft, that maybe we don't understand it," said Bill Lawrence, a former Marine pilot who flew the tiltrotor predecessor to the Osprey and headed the V-22 testing and evaluation program in the early 1990s.
Top-flight technology
A safe and reliable Osprey would be a powerful weapon for the Marines.
The new craft is intended to replace Vietnam-era helicopters, and promises to be better in many ways. It can fly five times as far and carry three times the payload. It can fly twice as fast, so it is less vulnerable to enemy fire. It is also quieter.
It would give the Marines a powerful tool to carry out their bread-and-butter mission: to take off from a ship over the horizon, land assault troops and seize hostile territory.
Advocates have suggested dozens of scenarios in the chaotic post-Cold War world in which the Osprey would be invaluable: thwarting an Iranian invasion of Saudi Arabia; flying Marines from Europe to rescue hostages in East Africa; or ferrying Marines from the United States straight to Central America.
But only if it works.
In 1990, the GAO warned that it was risky for the Marines to begin producing the Osprey while still developing it. Production went forward nonetheless.
The Osprey has now been in the low-rate initial stage of production for four years, but by the Defense Department's schedule, testing will continue until June 2004.
Chuck Spinney, an analyst in the Pentagon's Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation, contends that no company spending its own money would develop a product this way.
Narrow interests, not the national interests, have pushed the Osprey program, Spinney argued. The defense companies seek profit, while the Marines, who have always used hand-me-down aircraft built for other service branches, are hungry for a machine of their own.
"The guy forgotten in this is the taxpayer and the soldier," he said. "We use other people's money and spill other people's blood."
In December 2000, the Defense Science Board sharply criticized the Pentagon for cutting corners when testing weapons systems and cited the Osprey as a prime example.
The board, the pre-eminent advisory board to the Secretary of Defense, accused the Defense Department of viewing the testing process simply "as an impediment" to buying weapons.
Waived or skipped tests, the report argued, raise the likelihood that bugs and glitches will first be found on the battlefield, not the testing ground.
"We should maximize testing to discover any weakness or flaws as early as possible," the board wrote. "Combat is the ultimate test, finding a fault in combat is the ultimate cost of not testing."
The GAO, Congress' watchdog arm, reached a similar conclusion.
"In contrast to best commercial practices, our work has shown that numerous weapon system programs suffer from persistent problems associated with late or incomplete testing," the GAO said in a report on the Osprey last month.
Weapon systems managers actually had incentives to postpone difficult tests or hide negative results, the GAO investigators wrote.
This criticism goes to the heart of a recent Osprey scandal that has damaged the Marines' credibility. In January, the Marines removed the commander of its only Osprey squadron for allegedly ordering mechanics to doctor maintenance records to make the craft look more reliable.
The Navy will not decide whether to go ahead with production of all 458 Ospreys (360 for the Marines and 98 for other branches) until several investigations are complete:
The Defense Inspector General's inquiry into the falsification of maintenance records.
The Naval Safety Center's probe into the December crash.
The examination by the blue-ribbon panel appointed by the Secretary of Defense.
Here is a closer look at the biggest issues:
Uncontrolled flight
For a pilot, there is probably no scarier phrase than "loss of controlled flight."
The most serious instance came last April, when the Osprey crashed in Arizona, killing 19 Marines.
The cause was a phenomenon common to helicopters, known as "vortex ring state" or "power settling."
During rapid descents with low forward speed, a helicopter drops into its own turbulence and loses lift. Applying more power aggravates the problem, increasing the turbulence and causing the helicopter to fall even faster.
To recover, a helicopter escapes the column of disturbed air by dropping its nose and flying forward. A big double-rotor transport helicopter actually self-corrects because the forward rotor loses lift first, causing the nose to drop.
But the Osprey reacts differently in vortex ring state: It tips over sideways. In Arizona, the Osprey turned on its side in less than a second and then smashed nose-first into the ground.
The Marines say the pilot caused the crash by exceeding the Osprey's flight envelope. The flight manual warned the pilot to avoid descending more than 800 feet per minute (FPM) at forward speeds of less than 40 knots. The pilot was operating within the recommended limits until three seconds before he crashed, when his forward speed dropped to 39 knots and the craft abruptly flipped on its side.
"He never had a warning until that second where he departed from flight," said Brian Alexander, a former Army helicopter pilot and lawyer representing several families of the Marines killed in the crash. "The margin is a sheer cliff. It's that razor-thin. He's at 39 knots and whammo, he's ass over teakettle."
Less than a month after the crash, the Marines changed the warning in the flight manual to a blanket prohibition: In helicopter mode, "DESCENT RATE SHALL NOT EXCEED 800 FPM."
This limitation, if it stays, would severely cramp the Osprey's mission capability, pilots said. Descending into combat at 800 FPM would make the Osprey an easy target.
"That makes it a taxicab, not a tactical airplane," said Lawrence, the former V-22 program manager. In Vietnam, Lawrence said he often descended into hot landing zones at 3,000 or 4,000 FPM to avoid enemy fire.
The Osprey fell into uncontrolled flight at least once before.
Marines were testing an Osprey aboard the carrier USS Saipan in 1999. While hovering 10 feet above the deck, one side of the Osprey suddenly banked 37 degrees and narrowly missed crashing into the ship. The pilot applied power, gained altitude and made a safe landing.
Seven other planned incidents occurred last summer as pilots at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland attempted to re-create the conditions of the Arizona crash. Flying at 8,000 to 10,000 feet, the pilots pushed the Osprey into vortex ring state and fell more than 1,000 feet before regaining control.
