What's the latest news of the V22 Osprey?
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V-22 Is Proving Its Unique Potential
defence.professionals | defpro.com
V-22 Is Proving Its Unique Potential
16:30 GMT, January 5, 2011 Two months ago the co-chairmen of the president's bipartisan deficit commission issued a series of proposals for narrowing the gap between federal income and expenses. One section of their proposals concerned how annual defense spending could be trimmed $100 billion by fiscal year 2015. That was a reasonable goal, and many of the ideas that the co-chairs advanced for meeting it made sense. However, their findings were marred by a series of "illustrative" weapons cuts that did not make sense. Some of the suggested cuts would raise Pentagon costs rather than reduce them, and others would squander multi-billion-dollar investments made by past administrations.
A case in point was the recommendation to end procurement of the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft due to a "troubled history" of developmental and maintenance problems. Whoever wrote the superficial rationale for prematurely terminating Osprey production was ignorant of both the current status of the program and the needs of its prospective users. In their very next recommendation, the co-chairmen contradicted themselves by proposing cancellation of a Marine Corps amphibious vehicle, arguing that the capabilities of the V-22 were more relevant to future warfighting needs. Obviously, somebody on the commission's staff is a bit confused. So here are some basic facts about V-22.
The Osprey is the world's first production tilt-rotor, meaning it is designed to combine the vertical ascent/descent capabilities of a helicopter with the speed and range of a fixed-wing turboprop. It achieves this unique mix of features by pivoting ("tilting") its two rotors while in flight. The program was conceived in the Reagan years to equip all of the military services with a flexible warfighting system that could execute diverse missions. The Army dropped out early, but the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have remained in the program. The Marine Corps is the lead service, with a stated requirement for 360 MV-22 variants around which it has built its plans for future warfare. The Air Force is purchasing an additional 50 CV-22 variants for special operations missions, and the Navy may buy its own variant for missions such as carrying supplies to aircraft carriers.
The defense department spent $25 billion over 25 years to develop the V-22. An additional $31.8 billion has been expended to manufacture production Ospreys, with $13.6 billion remaining to be spent. In other words, 80 percent of the money needed to meet Air Force and Marine requirements has been expended. The 150th V-22 was delivered in December under a multiyear production contract extending through 2012. The Osprey has flown nearly 100,000 hours to date, including in 13 successful overseas deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The current production version of the MV-22 has a mission-capable rate of 70 percent, which the Marine Corps expects will rise to 80 percent or higher.
Much has been written about the safety of the Osprey, but the aircraft has only suffered one fatal accident in the last ten years despite harsh operating conditions in overseas deployments. In that one accident, an Osprey hit the ground at high speed, killing four of the 20 personnel on board. In general, though, the V-22 has exhibited good performance in all three facets of survivability -- susceptibility to being hit by fire, vulnerability to damage when hit, and crashworthiness in protecting occupants. So the "troubled history" of the tilt-rotor appears to be largely behind it, and it retains the support of its home services. Terminating it now would waste much of the investment past administrations have made to give U.S. warfighters a unique edge in combat.
----
Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.
Early Warning Blog, Forecast International
V-22 Is Proving Its Unique Potential
16:30 GMT, January 5, 2011 Two months ago the co-chairmen of the president's bipartisan deficit commission issued a series of proposals for narrowing the gap between federal income and expenses. One section of their proposals concerned how annual defense spending could be trimmed $100 billion by fiscal year 2015. That was a reasonable goal, and many of the ideas that the co-chairs advanced for meeting it made sense. However, their findings were marred by a series of "illustrative" weapons cuts that did not make sense. Some of the suggested cuts would raise Pentagon costs rather than reduce them, and others would squander multi-billion-dollar investments made by past administrations.
A case in point was the recommendation to end procurement of the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft due to a "troubled history" of developmental and maintenance problems. Whoever wrote the superficial rationale for prematurely terminating Osprey production was ignorant of both the current status of the program and the needs of its prospective users. In their very next recommendation, the co-chairmen contradicted themselves by proposing cancellation of a Marine Corps amphibious vehicle, arguing that the capabilities of the V-22 were more relevant to future warfighting needs. Obviously, somebody on the commission's staff is a bit confused. So here are some basic facts about V-22.
The Osprey is the world's first production tilt-rotor, meaning it is designed to combine the vertical ascent/descent capabilities of a helicopter with the speed and range of a fixed-wing turboprop. It achieves this unique mix of features by pivoting ("tilting") its two rotors while in flight. The program was conceived in the Reagan years to equip all of the military services with a flexible warfighting system that could execute diverse missions. The Army dropped out early, but the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps have remained in the program. The Marine Corps is the lead service, with a stated requirement for 360 MV-22 variants around which it has built its plans for future warfare. The Air Force is purchasing an additional 50 CV-22 variants for special operations missions, and the Navy may buy its own variant for missions such as carrying supplies to aircraft carriers.
The defense department spent $25 billion over 25 years to develop the V-22. An additional $31.8 billion has been expended to manufacture production Ospreys, with $13.6 billion remaining to be spent. In other words, 80 percent of the money needed to meet Air Force and Marine requirements has been expended. The 150th V-22 was delivered in December under a multiyear production contract extending through 2012. The Osprey has flown nearly 100,000 hours to date, including in 13 successful overseas deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The current production version of the MV-22 has a mission-capable rate of 70 percent, which the Marine Corps expects will rise to 80 percent or higher.
Much has been written about the safety of the Osprey, but the aircraft has only suffered one fatal accident in the last ten years despite harsh operating conditions in overseas deployments. In that one accident, an Osprey hit the ground at high speed, killing four of the 20 personnel on board. In general, though, the V-22 has exhibited good performance in all three facets of survivability -- susceptibility to being hit by fire, vulnerability to damage when hit, and crashworthiness in protecting occupants. So the "troubled history" of the tilt-rotor appears to be largely behind it, and it retains the support of its home services. Terminating it now would waste much of the investment past administrations have made to give U.S. warfighters a unique edge in combat.
----
Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.
Early Warning Blog, Forecast International
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Gee, Sounded really quiet during testing & to the enemy!
By Lisa Tindell
Military plane made noise over Brewton
Published 11:30am Saturday, January 22, 2011
The crew from “Unsolved Mysteries” won’t be coming to Brewton to investigate strange rumblings heard across the area Wednesday night.
Brewton Municipal Airport Director Earl Lambert said the noises heard throughout the area can be attributed to the massive V22 Osprey — a twin rotor helicopter/airplane owned by the military.
“After hearing the machinery, we began to investigate the source,” Lambert said. “Our investigation lead us to the special ops unit from Hurlburt Field.”
Hurlburt Field, located near Fort Walton Beach, Fla., is home to the Airforce Special Operations Command.
“I spoke to the commander of the squadron and explained their training would not be good since we have so many citizens that live in the area around the airport,” Lambert said. “Those aircraft are extremely noisy with an horrific racket.”
The Brewton Municipal Airport serves as a training area for units from Whiting Field near Milton, Fla., during the day.
“We have a 50-year agreement with the Navy, and you just can’t mix the two,” Lambert said. “It would be prohibitive for them to use the area during the day when it’s being used by the Navy, and it’s just too noisy at night.”
Lambert said a gentlemen’s agreement was reached between himself and the commander Friday that would bring the training missions to a halt.
“The commander offered an apology for any inconvenience their training may have caused in the community,” Lambert said. “He assured me the squadron would not be back in the area to train.”
The Brewton Municipal Airport is a non-controlled facility, meaning there is no air traffic control tower and no after-hours communications system
The Osprey is too noisy?
Lord have mercy....with all the Huey's and Cobra's beating about the place for years and someone complains about the Osprey?
I would suggest it is simply a case of NIMBY when it comes to night time hours and not the Osprey in particular.....as they rumble by over my head frequently now and I don't find them objectionable in that regard. Granted freight trains are mere background noise to me with my damaged hearing.
Their sound is much different than single rotor helicopters.....and fairly similar to Phrogs or Hooks.....and certainly much more quiet than anything Bell puts out with two rotor blades.
Lord have mercy....with all the Huey's and Cobra's beating about the place for years and someone complains about the Osprey?
I would suggest it is simply a case of NIMBY when it comes to night time hours and not the Osprey in particular.....as they rumble by over my head frequently now and I don't find them objectionable in that regard. Granted freight trains are mere background noise to me with my damaged hearing.
Their sound is much different than single rotor helicopters.....and fairly similar to Phrogs or Hooks.....and certainly much more quiet than anything Bell puts out with two rotor blades.
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Generals clash on cause of April Osprey crash
Generals clash on cause of April Osprey crash (Uh-Oh)
Air Force Two generals are at odds about the cause of a CV-22 crash in April that killed two of the three cockpit crew members and two passengers. Brig. Gen. Donald Harvel, the accident investigation board's president, believes engine problems were at fault; Lt. Gen. Kurt Cichowski, to whom Harvel answered during the investigation, blames aircrew errors.
By Bruce Rolfsen - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Jan 22, 2011 10:12:48 EST
In a rare public display of disunity, two generals are at serious odds over the cause of a fatal aircraft accident.
The April 9 crash in Afghanistan was the first loss of a CV-22 Osprey in combat. Two of the three cockpit crew members — pilot Maj. Randell Voas, 43, and flight engineer Senior Master Sgt. James Lackey, 45 — died attempting a night landing at a desert landing zone. The co-pilot survived; he has not been indentified. Also killed were a soldier and a contractor — two of 16 passengers in the cargo compartment.
Brig. Gen. Donald Harvel, president of the accident investigation board, said he believes engine problems brought down the special operations Osprey on its landing approach. Lt. Gen. Kurt Cichowski, to whom Harvel answered during the investigation, argues aircrew errors caused the crash.
Harvel cited engine problems in his report; Cichowski wrote a dissent that he released with the report Dec. 15.
Cichowski, a fighter pilot, declined to comment on the dispute. He is now the CIA’s associate director for military affairs; Harvel, a mobility pilot, spoke with Air Force Times over the telephone Dec. 28 andJan. 5 from his home near Atlanta. He retired in September from the Air National Guard and now works for Delta Air Lines.
“There was absolutely a lot of pressure to change my report,” Harvel said. “My heart and brain said it was not pilot error. I stuck with what I thought was the truth.”
Harvel said Air Force Special Operations Command wanted him to cite the cause of the crash as pilot error because AFSOC didn’t want old doubts stirred up about the safety of the Osprey program, which had three fatal crashes of prototypes and the Marine Corps variant from 1992 to 2000. The Air Force variant has had one other serious accident, caused when an engine bolt vibrated loose during takeoff. The CV-22, though, managed to land safely.
AFSOC declined to comment on Harvel’s accusation. At the time of the April 9 crash and during the investigation, Cichowski was AFSOC’s vice commander.
The dispute will never be resolved because no irrefutable evidence exists to substantiate either explanation: no black box and no eyewitness testimony.
The CV-22’s flight data recorder probably ended up in little pieces when the service destroyed the Osprey hours after the crash. The airmen and soldiers stripping the wreckage of evidence and classified items before the explosion didn’t know theaircraft had a black box, according to the report.
As for firsthand knowledge of what went on inside the cockpit, the surviving co-pilot told investigators he didn’t have a clear memory of the flight’s last 30 seconds.
Harvel came to his conclusion from watching a video of the CV-22 from a camera onboard an A-10 Thunderbolt that was part of the mission. The footage shows haze coming out of both engines throughout the last 17 seconds of flight; Harvel is convinced the “unidentified contrails,” as they are described in the report, are fuel vapors from engines trying to restart. The Air Force did not release the images.
The stresses of flying in the dirt and dust of Afghanistan probably caused the engine problems, Harvel said.
When maintainers checked the power level of the engines April 6, the right one operated at 95.3 percent and left one ran at 99.5 percent. When an engine fell below 95 percent, it had to be repaired or replaced.
After the power check, the Osprey made four more landings at austere sites. On one, the screening system that protected the left engine from blowing sand failed. Each landing would have reduced engine performance, Harvel said.
“Degraded engines could have led to engine failure, surge/stall or insufficient power when a high power demand was required,” he said, adding that he believes the aircrew members knew about the engine problems and flew the Osprey as best they could to a rolling landing. The CV-22 touched down at 88 mph, the report said; it should have landed like a helicopter, with little forward speed.
The plane’s landing gear absorbed some of the impact, with the tires digging eight inches into the desert sand. The plane rolled and bounced for more than 200 feet until it reached a drainage ditch. As the plane’s nose dipped into the ditch, the Osprey flipped over and began breaking apart before coming to a stop 50 feet away.
In his dissent, Cichowski cited several factors ruling out engine failure:
•No one onboard the Osprey or in radio contact with it heard any discussions about engine problems or warnings from the cockpit.
•An analysis of the recovered left engine showed it was working. The right engine was not recovered.
•The V-22 Joint Program Office, which oversees Air Force and Marine Corps Ospreys, concluded engine failure was highly unlikely.
•The crew made several errors, including the pilot flying too high and too fast in his approach; the failure to obtain a weather report warning of a 17 mph tailwind; distraction over unexpected lighting at the landing zone; and self-imposed pressure to make the mission a success.
Typically, the senior officer who convenes the accident investigation board — Cichowski in this case — agrees with the board president’s opinion.
If the senior officer disagrees with the report, he can ask the board president to consider new evidence. Usually the review resolves the differences.
Cichowski received Harvel’s report Aug. 25. On Sept. 30, Cichowski received an analysis from the joint V-22 Program Office that suggested the report underestimated the CV-22’s speed when it crashed.
In a memo dated Oct. 5, Cichowski stated he accepted the report but believed there wasn’t enough evidence to support the conclusion that at least one engine malfunctioned.
Next, the report and Cichowski’s dissent went to Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, who in the early 1980s served as an MC-130E Combat Talon pilot in the same squadron as the Osprey crew — the 8th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Fla.
On Nov. 15, Schwartz ordered Harvel to review the program office analysis. Harvel spent three days, Nov. 19 to Nov. 21, studying the new information but still came away convinced that engine problems caused the crash.
Despite his strong disagreement with Harvel’s conclusion, Cichowski signed off on the report Nov. 23 because Air Force accident investigation rules left him little choice.
With the investigation finally wrapped up, AFSOC leaders began meeting with families and survivors to explain the conclusions. Usually, the board president handles the duty, but Harvel was not invited.
Harvel was not asked to meet with the service members and families because he had retired, said AFSOC spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Villagran.
Harvel sees the exclusion as AFSOC’s snub of his opinion.
“I thought that they were very wrong not to let me brief the families,” he said. “I had gathered a lot of insight and took extra notes to brief personal stories to each family. I even volunteered to brief the families at no expense to the government. Still, they never even acknowledged me.”
If the General is correct when he states it appeared "BOTH" engines were trying to restart.....would the aircraft have been able to fly the actual flight path flown?
Any of you Osprey guys want to discuss that? Does the evidence lend itself to supporting that kind of engine failure(s)?
This is a no win situation for the Osprey folks....either it is admit a mechanical problem with the machine or a failure by the crew. Neither of which is pleasant to consider.
Is the Air Force pulling the rug out from under the crew and protecting the machine?
If there is no clear cut evidence to prove either of the conclusions...why can they not just say that and explain why that is the best answer rather than doing as they have done?
Any of you Osprey guys want to discuss that? Does the evidence lend itself to supporting that kind of engine failure(s)?
This is a no win situation for the Osprey folks....either it is admit a mechanical problem with the machine or a failure by the crew. Neither of which is pleasant to consider.
Is the Air Force pulling the rug out from under the crew and protecting the machine?
If there is no clear cut evidence to prove either of the conclusions...why can they not just say that and explain why that is the best answer rather than doing as they have done?
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Anything contray to the V-22 will remain classafied in the interest of all concerned.
Perhaps it hasn't dawned on some why there has not been ONE discouraging word about the V-22 from ANYONE in the military or V-22 management. V-22 lap dogs pay the rent, send their kids through college, buy vehicles on the backs of the V-22, pay their light bills, Yada-Yada. If ANYONE connected to the V-22 should say just ONE thing bad about it and be known, then they would be history and their career flushed. It's still hard to believe some don't understand that.
The V-22 program has very little credability because there is no ONE ever able to dispute the obvious. It is no wonder V-22 crews are so jittery about the airframe. Civilians who know the V-22's track record get the same jitters whenever one passes overhead.
Perhaps the next time someone connected to the program joins a blog they'd be smart to ensure their true identity remain unknown so they could then be more truthful about this POS.
But, I repeat myself.
The V-22 program has very little credability because there is no ONE ever able to dispute the obvious. It is no wonder V-22 crews are so jittery about the airframe. Civilians who know the V-22's track record get the same jitters whenever one passes overhead.
Perhaps the next time someone connected to the program joins a blog they'd be smart to ensure their true identity remain unknown so they could then be more truthful about this POS.
But, I repeat myself.
---------------------------------------
See original article here as it's already been taken down from one news group:
Generals clash on cause of April Osprey crash - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times
Last edited by Dan Reno; 23rd Jan 2011 at 18:13. Reason: Tried to spell correct title..couldn't.