Philip Coyle, until recently the chief weapons tester at the Pentagon, told the blue ribbon panel in January that the side-by-side configuration of the Osprey's rotors makes it susceptible to vortex ring state, especially when the craft is turning.
"Such a characteristic is fundamental and cannot be remedied by minor design changes," he wrote.
As it happens, the Osprey program cut or canceled key tests for vortex ring state. The original plan called for tests of 103 flight conditions -- different configurations of descent, speed, altitude and cargo. In 1998, Osprey program managers reduced this to 49 flight conditions to cut costs and get the program back on schedule. In the end, only 33 were actually flown. Some of the deleted test conditions involved descents at slow forward air speeds with full loads -- the conditions present in Arizona.
"To save dollars and make up for schedule slips, the important ... testing was severely curtailed -- roughly one third of the planned test events were actually flown -- and particularly critical test points were not flown at all," the Defense Science Board Report said.
Autorotation
A helicopter can land without power by "autorotating," a technique that resembles a maple seed spinning to earth. As the helicopter descends, air rushes through the rotors and spins them with enough force to allow the pilot to control the rate and direction of descent. Just before landing, 25 or 50 feet above ground, the pilot pulls up the chopper's nose in a flare. The rotors take a big bite of air, like an umbrella catching in a wind gust. This cuts the helicopter's forward speed and descent, and the helicopter can land.
Early Pentagon specifications called for the Osprey to autorotate. But so far it can't.
The craft's flight manual reads: "WARNING: Practice autorotations, to include entry or glide, are prohibited."
In a position paper published in February for the media and investigators, the Marines danced around this issue.
"It has been asked whether the V-22 can autorotate. Because the answer is yes and no, a detailed discussion is necessary for fully understanding this issue."
The Marines contend that it is unlikely that the Osprey would ever lose power. The plane has two powerful and reliable Rolls-Royce engines. If one fails, the other can power both rotors.
And if it does lose power in both engines, the Marines say the Osprey can successfully glide to a landing in airplane mode.
The Marines have never attempted a glide landing, which would destroy the Osprey's huge rotors. They are 38 feet in diameter and extend below the wheels; they would hit the ground first. The Marines say the rotors are designed to shred into fibrous chunks, not shrapnel-like shards.
When it loses power in airplane mode, the Osprey descends 3,500 feet a minute at a glide ratio of 4.6, meaning it goes forward 4.6 feet for every foot it falls.
"That's a rock," said Tony Mineo, an aviation lawyer in Raleigh who worked eight years as an aeronautical engineer with the Marines. "I'd like to meet the test pilot willing to try this maneuver."
In comparison, a Boeing 707 that loses power has a glide ratio of 15, and falls just 1,200 feet a minute.
The Osprey's rotor design causes yet another problem that would hamper Marine missions. The downwash from its rotors is so powerful -- twice that of the helicopter it replaces -- that the Osprey has not been able to pick people up by rope ladder or at sea. Downwash makes landings difficult in the desert or at night.
Diagnostics
The Osprey's diagnostic systems, its equivalent of the warning lights in a car, have a false alarm rate of 88 percent.
Most times, nothing is wrong when a warning light comes on.
"This is a double killer," said Jim Crouse, a former Army helicopter pilot and aviation lawyer. "The warning light goes on, you kill the mission and land the craft. After awhile you start ignoring the warning light, and then you tape it over or disconnect it. Then it kills the pilot."
The false-alarm rate contributes to the Osprey's unreliability. Records show that the Osprey spends an average of 36 minutes in flight before a mechanical failure or aborted mission. The Marines are shooting for a minimum of 84 minutes on this measure.
"If you talk to the pilots' widows, they'll tell you -- if they weren't flying it, they were fixing it," said Alexander, the former pilot and lawyer representing families in the Arizona crash.
Hydraulics
The complicated hydraulics system accounts for the biggest share of mechanical problems.
Besides deploying landing gear, wing flaps and other parts, the hydraulic system tilts the rotors and engines from airplane to helicopter mode. The system works at high pressure -- 5,000 pounds per square inch, compared with 2,000 to 3,000 pounds in most aircraft.
The higher pressure requires less fluid and smaller parts. This saves weight and allows for a heavier payload. But at 5,000 psi, the system is leak-prone and hard to control. Fluid doesn't ooze at 5,000 psi: It atomizes, like mist from a perfume bottle.
In the December crash near Jacksonville, a software glitch compounded a hydraulic leak.
Twenty-five seconds before the crash, a hydraulic warning light came on.
The pilot followed the flight manual to a T: He pushed the reset button that tells a computer to isolate the leaking system and switch to a backup.
The pilot "did this 15 times, 16 times before he hit the ground," said Coyle, the Pentagon's former chief weapons tester. "Every time he did it, the software did the wrong thing and caused him to lose altitude even faster."
Coyle said making the Osprey safe and reliable will involve more than fixing each troubled piece of it.
The bigger task is to make sure all the pieces and subsystems work together. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, he said.
"The Marine Corps and contractors have to go over how all this stuff works," Coyle said. "If you have hydraulic failure here, and a fuel failure there, how does the software interact with it? They have a lot of technical work to do."
Staff writer Joseph Neff can be reached at 829-4516 or [email protected]
© Copyright 2001, The News & Observer.
We shall now standby for the usual insulting acerbic irrelevancies from HeliFlight (alias PTI-UAE)
Guest
Posts: n/a
Rotorbike,
When I was deleting emails from Internet lurking pedophiles on my daughter's AOL account, what do I find, but a message from J. Crint (aka Unctuous). While not really being surprised at finding his name amongest the messages I was deleting, I was shocked that the message was conjecturing that I was either PTI-UAE or his mouth piece. He was planning the great outting of HeliFlight as PTI. The length of the rant was truely amazing.