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Some pilot talk.
Regs Hinder Osprey Defenses
By Greg Grant
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway has promised that the controversial MV-22 Osprey will be flying in Afghanistan by the end of the year. He recently told a Washington audience that the Osprey, “has gone from a wounded duck to a poster child in terms of what aircraft with that leap-ahead technology can do.”
Not so, according to some lawmakers on the Hill who are calling for an outright end to V-22 production, claiming the tilt-rotor suffers from low readiness rates and lacks the maneuverability to evade hostile ground fire. One of the plane’s more vocal critics, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said at a hearing last month that the plane is a failure and “its time to put the Osprey out of its misery.”
Osprey critics brandished a June GAO report that cited maintenance and reliability problems and questioned the plane’s ability to fly in “high-threat” environments. Setting aside for the moment the fact that barring extensive air-defense suppression by electronic warfare and strike aircraft, the military doesn’t typically send aircraft into high threat environments, I’m not sure Afghanistan is a high threat environment. I have heard commanders there say that the Taliban has beefed up its air defenses and that it may now have some newer generation shoulder-fired missiles, or MANPADS. High-threat or not, at a minimum, then, the Osprey should have the ability to survive against occasional MANPADS.
Marine sources confirmed to me that a Marine Osprey flying in Iraq successfully evaded a MANPAD, so I have to question GAO’s statement about Osprey vulnerability. One of the reasons GAO gave, was that the Osprey lacks an onboard defensive gun to hose down hot landing zones. Now, the Marines are fitting machine guns to the plane to give it some defensive capability, so that should help out in that area.
GAO also said: “The V-22 had maneuvering limits that restrict its ability to perform defensive maneuvers.” The wording in that sentence sounded odd. Is GAO saying the plane cannot perform defensive maneuvers or is there some regulation against it performing certain maneuvers? Not the same thing.
I asked a Marine officer who is very knowledgeable on the subject of V-22 survivability about the GAO’s findings. The officer requested anonymity so as to speak frankly about a politically charged issue and I thought it important to at least present another voice in the Osprey debate.
The officer said the maneuvering limits in the official Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization were set by engineers who did not carry out the full battery of tests on the plane because of money shortages during the operational test phase. The Osprey’s troubled developmental history meant the focus was on keeping the plane in the air, not on testing it in battlefield situations.
As currently written, those NATOPS forbid pilots from pulling back on the control stick and pitching the plane’s nose up more than 20 degrees in the vertical axis. It’s a simple defensive maneuver and one the plane is more than capable of performing. Stalling is not a factor, the officer said, as the plane is moving much too fast to stall.
The importance of MV-22 pilots being allowed to perform the maneuver, which NATOPS limits say they cannot even practice, is that it is an effective way to evade an anti-aircraft missile. “Every tactical pilot knows that success in defensive maneuver requires two elements: expendables plus maneuver… you’re throwing out a decoy and then you get away from your decoy, you displace yourself in as many axes as you can to provide the biggest solution problem for the missile,” the officer said.
Once a MANPAD missile is decoyed by a flare, and the aircraft successfully evades, contrary to the movies, the missile will not reacquire the aircraft. The missile will fly straight through the decoy flare, continuing along its same flight path until the rocket motor burns out, which happens within a matter of seconds. “You can’t just hang out on the same flight path when the missile was shot at you,” the officer said, “when the missile flies through the last flare, and at the end of that last flare there’s an airplane, it’s going to hit you.”
The seeker on most MANPADS has a very limited field of view, no more than about 5 degrees off the missile’s centerline. When the Osprey pilot hears a missile alert tone, the pilot only has to displace the aircraft 300 feet to be out of the seeker head field of view when it passes the last decoy flare, the officer said. Pulling back on the stick and pitching the nose up 40 degrees for about three seconds will do that. The pilot must then get the nose down and pick up speed so as to do the maneuver again and again until the plane is out of the threat zone. That maneuver was shown to be very effective at evading the most advanced missiles in thousands of test simulations.
The V-22 flies like a fixed wing airplane, it just takes off and lands like a helicopter. Most Marine Osprey pilots are former helicopter pilots. They fly the plane like a helicopter, the officer said, which too often means flying straight and level through a threat area and relying on onboard defensive systems, electronic missile warning and decoy flares, to protect the aircraft from missiles. The danger, the officer said, is that because of the NATOPS limits, Marine pilots are not practicing simple defensive maneuvers that are well within the plane’s abilities.
Read more: DoD Buzz | Regs Hinder Osprey Defenses
By Greg Grant
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway has promised that the controversial MV-22 Osprey will be flying in Afghanistan by the end of the year. He recently told a Washington audience that the Osprey, “has gone from a wounded duck to a poster child in terms of what aircraft with that leap-ahead technology can do.”
Not so, according to some lawmakers on the Hill who are calling for an outright end to V-22 production, claiming the tilt-rotor suffers from low readiness rates and lacks the maneuverability to evade hostile ground fire. One of the plane’s more vocal critics, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said at a hearing last month that the plane is a failure and “its time to put the Osprey out of its misery.”
Osprey critics brandished a June GAO report that cited maintenance and reliability problems and questioned the plane’s ability to fly in “high-threat” environments. Setting aside for the moment the fact that barring extensive air-defense suppression by electronic warfare and strike aircraft, the military doesn’t typically send aircraft into high threat environments, I’m not sure Afghanistan is a high threat environment. I have heard commanders there say that the Taliban has beefed up its air defenses and that it may now have some newer generation shoulder-fired missiles, or MANPADS. High-threat or not, at a minimum, then, the Osprey should have the ability to survive against occasional MANPADS.
Marine sources confirmed to me that a Marine Osprey flying in Iraq successfully evaded a MANPAD, so I have to question GAO’s statement about Osprey vulnerability. One of the reasons GAO gave, was that the Osprey lacks an onboard defensive gun to hose down hot landing zones. Now, the Marines are fitting machine guns to the plane to give it some defensive capability, so that should help out in that area.
GAO also said: “The V-22 had maneuvering limits that restrict its ability to perform defensive maneuvers.” The wording in that sentence sounded odd. Is GAO saying the plane cannot perform defensive maneuvers or is there some regulation against it performing certain maneuvers? Not the same thing.
I asked a Marine officer who is very knowledgeable on the subject of V-22 survivability about the GAO’s findings. The officer requested anonymity so as to speak frankly about a politically charged issue and I thought it important to at least present another voice in the Osprey debate.
The officer said the maneuvering limits in the official Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization were set by engineers who did not carry out the full battery of tests on the plane because of money shortages during the operational test phase. The Osprey’s troubled developmental history meant the focus was on keeping the plane in the air, not on testing it in battlefield situations.
As currently written, those NATOPS forbid pilots from pulling back on the control stick and pitching the plane’s nose up more than 20 degrees in the vertical axis. It’s a simple defensive maneuver and one the plane is more than capable of performing. Stalling is not a factor, the officer said, as the plane is moving much too fast to stall.
The importance of MV-22 pilots being allowed to perform the maneuver, which NATOPS limits say they cannot even practice, is that it is an effective way to evade an anti-aircraft missile. “Every tactical pilot knows that success in defensive maneuver requires two elements: expendables plus maneuver… you’re throwing out a decoy and then you get away from your decoy, you displace yourself in as many axes as you can to provide the biggest solution problem for the missile,” the officer said.
Once a MANPAD missile is decoyed by a flare, and the aircraft successfully evades, contrary to the movies, the missile will not reacquire the aircraft. The missile will fly straight through the decoy flare, continuing along its same flight path until the rocket motor burns out, which happens within a matter of seconds. “You can’t just hang out on the same flight path when the missile was shot at you,” the officer said, “when the missile flies through the last flare, and at the end of that last flare there’s an airplane, it’s going to hit you.”
The seeker on most MANPADS has a very limited field of view, no more than about 5 degrees off the missile’s centerline. When the Osprey pilot hears a missile alert tone, the pilot only has to displace the aircraft 300 feet to be out of the seeker head field of view when it passes the last decoy flare, the officer said. Pulling back on the stick and pitching the nose up 40 degrees for about three seconds will do that. The pilot must then get the nose down and pick up speed so as to do the maneuver again and again until the plane is out of the threat zone. That maneuver was shown to be very effective at evading the most advanced missiles in thousands of test simulations.
The V-22 flies like a fixed wing airplane, it just takes off and lands like a helicopter. Most Marine Osprey pilots are former helicopter pilots. They fly the plane like a helicopter, the officer said, which too often means flying straight and level through a threat area and relying on onboard defensive systems, electronic missile warning and decoy flares, to protect the aircraft from missiles. The danger, the officer said, is that because of the NATOPS limits, Marine pilots are not practicing simple defensive maneuvers that are well within the plane’s abilities.