What does this guy have against PTI-UAE, besides IQ envy?
Why does he attack everybody who writes accurately about tilt rotors as if they were an enemy of the profession? From his posts he obviously has never flown one (this is a safe bet, as we do have standards) or has seen one fly in person.
The Sultan
P.S to Unc: From now on post your bull**** here so everyone can get a laugh.
When I was deleting emails from Internet lurking pedophiles on my daughter's AOL account, what do I find, but a message from J. Crint (aka Unctuous). While not really being surprised at finding his name amongest the messages I was deleting, I was shocked that the message was conjecturing that I was either PTI-UAE or his mouth piece. He was planning the great outting of HeliFlight as PTI. The length of the rant was truely amazing.
What does this guy have against PTI-UAE, besides IQ envy?
Why does he attack everybody who writes accurately about tilt rotors as if they were an enemy of the profession? From his posts he obviously has never flown one (this is a safe bet, as we do have standards) or has seen one fly in person.
The Sultan
P.S to Unc: From now on post your bull**** here so everyone can get a laugh.
Guest
Posts: n/a
Aviation Week & Space Technology
March 26, 2001
V-22 Legal Strategy Targets Bell And Boeing
By Robert Wall, Washington
Regulations that make it virtually impossible for families of soldiers killed in accidents to hold the military accountable mean that Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing will shoulder the brunt of the legal attacks from last year's V-22 crashes.
The strategy to hold the contractor, rather than the military, accountable became clear when attorneys representing some families of last April's crash of a V-22 laid out their case during a public hearing.
The statements were made as part of a fact-finding session by a blue-ribbon commission investigating the program. It is being headed by Marine Gen. (ret.) John R. Dailey, and includes USAF Gen. (ret.) James B. Davis, Norman R. Augustine and Eugene E. Covert, and is to be completed in late April. The presentations, which the four members sat through silently, also raised new concerns about the tiltrotor.
Despite strong attacks, Bell and Boeing are far from having to pay hefty fines. In fact, according to legal experts the chances of the families prevailing are slim. A 1988 U.S. Supreme Court ruling granted military contractors immunity for liability if the government issued a ''reasonably precise'' specification for the equipment, the gear conformed to it, and the contractor warned the government about any dangers. Furthermore, the close ties between Marines and contractors on this program during development could further complicate legal efforts.
The Supreme Court ruling has provided considerable protection to defense contractors. About 80-90% of cases against military contractors are dismissed in pretrial motions, estimates Phillip K. Kolczynski, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based aviation and product liability attorney. Moreover, he noted, some courts will extend immunity when a continuous dialogue between the contractor and the government is evident, even if it was not concerning the precise problem that may have caused the accident.
''There are circumstances where one can beat [the immunity clause],'' Kolczynski said. However, it would require a sympathetic court and vast knowledge about the equipment problem and how much the government knew about it.
MOST OF THE LEGAL ACTIVITY, so far, has focused on the Apr. 8 crash in which 19 Marines died. Investigators determined the crash was caused by pilot error, with the aircraft descending too fast and encountering vortex ring state, a condition where lift on the rotor is lost. The findings of the Dec. 11 Osprey crash in which four Marines were killed haven't been released. However, service officials have pointed to a hydraulics failure in combination with faulty software as the culprit, raising the specter of more lawsuits.
Given the existing legal challenges, attorneys in the Osprey case have tried to fashion their arguments to exploit the few openings in the law they are afforded. For instance, since government knowledge of problems can lead to immunity for the contractor, Brian J. Alexander, who represents several of the families, lays blame squarely on Bell and Boeing.
''The Marine Corps was unaware of the danger of an asymmetric loss of lift and uncommanded departure from controlled flight due to asymmetric vortex ring state or power settling,'' he maintains. Furthermore, he says that ''contractors are required by law and contract to identify dangers and limitations and propose warnings, cautions and notes for inclusion in the pilot manual. It is clear the contractors have failed to meet these obligations and as a result Marine lives have been lost.''
To support his arguments, Alexander draws mainly on three Pentagon reports: the operational evaluation of the aircraft, the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) findings on the April crash, and a test report from the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation issued last year. For instance, he cited the operational evaluation report that says ''the content of the [flight manual] was not suitable for operational use,'' the test community's determination that the V-22's ''unusual attitude following entry into [asymmetric vortex ring state] was not expected,'' and the JAG's assertion that ''the MV-22 appears less forgiving than conventional helicopters.''
Jim Furman, the legal representative for the families of the pilot, Lt. Col. John Brow, and co-pilot, Maj. Brooks Gruber, attacked the assertion that pilot error caused the crash. That determination was made in the JAG report and could curtail any damages Bell and Boeing face even if they are found partially responsible. Furman argued that ''the pilots had no reason to believe that the aircraft would enter this uncontrolled state.'' The reason, he added, was that ''the flight envelope was never thoroughly tested by the contractor or explored during developmental flight tests.''
The first suit was brought on Mar. 9 on behalf of the father of Lcpl. Jason T. Duke. The filing accuses Bell and Boeing of being ''negligent in the design, manufacture, testing, inspection, assembly, certification, regulation, distribution, sale, maintenance, operation and/or repair'' of the V-22 and of failing to warn of problems that ''caused design-induced pilot error and the crash.''
THE BLUE-RIBBON PANEL also heard from a rotorcraft expert. Daniel P. Schrage, director of the Georgia Institute of Technology's rotorcraft center, spoke in support of the tiltrotor saying it was the best technical approach to the operational problem the Marines are trying to solve. However, he also noted that when the Marines finalized a design to take it aboard the ship it ''resulted in substantial constraints on safety.''
Most prominently, the V-22's rotor size had to be reduced to allow shipboard operations. But that adjustment also meant the tiltrotor could no longer autorotate -- a rotorcraft emergency procedure that allows aircraft to be landed despite engine failure. The disk loading went from about 15 lb. per sq. ft. on the XV-15 tiltrotor prototype that could autorotate to about 25 lb. per sq. ft. on the V-22, he said. Although increasing rotor size isn't an option, Schrage said there may be other engineering choices. One would be to add weight to the rotor tips to increase their inertia and give them more energy to offset the downforce caused by the aircraft's weight.
Schrage also speculated that there may be technical solutions to address the V-22 from experiencing asymmetric vortex ring state. He suggested adaptive flight control systems could be devised to sense the flight condition and essentially prevent the pilot from being caught in a flight profile where the aerodynamic instability is experienced.
The safety of the aircraft issue was also raised by U.S. Rep. Robert Filner (D-Calif.), whose district includes Marine Corps Air Station Miramar where MV-22s are supposed to be based. ''My concern is for my community,'' he said, noting that about half the flight paths for the tiltrotor would cut over large parts of heavily populated San Diego county.
Despite the technical questions raised by several of the presentations, none of the critics called for cancellation of the program. Instead, most argued that the Marines, Bell and Boeing should continue working on it to resolve technical problems. Filner, for instance, said the V-22 should undergo ''at least a one-year suspension to thoroughly examine the program.''
V-22 SUPPORTERS ALSO SPOKE out, although neither the contractors nor the Marine Corps provided public testimony. One of the backers was Aerospace Industries Assn. President John Douglass. ''The development of aerospace products can not be done without risk,'' he noted.
Additionally, Douglass maintained that abandoning tiltrotor technology would be a ''huge mistake,'' citing the potential benefits of civil versions of the aircraft. But program critics objected to that statement in particular. Furman argued that it isn't the military's job to ''be testers, evaluators, promoters and sacrificial lambs on the altar of for-profit commercial activities or to enhance a positive balance of trade.''
March 26, 2001
V-22 Legal Strategy Targets Bell And Boeing
By Robert Wall, Washington
Regulations that make it virtually impossible for families of soldiers killed in accidents to hold the military accountable mean that Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing will shoulder the brunt of the legal attacks from last year's V-22 crashes.
The strategy to hold the contractor, rather than the military, accountable became clear when attorneys representing some families of last April's crash of a V-22 laid out their case during a public hearing.
The statements were made as part of a fact-finding session by a blue-ribbon commission investigating the program. It is being headed by Marine Gen. (ret.) John R. Dailey, and includes USAF Gen. (ret.) James B. Davis, Norman R. Augustine and Eugene E. Covert, and is to be completed in late April. The presentations, which the four members sat through silently, also raised new concerns about the tiltrotor.
Despite strong attacks, Bell and Boeing are far from having to pay hefty fines. In fact, according to legal experts the chances of the families prevailing are slim. A 1988 U.S. Supreme Court ruling granted military contractors immunity for liability if the government issued a ''reasonably precise'' specification for the equipment, the gear conformed to it, and the contractor warned the government about any dangers. Furthermore, the close ties between Marines and contractors on this program during development could further complicate legal efforts.
The Supreme Court ruling has provided considerable protection to defense contractors. About 80-90% of cases against military contractors are dismissed in pretrial motions, estimates Phillip K. Kolczynski, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based aviation and product liability attorney. Moreover, he noted, some courts will extend immunity when a continuous dialogue between the contractor and the government is evident, even if it was not concerning the precise problem that may have caused the accident.
''There are circumstances where one can beat [the immunity clause],'' Kolczynski said. However, it would require a sympathetic court and vast knowledge about the equipment problem and how much the government knew about it.
MOST OF THE LEGAL ACTIVITY, so far, has focused on the Apr. 8 crash in which 19 Marines died. Investigators determined the crash was caused by pilot error, with the aircraft descending too fast and encountering vortex ring state, a condition where lift on the rotor is lost. The findings of the Dec. 11 Osprey crash in which four Marines were killed haven't been released. However, service officials have pointed to a hydraulics failure in combination with faulty software as the culprit, raising the specter of more lawsuits.
Given the existing legal challenges, attorneys in the Osprey case have tried to fashion their arguments to exploit the few openings in the law they are afforded. For instance, since government knowledge of problems can lead to immunity for the contractor, Brian J. Alexander, who represents several of the families, lays blame squarely on Bell and Boeing.
''The Marine Corps was unaware of the danger of an asymmetric loss of lift and uncommanded departure from controlled flight due to asymmetric vortex ring state or power settling,'' he maintains. Furthermore, he says that ''contractors are required by law and contract to identify dangers and limitations and propose warnings, cautions and notes for inclusion in the pilot manual. It is clear the contractors have failed to meet these obligations and as a result Marine lives have been lost.''
To support his arguments, Alexander draws mainly on three Pentagon reports: the operational evaluation of the aircraft, the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) findings on the April crash, and a test report from the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation issued last year. For instance, he cited the operational evaluation report that says ''the content of the [flight manual] was not suitable for operational use,'' the test community's determination that the V-22's ''unusual attitude following entry into [asymmetric vortex ring state] was not expected,'' and the JAG's assertion that ''the MV-22 appears less forgiving than conventional helicopters.''