Read more: DoD Buzz | Regs Hinder Osprey Defenses
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For anyone interested, Richard Whittle, author of The Dream Machine (referenced several times in posts back in 2009), is fielding questions on the Smithsonian's Air & Space website this week.
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Three Marine weapons on short list for axe!
Top 10 Fiscally Responsible Defense Cuts: How to Save $357.8 Billion by 2015 
07:28 GMT, February 4, 2011 In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama called for a five year freeze in non-defense domestic discretionary spending, pledging that he is “willing to eliminate whatever we can honestly afford to do without.” The president’s efforts to address the deficit are both admirable and important to the long-term well-being of the nation. In July of last year, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen went so far as to call the national debt “the biggest threat we have to our national security.”
Reducing the country’s massive deficit will require spending cuts from all departments, including the Department of Defense.
Here’s a look at 10 ways to reduce defense spending, while safeguarding our vital national security interests:
Terminate the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle ($9-10 billion in savings by 2020)
Let’s start with the low hanging fruit. The Marine Corps' EFV—a swimming tank designed to carry troops up to 25 miles on water and 345 miles on land—is ill-equipped to meet the threats of the 21st century. The EFV’s smooth, low underbelly leaves it highly vulnerable to improvised explosive devices, and its amphibious range is not large enough to keep the ships launching the vehicle safe from modern antiship missile technology. Moreover, it’s an unnecessary investment: The Marines have not conducted an amphibious landing under fire since the Korean War.
In January 2011, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the cancellation of the EFV program. Congress should heed his request. Terminating the EFV and updating the Corps’s current armored amphibious vehicles would save an estimated $9 to $10 billion over the next decade.
Permanently reduce the number of U.S. military personnel stationed in Europe and Asia ($80 billion in savings by 2020)
About 150,000 active duty U.S. troops are assigned to Europe or Asia. In spring of 2010, the Sustainable Defense Task Force found that our nation could save $80 billion over the next decade by shrinking this presence. Given improved U.S. capabilities for long-range strikes and rapid troop transport, the Task Force found that withdrawing 33,000 troops from Europe and 17,000 from Asia would not undermine U.S. security.
Moreover, in recent months, many European countries have dramatically cut defense spending in order to combat rising deficits, suggesting that they no longer view large military forces as necessary for security on the continent.
Redirect the majority of the Department of Defense’s planned efficiency savings to reduce the baseline defense budget ($70 billion through 2015)
In spring of 2010, Secretary Gates began an initiative to trim overhead and increase efficiency at the Department of Defense. Since then, DOD has identified $154 billion in overhead savings and efficiencies through 2015. The Pentagon intends to keep $70 billion of this money to reinvest in other programs. Given the already tremendous size of our defense budget, U.S. security would be better served by utilizing these funds to reduce the baseline defense budget.
Cancel the V-22 Osprey program ($10-12 billion by 2020)
The V-22 Osprey helicopter has been long hampered by cost overruns and technical problems. Opposition to the program is bipartisan: the co-chairs of President Obama’s 2010 deficit commission recommended ending procurement of the V-22; during his stint as secretary of defense, Dick Cheney attempted to cancel the program four times, calling it a “turkey.”
Like the EFV, technical problems have seriously impaired the Osprey’s performance. A May 2009 Government Accountability Office report found that “in Iraq, the V-22’s mission capability (MC) and full mission capability (FMC) rates fell significantly below… rates achieved by legacy helicopters.” Given the V-22’s high price tag—it costs five times as much as other models—and lackluster performance, there is no reason for DOD to continue sinking money into this turkey. Terminating the program would save $10-12 billion in the next decade.
Roll back post-September 11, 2001 efforts to grow the ground forces ($10.1 billion per year)
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has openly proclaimed that in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is “unlikely to repeat … forced regime change followed by nation building under fire.” As a result, U.S. ground forces can and should gradually return to their pre-September 11 sizes as these two wars come to a close.
A recent article in Defense News found that each active duty soldier costs DOD between $100,000 and $120,000 per year. Even using the conservative $100,000 number, rolling back 74,200 Army and 27,000 Marine positions would save about $10.1 billion each year.
Reduce the number of civilian DOD personnel concomitant with the reduction in military end strength ($7 billion per year)
The Defense Department is the federal government’s largest civilian employer— of the approximately 1.9 million civilians employed by the government in 2008, 652,000 worked for DOD. As the approaching end of U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan make possible a return to the pre-September 11th size of the active duty Army and Marines Corps, policymakers can gradually make an equal reduction in the size of the civilian support staff. In FY 2011, DOD spent $77.07 billion on its civilian work force. As a result, cutting civilian positions by 10 percent would save about $7 billion a year.
Reduce procurement of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter ($16.8 billion by 2015)
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is one of the largest and most troubled DOD acquisition projects. This year in response to “significant testing problems” in the Marine Corps’s variant of the plane, Gates announced a two-year probationary period for the variant and noted that it should be cancelled if the testing issues could not be resolved in that period.
Slowing down this troubled program would allow more time for development and reduce near-term growth in the defense budget. For example, according to their FY 2011 budget estimates, cutting the Air Force’s and Navy’s planned acquisition of JSFs by half through 2015 would save $16.8 billion.
Reform military personnel policies ($11.5 billion per year)
Our troops deserve exceptional compensation for their service. Yet these benefits should be structured in a way that is also fair to the American taxpayer. DOD’s 2008 Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation found that “the average enlisted member earned approximately $5,400 more in 2006 than his or her civilian counterpart when comparing cash [base pay] compensation, but $10,600 more when selected benefits are included in the comparison.” The QRMC recommended that military pay raises be calculated to acknowledge the range of generous benefits that service members receive, a step that could save $5.5 billion a year.
DOD could also obtain some savings by addressing the cost of the military health system, which Gates has noted is “eating the Department of Defense alive.” Active duty troops receive free healthcare. Yet premiums for working age military retirees— many of whom go on to second careers—are wildly out of step with the cost of healthcare nationwide. Retirees covered by DOD’s Tricare Prime program, for example, are paying the same premiums that were put in place when the program was established in 1995. DOD’s 2007 Task Force on the Future of Military Health Care recommended a number of steps that would maintain a generous balance between the cost of care to retirees and taxpayers. Implementing these recommendations could save $6 billion a year.
Retire and do not replace two existing carrier battle groups and associated air wings ($3 billion per year)
Conservative estimates place the cost of operating one carrier group at approximately $1.5 billion per year. Yet even Secretary Gates has questioned whether the United States needs to continue operating 11 aircraft carriers when, “in terms of size and striking power, no other country has even one comparable ship.” Rethinking deployment patterns in order to emphasize the capability to surge forces to particular areas in times of need, rather than maintain assets on the spot, could allow the United States to retire and not replace two existing carrier battle groups. This step would save at least $3 billion a year.
Update the U.S. nuclear arsenal and missile defense systems to counter the threats of the 21st century ($12.7 billion per year)
According to analysts at the Air War College and the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, the United States could maintain effective deterrent capabilities with only 311 strategic nuclear weapons—an approximately 84 percent reduction in current levels. Phasing in these cuts, as well as some reductions in the United States’s tactical stockpile, could save about $11.39 billion this year.
Additionally, cancelling select costly and technologically challenged missile defense programs administered by the Missile Defense Agency and the armed services could reduce spending by another $1.31 billion this year.
Conclusion
More than five decades ago, President Dwight Eisenhower explained that our security as a nation is directly tied to our economic strength. Ike’s “Great Equation” argued that “spiritual force, multiplied by economic force, multiplied by military force is roughly equal to security… If one of these factors falls to zero … the resulting product does likewise.”
In real terms, U.S. defense spending is now higher than at any point since World War II, an enormous 10 percent increase over the peak of President Ronald Reagan’s defense buildup. In the spirit of Obama’s State of the Union, it’s time for the DOD, like the other departments, to look at what “we can honestly afford to do without,” and in terms of the national debt, become a part of the solution, not part of the problem.
07:28 GMT, February 4, 2011 In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama called for a five year freeze in non-defense domestic discretionary spending, pledging that he is “willing to eliminate whatever we can honestly afford to do without.” The president’s efforts to address the deficit are both admirable and important to the long-term well-being of the nation. In July of last year, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen went so far as to call the national debt “the biggest threat we have to our national security.”
Reducing the country’s massive deficit will require spending cuts from all departments, including the Department of Defense.