Jim Furman, the legal representative for the families of the pilot, Lt. Col. John Brow, and co-pilot, Maj. Brooks Gruber, attacked the assertion that pilot error caused the crash. That determination was made in the JAG report and could curtail any damages Bell and Boeing face even if they are found partially responsible. Furman argued that ''the pilots had no reason to believe that the aircraft would enter this uncontrolled state.'' The reason, he added, was that ''the flight envelope was never thoroughly tested by the contractor or explored during developmental flight tests.''
The first suit was brought on Mar. 9 on behalf of the father of Lcpl. Jason T. Duke. The filing accuses Bell and Boeing of being ''negligent in the design, manufacture, testing, inspection, assembly, certification, regulation, distribution, sale, maintenance, operation and/or repair'' of the V-22 and of failing to warn of problems that ''caused design-induced pilot error and the crash.''
THE BLUE-RIBBON PANEL also heard from a rotorcraft expert. Daniel P. Schrage, director of the Georgia Institute of Technology's rotorcraft center, spoke in support of the tiltrotor saying it was the best technical approach to the operational problem the Marines are trying to solve. However, he also noted that when the Marines finalized a design to take it aboard the ship it ''resulted in substantial constraints on safety.''
Most prominently, the V-22's rotor size had to be reduced to allow shipboard operations. But that adjustment also meant the tiltrotor could no longer autorotate -- a rotorcraft emergency procedure that allows aircraft to be landed despite engine failure. The disk loading went from about 15 lb. per sq. ft. on the XV-15 tiltrotor prototype that could autorotate to about 25 lb. per sq. ft. on the V-22, he said. Although increasing rotor size isn't an option, Schrage said there may be other engineering choices. One would be to add weight to the rotor tips to increase their inertia and give them more energy to offset the downforce caused by the aircraft's weight.
Schrage also speculated that there may be technical solutions to address the V-22 from experiencing asymmetric vortex ring state. He suggested adaptive flight control systems could be devised to sense the flight condition and essentially prevent the pilot from being caught in a flight profile where the aerodynamic instability is experienced.
The safety of the aircraft issue was also raised by U.S. Rep. Robert Filner (D-Calif.), whose district includes Marine Corps Air Station Miramar where MV-22s are supposed to be based. ''My concern is for my community,'' he said, noting that about half the flight paths for the tiltrotor would cut over large parts of heavily populated San Diego county.
Despite the technical questions raised by several of the presentations, none of the critics called for cancellation of the program. Instead, most argued that the Marines, Bell and Boeing should continue working on it to resolve technical problems. Filner, for instance, said the V-22 should undergo ''at least a one-year suspension to thoroughly examine the program.''
V-22 SUPPORTERS ALSO SPOKE out, although neither the contractors nor the Marine Corps provided public testimony. One of the backers was Aerospace Industries Assn. President John Douglass. ''The development of aerospace products can not be done without risk,'' he noted.
Additionally, Douglass maintained that abandoning tiltrotor technology would be a ''huge mistake,'' citing the potential benefits of civil versions of the aircraft. But program critics objected to that statement in particular. Furman argued that it isn't the military's job to ''be testers, evaluators, promoters and sacrificial lambs on the altar of for-profit commercial activities or to enhance a positive balance of trade.''
Guest
Posts: n/a
Hmm, could I be Heli-flight, maybe PTI- UAE or just tiltrotor?
Might I be insane?
Anyway, I am with you guys. I guess it's really time to stop blaming other people of being, well, who really knows?
Actually, who really cares!
The point is that some are trying here to have an objective discussion, so leave the B.S. out of it. And I agree, I keep finding these bogus e-mails by unctious in my personal e-mail, absolutely the last place I want them in.
It appears UNCTUOUS has really flipped a gasket.
I don't know which Institution he is writing from, but they should really
limit his e-mail privileges. He also wrote an incredibly long incoherent
message accusing various different personallities of being PTI-UAE. He has apparently written EVERY person
who has posted to this thread and accused us of being the SAME person! Ouch. Trust me, I know most of these guys and they are definitely not the same.
Time to increase the valium doses!
Get a life and get over it..
And finally a big hello to my friends in the Middle East..another day, another dollar, I'll be back.
Might I be insane?
Anyway, I am with you guys. I guess it's really time to stop blaming other people of being, well, who really knows?
Actually, who really cares!
The point is that some are trying here to have an objective discussion, so leave the B.S. out of it. And I agree, I keep finding these bogus e-mails by unctious in my personal e-mail, absolutely the last place I want them in.
It appears UNCTUOUS has really flipped a gasket.
I don't know which Institution he is writing from, but they should really
limit his e-mail privileges. He also wrote an incredibly long incoherent
message accusing various different personallities of being PTI-UAE. He has apparently written EVERY person
who has posted to this thread and accused us of being the SAME person! Ouch. Trust me, I know most of these guys and they are definitely not the same.
Time to increase the valium doses!
Get a life and get over it..
And finally a big hello to my friends in the Middle East..another day, another dollar, I'll be back.
Guest
Posts: n/a
Pinochy-Unc:
We are going to have to rename you
Paranoia-Unc!!!
Speaking of renaming... this thread should be renamed to:
"The UnRaveling of Unctuous!!!"
Pinochy-Unc sent me a ranting endless bunch of non-sensical Uncy-Dribble too that included a threat for me to remove all of my posts by March 15 at 1000 GMT!!! Of course I waited until after the deadline and wrote back for him to post his newest theory on PPRune so we could all see it (he did not respond). P-Unc believes that there is a big Conspiracy against him, and every post disagreeing with him on this thread all comes from the same single person!!! The IP addresses prove we are not the same people- I live in Rockland NY (phone contacts available too!), and PTIUAE is in the middle east, don't know where everybody else is from.
P-Us latest flatulations originated from an e-mail message I sent to PTIUAE asking for information on the Harrier. He cut and pasted my message to John Farley, and P-Unc. took this to mean that he had cracked a Master Conspiracy plot against him!!! From that he assumed that PTIUAE, myself and everybody that does not agree with him is the same person!!! Another great theory based on his in-depth masterful analysis methods. Equal only to his "Quinke Valve" theory I have posted before that I ask PTIUAE questions by e-mail, and he has no problem with me posting things I learn from him on this forum. At least I ask people who know- I don't make up theories without trying to find the facts!!!
Now to disprove your second theory P-U, I will not post ACERBIC responses- but instead the following which shows the MV-22 is not in danger of replacement. It still has hydraulic and electrical problems to be fixed- but it is not likely to be canceled. Notice it does not come from a 'I want to sell newspapers' source like GAO/Coyle regurgitations, and it does not describe claims made by Attorneys involved in a legal suit that will say anything to win their case. (Remember OJ Simpson???) This one comes from a Rotorcraft trade publication that looks into the facts!!!
Osprey Panel Must Explain Fully Its Decision
Helicopter News
Washington, D.C.
Vol. 27, No. 6
March 22, 2001
The independent panel appointed by the Department of Defense to review the embattled V-22 Osprey is expected to opublish its report soon after Easter. No one expects the panel to consign the the aircraft to the dustbin of history. The Osprey's technological promise is too high; its mission capability too great.
In fact, even the aircraft's most severe critics trial lawyers who are now suing Bell Boeing for the wrongful death of the Marines onboard the two Osprey that crashed on April 8 and December 11 of last year say they do not want to kill the program. Instead, they say, they want the manufacturers to "fix" the aircraft, make it safe and airworthy, and only then deploy it out into the fleet.
"Send it back; get it fixed; make it work," said Brian Alexander, an attorney with the New York law firm Kreindler & Kreindler and himself a former Army helicopter pilot. Alexander represents a dozen of the 19 Marines killed in the April 8 crash and he spoke at a public hearing sponsored by the panel on Friday, March 9 in Arlington, Virginia.
For these reasons, the panel is more likely to recommend that the Marine Corps subject the V-22 to further testing to ensure adequate operational performance and safety. But more important than the panel's bottom-line recommendation is its explanation and reasoning.
That is because a dark cloud of suspicion, and indeed paranoia, has descended upon the V-22 program and for a variety of reasons good and bad, warranted and unwarranted. That is why Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James L. Jones pushed for an independent review of the Osprey to clear the air and reassure the public that the program is being administered honestly and judiciously, with due regard for the safety of America's Marines.
The Panel, therefore, has a heavy burden: it must lay out all of the relevant facts and criticisms of the program, and it must weave these facts together into a clear and coherent narrative that forthrightly addresses lingering concerns. This involves making judgments, taking sides, and naming names.
The temptation, of course, is to sidestep this difficult task in the name of personal and institutions comity especially now that lawyers and widows are involved. Who, after all, wants to appear insensitive to a grieving widow? And who wants to (inadvertently) interject himself into a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit?
However, it would be a mistake for the panel to ignore or sidestep the serious legal allegations made against the Osprey by Alexander and his fellow lawyers. We live in a litigious society made all the more litigious by the revolution in communications.
Indeed, charges and allegations gain currency and believability simply by their instantaneous and mass propagation. As concerns the V-22, these charges and allegations will go not away simply because the panel ignores them or confronts them only obliquely.
For example, according to William Healy, a Tucson attorney representing the family of Lance Cpl. Jason Duke, Bell Boeing "put a defective product on the market, a product that was dangerously and unreasonably defective."
This either is true or it's not true. The panel has a responsibility to say which is the case and why.
We are going to have to rename you
Paranoia-Unc!!! Speaking of renaming... this thread should be renamed to:
"The UnRaveling of Unctuous!!!"
Pinochy-Unc sent me a ranting endless bunch of non-sensical Uncy-Dribble too that included a threat for me to remove all of my posts by March 15 at 1000 GMT!!! Of course I waited until after the deadline and wrote back for him to post his newest theory on PPRune so we could all see it (he did not respond). P-Unc believes that there is a big Conspiracy against him, and every post disagreeing with him on this thread all comes from the same single person!!! The IP addresses prove we are not the same people- I live in Rockland NY (phone contacts available too!), and PTIUAE is in the middle east, don't know where everybody else is from.
P-Us latest flatulations originated from an e-mail message I sent to PTIUAE asking for information on the Harrier. He cut and pasted my message to John Farley, and P-Unc. took this to mean that he had cracked a Master Conspiracy plot against him!!! From that he assumed that PTIUAE, myself and everybody that does not agree with him is the same person!!! Another great theory based on his in-depth masterful analysis methods.
Equal only to his "Quinke Valve" theory I have posted before that I ask PTIUAE questions by e-mail, and he has no problem with me posting things I learn from him on this forum. At least I ask people who know- I don't make up theories without trying to find the facts!!! Now to disprove your second theory P-U, I will not post ACERBIC responses- but instead the following which shows the MV-22 is not in danger of replacement. It still has hydraulic and electrical problems to be fixed- but it is not likely to be canceled. Notice it does not come from a 'I want to sell newspapers' source like GAO/Coyle regurgitations, and it does not describe claims made by Attorneys involved in a legal suit that will say anything to win their case. (Remember OJ Simpson???) This one comes from a Rotorcraft trade publication that looks into the facts!!!