Here’s a look at 10 ways to reduce defense spending, while safeguarding our vital national security interests:
Terminate the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle ($9-10 billion in savings by 2020)
Let’s start with the low hanging fruit. The Marine Corps' EFV—a swimming tank designed to carry troops up to 25 miles on water and 345 miles on land—is ill-equipped to meet the threats of the 21st century. The EFV’s smooth, low underbelly leaves it highly vulnerable to improvised explosive devices, and its amphibious range is not large enough to keep the ships launching the vehicle safe from modern antiship missile technology. Moreover, it’s an unnecessary investment: The Marines have not conducted an amphibious landing under fire since the Korean War.
In January 2011, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the cancellation of the EFV program. Congress should heed his request. Terminating the EFV and updating the Corps’s current armored amphibious vehicles would save an estimated $9 to $10 billion over the next decade.
Permanently reduce the number of U.S. military personnel stationed in Europe and Asia ($80 billion in savings by 2020)
About 150,000 active duty U.S. troops are assigned to Europe or Asia. In spring of 2010, the Sustainable Defense Task Force found that our nation could save $80 billion over the next decade by shrinking this presence. Given improved U.S. capabilities for long-range strikes and rapid troop transport, the Task Force found that withdrawing 33,000 troops from Europe and 17,000 from Asia would not undermine U.S. security.
Moreover, in recent months, many European countries have dramatically cut defense spending in order to combat rising deficits, suggesting that they no longer view large military forces as necessary for security on the continent.
Redirect the majority of the Department of Defense’s planned efficiency savings to reduce the baseline defense budget ($70 billion through 2015)
In spring of 2010, Secretary Gates began an initiative to trim overhead and increase efficiency at the Department of Defense. Since then, DOD has identified $154 billion in overhead savings and efficiencies through 2015. The Pentagon intends to keep $70 billion of this money to reinvest in other programs. Given the already tremendous size of our defense budget, U.S. security would be better served by utilizing these funds to reduce the baseline defense budget.
Cancel the V-22 Osprey program ($10-12 billion by 2020)
The V-22 Osprey helicopter has been long hampered by cost overruns and technical problems. Opposition to the program is bipartisan: the co-chairs of President Obama’s 2010 deficit commission recommended ending procurement of the V-22; during his stint as secretary of defense, Dick Cheney attempted to cancel the program four times, calling it a “turkey.”
Like the EFV, technical problems have seriously impaired the Osprey’s performance. A May 2009 Government Accountability Office report found that “in Iraq, the V-22’s mission capability (MC) and full mission capability (FMC) rates fell significantly below… rates achieved by legacy helicopters.” Given the V-22’s high price tag—it costs five times as much as other models—and lackluster performance, there is no reason for DOD to continue sinking money into this turkey. Terminating the program would save $10-12 billion in the next decade.
Roll back post-September 11, 2001 efforts to grow the ground forces ($10.1 billion per year)
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has openly proclaimed that in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is “unlikely to repeat … forced regime change followed by nation building under fire.” As a result, U.S. ground forces can and should gradually return to their pre-September 11 sizes as these two wars come to a close.
A recent article in Defense News found that each active duty soldier costs DOD between $100,000 and $120,000 per year. Even using the conservative $100,000 number, rolling back 74,200 Army and 27,000 Marine positions would save about $10.1 billion each year.
Reduce the number of civilian DOD personnel concomitant with the reduction in military end strength ($7 billion per year)
The Defense Department is the federal government’s largest civilian employer— of the approximately 1.9 million civilians employed by the government in 2008, 652,000 worked for DOD. As the approaching end of U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan make possible a return to the pre-September 11th size of the active duty Army and Marines Corps, policymakers can gradually make an equal reduction in the size of the civilian support staff. In FY 2011, DOD spent $77.07 billion on its civilian work force. As a result, cutting civilian positions by 10 percent would save about $7 billion a year.
Reduce procurement of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter ($16.8 billion by 2015)
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is one of the largest and most troubled DOD acquisition projects. This year in response to “significant testing problems” in the Marine Corps’s variant of the plane, Gates announced a two-year probationary period for the variant and noted that it should be cancelled if the testing issues could not be resolved in that period.
Slowing down this troubled program would allow more time for development and reduce near-term growth in the defense budget. For example, according to their FY 2011 budget estimates, cutting the Air Force’s and Navy’s planned acquisition of JSFs by half through 2015 would save $16.8 billion.
Reform military personnel policies ($11.5 billion per year)
Our troops deserve exceptional compensation for their service. Yet these benefits should be structured in a way that is also fair to the American taxpayer. DOD’s 2008 Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation found that “the average enlisted member earned approximately $5,400 more in 2006 than his or her civilian counterpart when comparing cash [base pay] compensation, but $10,600 more when selected benefits are included in the comparison.” The QRMC recommended that military pay raises be calculated to acknowledge the range of generous benefits that service members receive, a step that could save $5.5 billion a year.
DOD could also obtain some savings by addressing the cost of the military health system, which Gates has noted is “eating the Department of Defense alive.” Active duty troops receive free healthcare. Yet premiums for working age military retirees— many of whom go on to second careers—are wildly out of step with the cost of healthcare nationwide. Retirees covered by DOD’s Tricare Prime program, for example, are paying the same premiums that were put in place when the program was established in 1995. DOD’s 2007 Task Force on the Future of Military Health Care recommended a number of steps that would maintain a generous balance between the cost of care to retirees and taxpayers. Implementing these recommendations could save $6 billion a year.
Retire and do not replace two existing carrier battle groups and associated air wings ($3 billion per year)
Conservative estimates place the cost of operating one carrier group at approximately $1.5 billion per year. Yet even Secretary Gates has questioned whether the United States needs to continue operating 11 aircraft carriers when, “in terms of size and striking power, no other country has even one comparable ship.” Rethinking deployment patterns in order to emphasize the capability to surge forces to particular areas in times of need, rather than maintain assets on the spot, could allow the United States to retire and not replace two existing carrier battle groups. This step would save at least $3 billion a year.
Update the U.S. nuclear arsenal and missile defense systems to counter the threats of the 21st century ($12.7 billion per year)
According to analysts at the Air War College and the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, the United States could maintain effective deterrent capabilities with only 311 strategic nuclear weapons—an approximately 84 percent reduction in current levels. Phasing in these cuts, as well as some reductions in the United States’s tactical stockpile, could save about $11.39 billion this year.
Additionally, cancelling select costly and technologically challenged missile defense programs administered by the Missile Defense Agency and the armed services could reduce spending by another $1.31 billion this year.
Conclusion
More than five decades ago, President Dwight Eisenhower explained that our security as a nation is directly tied to our economic strength. Ike’s “Great Equation” argued that “spiritual force, multiplied by economic force, multiplied by military force is roughly equal to security… If one of these factors falls to zero … the resulting product does likewise.”
In real terms, U.S. defense spending is now higher than at any point since World War II, an enormous 10 percent increase over the peak of President Ronald Reagan’s defense buildup. In the spirit of Obama’s State of the Union, it’s time for the DOD, like the other departments, to look at what “we can honestly afford to do without,” and in terms of the national debt, become a part of the solution, not part of the problem.
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I don't know how to make those quote boxes, so this will have to do:
FH:
"And again let it be said that this pilot was widely regarded as one of the best V-22 pilots in the Air Force. And even he screwed up. I wonder if mcpave and ospreydriver both privately feel that they are better pilots than the MP? I wonder if they privately feel that they wouldn't have screwed up like that?"
I already think you are a complete idiot after reading this entire thread, but hey if you want to believe false information and not take the word of a veteran pilot of the machine you obviously know nothing about...that is your choice. But there is NO excuse for you to say baseless bull**** like what you wrote above. I don't know if you have ever served in the armed forces, but the aviaiton community is a small one. ESPECIALLY within a single airframe. We all know each other, went to the same schools together, fought together, and in some cases even shared laughter and beers together. For you to suggest that McPave and Ospreydriver look at thier dead comrades and think of themselves as superioir is utter bull****. We take the deaths of other airman very seriously and it's not easy. If anything, we seek to learn the ABSOLUTE TRUTH so that we don't lose more our brothers that way. I am an airman and a boom operator on the KC-135R airframe. I am telling you right now, if one of my fellow boomers went down and died, the last thing on my mind would about how stupid they were or how much better I am. This one statement alone discredits anything you've said on this entire thread. It shows you are hot-headed, hateful, and talk about things you don't begin to understand.
"Ospreydriver feels that since we've already got the V-22, then we should just accept it. I guess he would also advise a rape victim that if it's inevitable, do not resist but just lay back and enjoy it."
Again...what the hell kind of anaolgy is this? You could have made your point without bringing RAPE VICTEMS into the conversation. These two subjects are nothing alike, at all.
What ospreydriver said is that the investment is already 80% complete and would be more expensive to cancel, replace, and reorganize from scrath than to to simply fix and adapt the airframe we already have. Planes are ALWAYS being updated. The KC-135 has been around 60 years now and has it's engines replaced with new models 3 or 4 times. It's had nav suites replaced and removed and internal upgrades made regularly. The standard boom was improved with a high speed boom. The current 135 is a VASTLY improved version of it's older self with much greater capabilities. And you can bet your ass that it started with problems and limitations. There is a wall at our training school with the names of booms that died on this plane and it is infinitely longer than those who have died serving on the osprey.
My point here is that every plane starts of being used beneath it's capabilities. As it gets it's taste of war, those limitations are slowly lifted and improvements are made. The Osprey is already one hell of a capable machine...and it will only improve over time.
One of my buddies, a marine, has already had the osprey contributing to his mission overseas, and he swears by that thing. He sees the difference it makes.
And I have so much faith in this machine that I am switching career fields middle of next year...I am going to go to school to become a flight engineer aboard the AFSOC variant of the the Osprey. Nobody hyped me up, I haven't tasted the "osprey kool-aid", I have no gag order...I simply have watched this machine and it's mission over time and want to be part of it.
Killing the Osprey now would be a mistake. And you guys need to listen to McPave and Ospreydriver...they know what they are talking about. They fly this thing firsthand. They know what it can do and what it can't. You don't. They have the support of legitimate experts. You don't. They have the actual manuals and publications. You don't. They know thier actual missions parameters and whether thier aircraft can fit those parameters. You don't.
Why would you sit here and try to argue with people who DO fly the aircradt and have the facts...when you don't have experience with it and only have information you are pulling from the media...which is useless.
God bless our troops and God bless the USA!
FH:
"And again let it be said that this pilot was widely regarded as one of the best V-22 pilots in the Air Force. And even he screwed up. I wonder if mcpave and ospreydriver both privately feel that they are better pilots than the MP? I wonder if they privately feel that they wouldn't have screwed up like that?"
I already think you are a complete idiot after reading this entire thread, but hey if you want to believe false information and not take the word of a veteran pilot of the machine you obviously know nothing about...that is your choice. But there is NO excuse for you to say baseless bull**** like what you wrote above. I don't know if you have ever served in the armed forces, but the aviaiton community is a small one. ESPECIALLY within a single airframe. We all know each other, went to the same schools together, fought together, and in some cases even shared laughter and beers together. For you to suggest that McPave and Ospreydriver look at thier dead comrades and think of themselves as superioir is utter bull****. We take the deaths of other airman very seriously and it's not easy. If anything, we seek to learn the ABSOLUTE TRUTH so that we don't lose more our brothers that way. I am an airman and a boom operator on the KC-135R airframe. I am telling you right now, if one of my fellow boomers went down and died, the last thing on my mind would about how stupid they were or how much better I am. This one statement alone discredits anything you've said on this entire thread. It shows you are hot-headed, hateful, and talk about things you don't begin to understand.
"Ospreydriver feels that since we've already got the V-22, then we should just accept it. I guess he would also advise a rape victim that if it's inevitable, do not resist but just lay back and enjoy it."
Again...what the hell kind of anaolgy is this? You could have made your point without bringing RAPE VICTEMS into the conversation. These two subjects are nothing alike, at all.
What ospreydriver said is that the investment is already 80% complete and would be more expensive to cancel, replace, and reorganize from scrath than to to simply fix and adapt the airframe we already have. Planes are ALWAYS being updated. The KC-135 has been around 60 years now and has it's engines replaced with new models 3 or 4 times. It's had nav suites replaced and removed and internal upgrades made regularly. The standard boom was improved with a high speed boom. The current 135 is a VASTLY improved version of it's older self with much greater capabilities. And you can bet your ass that it started with problems and limitations. There is a wall at our training school with the names of booms that died on this plane and it is infinitely longer than those who have died serving on the osprey.
My point here is that every plane starts of being used beneath it's capabilities. As it gets it's taste of war, those limitations are slowly lifted and improvements are made. The Osprey is already one hell of a capable machine...and it will only improve over time.
One of my buddies, a marine, has already had the osprey contributing to his mission overseas, and he swears by that thing. He sees the difference it makes.
And I have so much faith in this machine that I am switching career fields middle of next year...I am going to go to school to become a flight engineer aboard the AFSOC variant of the the Osprey. Nobody hyped me up, I haven't tasted the "osprey kool-aid", I have no gag order...I simply have watched this machine and it's mission over time and want to be part of it.
Killing the Osprey now would be a mistake. And you guys need to listen to McPave and Ospreydriver...they know what they are talking about. They fly this thing firsthand. They know what it can do and what it can't. You don't. They have the support of legitimate experts. You don't. They have the actual manuals and publications. You don't. They know thier actual missions parameters and whether thier aircraft can fit those parameters. You don't.
Why would you sit here and try to argue with people who DO fly the aircradt and have the facts...when you don't have experience with it and only have information you are pulling from the media...which is useless.
God bless our troops and God bless the USA!
Along with not understanding how to use the quotation icon, it appears there are some other things you do not understand.
One does not show up and in one's first post use such offensive language and expect to be taken seriously.
If you disagree with FH's position and comments (which more than a few do here), one should take him to task by attempting to "prove" him wrong. Bring forth your facts, data, link reports, or anything useful in the discussion.
Despite being a "Boomer" and crew member aboard an aircraft....you fail to understand how Pilots see things and themselves. Our mental image of ourselves requires us to believe (even if not necessarily true) that we are able to cope with any situation and if there are better pilots out there...we have not met them yet.
The reality of the matter is there are better pilots out there and there are situations we cannot always handle for whatever reason it might be. To look at accidents and say the other guy diddled the pooch does not mean we think them stupid, inept, or worthy of castigation.....but their mistakes need to be acknowledged and learned from.
In this latest crash.....even the Air Force cannot arrive at a decision as to the actual cause of the tragedy and have laid it on the crew on the one hand and on the aircraft on the other. Can you not see why that adds fuel to the fire?
The Osprey is a controversial aircraft for a range of issues including the USMC failed attempt to falsify its progress. If you cannot understand the skepticism that rightly exists when claims are made but not necessarily substantiated by the production of facts, figures, and hard data then you should rethink your views.
At the very minimum you should rethink you tone.
One does not show up and in one's first post use such offensive language and expect to be taken seriously.
If you disagree with FH's position and comments (which more than a few do here), one should take him to task by attempting to "prove" him wrong. Bring forth your facts, data, link reports, or anything useful in the discussion.
Despite being a "Boomer" and crew member aboard an aircraft....you fail to understand how Pilots see things and themselves. Our mental image of ourselves requires us to believe (even if not necessarily true) that we are able to cope with any situation and if there are better pilots out there...we have not met them yet.
The reality of the matter is there are better pilots out there and there are situations we cannot always handle for whatever reason it might be. To look at accidents and say the other guy diddled the pooch does not mean we think them stupid, inept, or worthy of castigation.....but their mistakes need to be acknowledged and learned from.
In this latest crash.....even the Air Force cannot arrive at a decision as to the actual cause of the tragedy and have laid it on the crew on the one hand and on the aircraft on the other. Can you not see why that adds fuel to the fire?
The Osprey is a controversial aircraft for a range of issues including the USMC failed attempt to falsify its progress. If you cannot understand the skepticism that rightly exists when claims are made but not necessarily substantiated by the production of facts, figures, and hard data then you should rethink your views.
At the very minimum you should rethink you tone.
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Sas
I actually did post on here about 6 to 8 months ago before I deployed, and having gone back thread I don't know where my posts went. I'm not sure if there was a trimming down of the thread or what...but all I know is that my posts are gone but my PM box still has it's messages between me and other members. So plese understand I'm not trying to come in as a complete newbie here, I've been following this thread for a while.
And I understand plenty. I honestly don't care that FH has a stance against the osprey. Clearly so do you, but I have no issue with you. What I take issue with is FH can't debate without making taseless insults and or analogies that go far beyond mildly offensive. And no matter what answer you give him...it's wrong. Period. If you prove the machine did it's job, FH takes deliberate jabs at the aircrews by mocking, not analyzing, but MOCKING thier failure to live despite the high tech technologies around them. How are you going to sit around and mock the people dying for what they hope is your freedom, bad machine or not? And of course, being military guys we jump to defend our aircrew's integrity at which point FH switches back to sarcastically insulting the machine....seemingly just to keep our blood boiling.