Osprey Panel Must Explain Fully Its Decision
Helicopter News
Washington, D.C.
Vol. 27, No. 6
March 22, 2001
The independent panel appointed by the Department of Defense to review the embattled V-22 Osprey is expected to opublish its report soon after Easter. No one expects the panel to consign the the aircraft to the dustbin of history. The Osprey's technological promise is too high; its mission capability too great.
In fact, even the aircraft's most severe critics trial lawyers who are now suing Bell Boeing for the wrongful death of the Marines onboard the two Osprey that crashed on April 8 and December 11 of last year say they do not want to kill the program. Instead, they say, they want the manufacturers to "fix" the aircraft, make it safe and airworthy, and only then deploy it out into the fleet.
"Send it back; get it fixed; make it work," said Brian Alexander, an attorney with the New York law firm Kreindler & Kreindler and himself a former Army helicopter pilot. Alexander represents a dozen of the 19 Marines killed in the April 8 crash and he spoke at a public hearing sponsored by the panel on Friday, March 9 in Arlington, Virginia.
For these reasons, the panel is more likely to recommend that the Marine Corps subject the V-22 to further testing to ensure adequate operational performance and safety. But more important than the panel's bottom-line recommendation is its explanation and reasoning.
That is because a dark cloud of suspicion, and indeed paranoia, has descended upon the V-22 program and for a variety of reasons good and bad, warranted and unwarranted. That is why Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James L. Jones pushed for an independent review of the Osprey to clear the air and reassure the public that the program is being administered honestly and judiciously, with due regard for the safety of America's Marines.
The Panel, therefore, has a heavy burden: it must lay out all of the relevant facts and criticisms of the program, and it must weave these facts together into a clear and coherent narrative that forthrightly addresses lingering concerns. This involves making judgments, taking sides, and naming names.
The temptation, of course, is to sidestep this difficult task in the name of personal and institutions comity especially now that lawyers and widows are involved. Who, after all, wants to appear insensitive to a grieving widow? And who wants to (inadvertently) interject himself into a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit?
However, it would be a mistake for the panel to ignore or sidestep the serious legal allegations made against the Osprey by Alexander and his fellow lawyers. We live in a litigious society made all the more litigious by the revolution in communications.
Indeed, charges and allegations gain currency and believability simply by their instantaneous and mass propagation. As concerns the V-22, these charges and allegations will go not away simply because the panel ignores them or confronts them only obliquely.
For example, according to William Healy, a Tucson attorney representing the family of Lance Cpl. Jason Duke, Bell Boeing "put a defective product on the market, a product that was dangerously and unreasonably defective."
This either is true or it's not true. The panel has a responsibility to say which is the case and why.
Guest
Posts: n/a
Report: Osprey Flaw Caused Crash
By ESTES THOMPSON
.c The Associated Press
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) - A hydraulics system failure compounded by software problems caused a V-22 Osprey aircraft to crash in December, killing four Marines, a corps investigation being released Thursday concluded. The corps acknowledged it was aware of a problem that could damage the hydraulic line that failed.
The crash was one of two fatal Osprey crashes last year that killed 23 Marines and put the fate of the controversial, multibillion-dollar aircraft program in jeopardy.
A wire bundle had rubbed against a hydraulic line feeding both the primary and backup hydraulic systems to the left engine, chafing it and eventually allowing the line to rupture, said Maj. Gen. Martin Berndt, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force.
"The investigation cites a number of reports dating back to June 1999, which describe chafing of hydraulic lines by wire bundles within the (engines) of the V-22,'' he said.
Berndt spoke at a briefing in advance of the release of the full report Thursday afternoon.
The Marines had said in January that they were nearly certain the December crash was caused by a failure of the hydraulics system, which enables the pilot to control the direction of the aircraft.
Berndt said that varying degrees of chafing were found on all eight remaining Ospreys during an inspection after the December crash.
The investigators recommend reviewing the entire computer flight control system and associated software, and the placement of hydraulic lines and wire bundles within the engine, he said.
The Osprey is unique in its ability to take off like a helicopter, rotate its propellers 90 degrees and fly like an airplane.
Another Osprey crash killed 19 servicemen in Marana, Ariz., in April 2000. The fleet has been grounded since the December crash in Onslow County, near Jacksonville.
In the North Carolina crash, Berndt said investigators found the hydraulic system began to malfunction after the plane made a series of left-hand turns.
As the plane's airspeed slowed and the engines began to move automatically from airplane to helicopter mode, the hydraulic line ruptured, Berndt said.
The flight control computer sensed the problem and stopped the rotation of the engines. A reset button lit up and the crew, as instructed, pressed it.
"This action started a chain of unpredicted and uncontrollable events that caused alternating deceleration and acceleration of the aircraft,'' until it stalled and then crashed nose-first, Berndt said.
It took 30 seconds after the hydraulic failure for the plane to hit the ground. During the last 20 seconds, the computer reset program was activated as many as eight to 10 times, Berndt said.
That, along with the hydraulic failure, caused the engines' rotors to change their pitch rapidly and dramatically, sending the airplane out of control.
"The air crew reacted immediately and correctly to the in-flight emergency as they were trained to do,'' Berndt said. "We consider them to be without fault in this tragedy.''
The defense secretary appointed an independent panel to review the program after the latest crash. The accident report's release comes as the panel, headed by retired Marine Gen. John R. Dailey, is preparing its findings and recommendations, which could decide the fate of the Osprey.