And I do understand the pilot concept of pilots thinking they cope with any situation. That is NOT how FH painted MckPave in that quote. He painted him as being arrogant and looking down on his fellow service memebers and saying "The aircraft doesn't suck, if I were flying it wouldn't have happened. I would have done better." I have never heard ANY (military) pilot say anything close to that. Prime example was the C-17 that just went down a few months ago. The pilots were discussing the tradgedy of it and the impact on the families, the C-17 community, and wondered at what was missed that led to that crew's untimely end. But nobody sat there saying "If it was me that wouldn't have happend. I'm a better pilot than those pilots". And that is how FH paints MckPave.
And that's how he handles everything. I've read this ENTIRE thread and it seems that the osprey pilots are offering all the information they can and it's GOOD information. But instead of accepting that information or asking questions using that information...you guys belittle them. Call them liars. You focus on the things they CAN'T tell you or might not even know in the first place. What is the point in that? Why can't you say "Hey thanks for that information, now how does that apply in this other situation?" Why instead is it "That is ALL you can tell us!? Conspiracy! Gag order! You are a liar!"
It's subtle jabs like that, that boil my blood. I am sorry my "first post" came off so strong, but after playing catch up for 20-something pages, the things FH says and how he doesn't seem to have any other purpose than to try and get emotional rises out people...it just got the better of me. It's had to have a respectful conversation (or even a respectful reading of this thread) when people like FH are on it.
I actually did post on here about 6 to 8 months ago before I deployed, and having gone back thread I don't know where my posts went. I'm not sure if there was a trimming down of the thread or what...but all I know is that my posts are gone but my PM box still has it's messages between me and other members. So plese understand I'm not trying to come in as a complete newbie here, I've been following this thread for a while.
And I understand plenty. I honestly don't care that FH has a stance against the osprey. Clearly so do you, but I have no issue with you. What I take issue with is FH can't debate without making taseless insults and or analogies that go far beyond mildly offensive. And no matter what answer you give him...it's wrong. Period. If you prove the machine did it's job, FH takes deliberate jabs at the aircrews by mocking, not analyzing, but MOCKING thier failure to live despite the high tech technologies around them. How are you going to sit around and mock the people dying for what they hope is your freedom, bad machine or not? And of course, being military guys we jump to defend our aircrew's integrity at which point FH switches back to sarcastically insulting the machine....seemingly just to keep our blood boiling.
And I do understand the pilot concept of pilots thinking they cope with any situation. That is NOT how FH painted MckPave in that quote. He painted him as being arrogant and looking down on his fellow service memebers and saying "The aircraft doesn't suck, if I were flying it wouldn't have happened. I would have done better." I have never heard ANY (military) pilot say anything close to that. Prime example was the C-17 that just went down a few months ago. The pilots were discussing the tradgedy of it and the impact on the families, the C-17 community, and wondered at what was missed that led to that crew's untimely end. But nobody sat there saying "If it was me that wouldn't have happend. I'm a better pilot than those pilots". And that is how FH paints MckPave.
And that's how he handles everything. I've read this ENTIRE thread and it seems that the osprey pilots are offering all the information they can and it's GOOD information. But instead of accepting that information or asking questions using that information...you guys belittle them. Call them liars. You focus on the things they CAN'T tell you or might not even know in the first place. What is the point in that? Why can't you say "Hey thanks for that information, now how does that apply in this other situation?" Why instead is it "That is ALL you can tell us!? Conspiracy! Gag order! You are a liar!"
It's subtle jabs like that, that boil my blood. I am sorry my "first post" came off so strong, but after playing catch up for 20-something pages, the things FH says and how he doesn't seem to have any other purpose than to try and get emotional rises out people...it just got the better of me. It's had to have a respectful conversation (or even a respectful reading of this thread) when people like FH are on it.
Well...you know...
I've never known a pilot who disliked the aircraft he was flying. Most pilots *love* whatever turd they're assigned to, even if it's the biggest piece of crap to ever be pooped off an assembly line.
People denigrate the old FH1100. But you know what? I loved flying it. It did what we asked it to do, and did it very well. The brand-spanking-new R-66 won't be leaps and bounds "better" than an FH1100 from the 1970s. It might be a little faster and carry a little more, but I guarantee that it won't be nearly as robust, or as easy to service. The R-66 is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Just like the V-22.
But let's back up. Just because a pilot loves an aircraft doesn't mean sh*t. Should we put pilots in charge of military procurement? Of course not, they cannot be objective. They just want what they want. V-22 pilots think that the Osprey is the bestest tool for the job. The truth is that no matter what they claim, in most cases it doesn't provide *that* much of an improvement over a helicopter.
V-22 proponents will trot out specific scenarios in which it betters the capability of a helicopter (the laughable "Shiek needs to be across the country for a meeting with other shieks" thing). Yes, it flies fast. And yes, it can exit the scene with great speed...if it makes it in safely, that is.
Okay, fine. Big deal. Whenver a V-22 goes anywhere, it must do so with other assets. Because when it gets to the destination, it's just a big ol' vulnerable Grayhound bus coming into the station.
At the end of the day, it's still a flawed design. In helicopter mode, it is not "a" helicopter. It's two-helicopters-connected-by-a-stick. Any idiot can see the problems inherent in this design.
One of the original test pilots on the V-22 has told us that they stopped combat-maneuvering tests when they realized how much stress and strain it was putting on the fuselage. But we shouldn't listen to him, eh?
Now we hear reports of mothballed V-22's that are no longer flyable. I suspect that the military and the manufacturer are hiding from us the fact that V-22 airframes are not lasting. I suspect that some V-22's are being retired before they have a catastrophic stuctural failure. We still do not have an accurate accounting of all V-22's that have been built so far and how many are still in service. That information will be hidden from the public for as long as possible.
I cringe when I think about the forces acting on the ends of a V-22's wings during extreme maneuvering. How heavy are those engines and proprotors? And how heavy do they become in a 2g turn? What kind of forces do they exert on the wingspars during maneuvering that might involve both positive and negative-g? Oh, and by the way, in airplane mode the V-22 is limited to negative .75g. Less than 1g negative?? For a combat aircraft??? That's like...what...a Bell 47?
And remember, those aren't just big props out there on the ends of the wings. They're proprotors. How does extreme maneuvering in airplane mode affect those proprotors? What kind of flapping forces are they subjected to? We know that the swashplates aren't lasting anywhere near as long as hoped, so the forces have to be unreal.
The line pilots will never acknowledge the weaknesses of the design. They'll never admit what the real limitations are. We know that the original NATOPS warned pilots that:
WARNING: Rapid full forward TCL (full throw in 1 second or less) may result in uncontrollable aircraft nose down pitch tumble departure exhibited during flight simulations.
There are other power limitations too. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that when the pilot of the V-22 realized that his descent rate was too high, he jammed the TCL forward in an effort to save their lives. This may have had an undesireable effect on the aircraft handling, and it may very well have overtorqued/overtemped the engines, causing the smoke/vapor coming from both engines that was visible in the camera footage from the A-10s circling overhead. Because no matter how badly Brig. General Harvel wants to believe otherwise, the likelihood of a dual engine problem in that V-22 at that exact moment just defies belief and stretches logic to the breaking point. Sorry, General.
No what the pilots say about how great the V-22 is, we have to take that with a huge grain of salt. BoomOpCT, you say we need to listen to guys like Mcpave and Ospreydriver? Hmm, they've both been strangely and coincidentally silent lately. I suspect that their commanding officer(s) got wind of their increasingly hysterical, increasingly irrational (and potentially harmful) posts on here and ordered them to back off.
Finally, the V-22 is just too damn expensive for the small increase in capability it provides over a helicopter. That alone justifies its cancellation. Dick Cheney knew this. We should have listened to him back then. At least it's not too late.
BoomOpCT, you ought to rethink your career path in the Air Force. The V-22 will most assuredly be cancelled very soon. This will save the American taxpayers billions of dollars. And it will probably save some lives as well. I'm a conservative American: I'm for BOTH of those things. Anyone who isn't does not have the best interests of this country in mind.
I've never known a pilot who disliked the aircraft he was flying. Most pilots *love* whatever turd they're assigned to, even if it's the biggest piece of crap to ever be pooped off an assembly line.
People denigrate the old FH1100. But you know what? I loved flying it. It did what we asked it to do, and did it very well. The brand-spanking-new R-66 won't be leaps and bounds "better" than an FH1100 from the 1970s. It might be a little faster and carry a little more, but I guarantee that it won't be nearly as robust, or as easy to service. The R-66 is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Just like the V-22.