The Marine Corps wants to buy 360 Ospreys to replace its fleet of aging CH-46 and CH-53 transport helicopters. They are made by Textron's Bell Helicopters unit and Boeing Co.
Pilots who helped investigate the North Carolina crash said the problems with the hydraulic system and computer were a design flaw that had been known for months but ignored, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
They told the Post the problems could have been detected by more rigorous testing, and slipped by because the Marine Corps wanted to win Pentagon funding for full production of the plane.
AP-NY-04-05-01 1124EDT
By ESTES THOMPSON
.c The Associated Press
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) - A hydraulics system failure compounded by software problems caused a V-22 Osprey aircraft to crash in December, killing four Marines, a corps investigation being released Thursday concluded. The corps acknowledged it was aware of a problem that could damage the hydraulic line that failed.
The crash was one of two fatal Osprey crashes last year that killed 23 Marines and put the fate of the controversial, multibillion-dollar aircraft program in jeopardy.
A wire bundle had rubbed against a hydraulic line feeding both the primary and backup hydraulic systems to the left engine, chafing it and eventually allowing the line to rupture, said Maj. Gen. Martin Berndt, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force.
"The investigation cites a number of reports dating back to June 1999, which describe chafing of hydraulic lines by wire bundles within the (engines) of the V-22,'' he said.
Berndt spoke at a briefing in advance of the release of the full report Thursday afternoon.
The Marines had said in January that they were nearly certain the December crash was caused by a failure of the hydraulics system, which enables the pilot to control the direction of the aircraft.
Berndt said that varying degrees of chafing were found on all eight remaining Ospreys during an inspection after the December crash.
The investigators recommend reviewing the entire computer flight control system and associated software, and the placement of hydraulic lines and wire bundles within the engine, he said.
The Osprey is unique in its ability to take off like a helicopter, rotate its propellers 90 degrees and fly like an airplane.
Another Osprey crash killed 19 servicemen in Marana, Ariz., in April 2000. The fleet has been grounded since the December crash in Onslow County, near Jacksonville.
In the North Carolina crash, Berndt said investigators found the hydraulic system began to malfunction after the plane made a series of left-hand turns.
As the plane's airspeed slowed and the engines began to move automatically from airplane to helicopter mode, the hydraulic line ruptured, Berndt said.
The flight control computer sensed the problem and stopped the rotation of the engines. A reset button lit up and the crew, as instructed, pressed it.
"This action started a chain of unpredicted and uncontrollable events that caused alternating deceleration and acceleration of the aircraft,'' until it stalled and then crashed nose-first, Berndt said.
It took 30 seconds after the hydraulic failure for the plane to hit the ground. During the last 20 seconds, the computer reset program was activated as many as eight to 10 times, Berndt said.
That, along with the hydraulic failure, caused the engines' rotors to change their pitch rapidly and dramatically, sending the airplane out of control.
"The air crew reacted immediately and correctly to the in-flight emergency as they were trained to do,'' Berndt said. "We consider them to be without fault in this tragedy.''
The defense secretary appointed an independent panel to review the program after the latest crash. The accident report's release comes as the panel, headed by retired Marine Gen. John R. Dailey, is preparing its findings and recommendations, which could decide the fate of the Osprey.
The Marine Corps wants to buy 360 Ospreys to replace its fleet of aging CH-46 and CH-53 transport helicopters. They are made by Textron's Bell Helicopters unit and Boeing Co.
Pilots who helped investigate the North Carolina crash said the problems with the hydraulic system and computer were a design flaw that had been known for months but ignored, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
They told the Post the problems could have been detected by more rigorous testing, and slipped by because the Marine Corps wanted to win Pentagon funding for full production of the plane.
AP-NY-04-05-01 1124EDT
Guest
Posts: n/a
Unctuous-heliflight-Lu Zuckerman
Have been reading/studying/printing and eschewing you guys for some time. My heart goes out to Unctuous and feel I should join himin his educational pursuits, He appears to be one who is not putting stuff here which comes out of marketing, publishing,or defensive attitude, or otherwise supporting the Iron Triangle. Have been trying to help others understand a few realities - and have a draft paper -- changes/criticisms desired
(now all I need to do is figure out how to attach it!!)
[This message has been edited by hpdunn (edited 10 April 2001).]
Have been reading/studying/printing and eschewing you guys for some time. My heart goes out to Unctuous and feel I should join himin his educational pursuits, He appears to be one who is not putting stuff here which comes out of marketing, publishing,or defensive attitude, or otherwise supporting the Iron Triangle. Have been trying to help others understand a few realities - and have a draft paper -- changes/criticisms desired
(now all I need to do is figure out how to attach it!!)
[This message has been edited by hpdunn (edited 10 April 2001).]
Guest
Posts: n/a
To: hpdunn
Copy the text into word. Then copy the text and transfer it into the comment box on the Rotorheads thread.
By the way, how did I get caught up in this? Any comments I made regarding the V22 were based on my having worked on the program for 11 months and that information was based on what existed during my association with the program.
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The Cat
Copy the text into word. Then copy the text and transfer it into the comment box on the Rotorheads thread.
By the way, how did I get caught up in this? Any comments I made regarding the V22 were based on my having worked on the program for 11 months and that information was based on what existed during my association with the program.
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The Cat
Guest
Posts: n/a
Just read the stuff in Flight about the hydraulic pipes chaffing against a wire bundle. Personally I think it's obscene that in this day and age an a/c like that can be brought down by such a ridiculous design flaw (several other a/c were found to have the same problem in earlier stages of wear).
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Another day in paradise
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Another day in paradise