But let's back up. Just because a pilot loves an aircraft doesn't mean sh*t. Should we put pilots in charge of military procurement? Of course not, they cannot be objective. They just want what they want. V-22 pilots think that the Osprey is the bestest tool for the job. The truth is that no matter what they claim, in most cases it doesn't provide *that* much of an improvement over a helicopter.
V-22 proponents will trot out specific scenarios in which it betters the capability of a helicopter (the laughable "Shiek needs to be across the country for a meeting with other shieks" thing). Yes, it flies fast. And yes, it can exit the scene with great speed...if it makes it in safely, that is.
Okay, fine. Big deal. Whenver a V-22 goes anywhere, it must do so with other assets. Because when it gets to the destination, it's just a big ol' vulnerable Grayhound bus coming into the station.
At the end of the day, it's still a flawed design. In helicopter mode, it is not "a" helicopter. It's two-helicopters-connected-by-a-stick. Any idiot can see the problems inherent in this design.
One of the original test pilots on the V-22 has told us that they stopped combat-maneuvering tests when they realized how much stress and strain it was putting on the fuselage. But we shouldn't listen to him, eh?
Now we hear reports of mothballed V-22's that are no longer flyable. I suspect that the military and the manufacturer are hiding from us the fact that V-22 airframes are not lasting. I suspect that some V-22's are being retired before they have a catastrophic stuctural failure. We still do not have an accurate accounting of all V-22's that have been built so far and how many are still in service. That information will be hidden from the public for as long as possible.
I cringe when I think about the forces acting on the ends of a V-22's wings during extreme maneuvering. How heavy are those engines and proprotors? And how heavy do they become in a 2g turn? What kind of forces do they exert on the wingspars during maneuvering that might involve both positive and negative-g? Oh, and by the way, in airplane mode the V-22 is limited to negative .75g. Less than 1g negative?? For a combat aircraft??? That's like...what...a Bell 47?
And remember, those aren't just big props out there on the ends of the wings. They're proprotors. How does extreme maneuvering in airplane mode affect those proprotors? What kind of flapping forces are they subjected to? We know that the swashplates aren't lasting anywhere near as long as hoped, so the forces have to be unreal.
The line pilots will never acknowledge the weaknesses of the design. They'll never admit what the real limitations are. We know that the original NATOPS warned pilots that:
- Air Combat Maneuvering and aerobatics are prohibited
- Abrupt multi-axis control inputs are prohibited
WARNING: Rapid full forward TCL (full throw in 1 second or less) may result in uncontrollable aircraft nose down pitch tumble departure exhibited during flight simulations.
There are other power limitations too. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that when the pilot of the V-22 realized that his descent rate was too high, he jammed the TCL forward in an effort to save their lives. This may have had an undesireable effect on the aircraft handling, and it may very well have overtorqued/overtemped the engines, causing the smoke/vapor coming from both engines that was visible in the camera footage from the A-10s circling overhead. Because no matter how badly Brig. General Harvel wants to believe otherwise, the likelihood of a dual engine problem in that V-22 at that exact moment just defies belief and stretches logic to the breaking point. Sorry, General.
No what the pilots say about how great the V-22 is, we have to take that with a huge grain of salt. BoomOpCT, you say we need to listen to guys like Mcpave and Ospreydriver? Hmm, they've both been strangely and coincidentally silent lately. I suspect that their commanding officer(s) got wind of their increasingly hysterical, increasingly irrational (and potentially harmful) posts on here and ordered them to back off.
Finally, the V-22 is just too damn expensive for the small increase in capability it provides over a helicopter. That alone justifies its cancellation. Dick Cheney knew this. We should have listened to him back then. At least it's not too late.
BoomOpCT, you ought to rethink your career path in the Air Force. The V-22 will most assuredly be cancelled very soon. This will save the American taxpayers billions of dollars. And it will probably save some lives as well. I'm a conservative American: I'm for BOTH of those things. Anyone who isn't does not have the best interests of this country in mind.
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BoomOpCT
Perhaps it hasn't dawned on you why there has not been ONE discouraging word about the V-22 from anyone in the military or V-22 management. Like your aircraft, it pays the rent, sends the kids through college and buys vehicles. If you should say just ONE bad thing about it you would be history and your career flushed.
What went wrong with these V-22 guys was they made the BIG mistake of NOT remaining anonymous within the very small V-22 community. I’m sure they were proud and wanted to tell the world about this beast but that dog can’t hunt outside the military bubble. Consequently, they could not bring anything to this thread of value other than the emotionally positive. When non-V-22 types simply asked them to prove their claims, they were not able to so, lost face and became discouraged over the contradictory data in the media.
Imagine the psychological havoc the V-22 folks had to endure with so much negativity backed up by logic and facts. Most whispered too loudly or perhaps not loudly enough, that aircraft was an accident waiting to happen. In their minds this preys hard on them so they get hysterical trying to defend the indefensible. Add the possibility of towel-headed humans trying to do you in also and it makes for a jittery environment.
If someone in the military or an aircraft program wants to post here do this: Remain anonymous here, at home, amongst friends and especially at work and don’t be mission or occurrence specific.
Works for me.
Perhaps it hasn't dawned on you why there has not been ONE discouraging word about the V-22 from anyone in the military or V-22 management. Like your aircraft, it pays the rent, sends the kids through college and buys vehicles. If you should say just ONE bad thing about it you would be history and your career flushed.
What went wrong with these V-22 guys was they made the BIG mistake of NOT remaining anonymous within the very small V-22 community. I’m sure they were proud and wanted to tell the world about this beast but that dog can’t hunt outside the military bubble. Consequently, they could not bring anything to this thread of value other than the emotionally positive. When non-V-22 types simply asked them to prove their claims, they were not able to so, lost face and became discouraged over the contradictory data in the media.
Imagine the psychological havoc the V-22 folks had to endure with so much negativity backed up by logic and facts. Most whispered too loudly or perhaps not loudly enough, that aircraft was an accident waiting to happen. In their minds this preys hard on them so they get hysterical trying to defend the indefensible. Add the possibility of towel-headed humans trying to do you in also and it makes for a jittery environment.
If someone in the military or an aircraft program wants to post here do this: Remain anonymous here, at home, amongst friends and especially at work and don’t be mission or occurrence specific.
Works for me.
Last edited by Dan Reno; 8th Feb 2011 at 18:25.
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FH and Dan
FH you state that
.
may I ask:
-In your opinion what would be an acceptable negative g limit? Under what circumstance do you foresee requiring this limit?
-If less than -1g is to limiting for "combat aircraft" perhaps you or someone else could tell us what the positive and negative g limits are for the UH-60, OH-58, CH-53E, CH-46, CH-47, UH-1N, AH-1W, UH-1Y, AH-1Z?
-If ANY of these aircraft are unable to attain -1g are you also stipulating that they are not capable of being "combat aircraft" or that they are the equivalent of a Bell 47?
-Have you ever flown a helicopter to less than 0gs? If so did you determine this with a g meter or seat of the pants?
You also state
With respect to the first bullet many USMC and USN helicopters have it in their NATOPS. I also believe that if you look in some of the USA FMs you will find similar words.
With respect to the second bullet I believe it has been pointed out on here before that many USMC and USN helicopters also have similar wording.
Therefore I will again ask you some questions:
-What other NATOPS manuals have you read?
-What is your depth of knowledge with respect to aviation combat tactics? Have you ever conducted a tactical flight?
-Can you define Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM)? Do you know what the difference is between ACM and DM?
-Do you understand how a NATOPS manual is 'built' and the limits, notes, cautions etc are arrived at or agreed upon?
Dan,
You state that
Simply because you choose not to believe something doesn't mean that person trying to explain it to you is not able to prove their claims. Also the last time I checked the media isn't exactly the best source of information when it comes to aviation. So I will take more seriously the words from someone who actually flies or operates the machine being written about then the words coming from someone who considers g2mil.com a 'reliable' source.
in airplane mode the V-22 is limited to negative .75g. Less than 1g negative?? For a combat aircraft??? That's like...what...a Bell 47?
may I ask:
-In your opinion what would be an acceptable negative g limit? Under what circumstance do you foresee requiring this limit?
-If less than -1g is to limiting for "combat aircraft" perhaps you or someone else could tell us what the positive and negative g limits are for the UH-60, OH-58, CH-53E, CH-46, CH-47, UH-1N, AH-1W, UH-1Y, AH-1Z?
-If ANY of these aircraft are unable to attain -1g are you also stipulating that they are not capable of being "combat aircraft" or that they are the equivalent of a Bell 47?
-Have you ever flown a helicopter to less than 0gs? If so did you determine this with a g meter or seat of the pants?
You also state
We know that the original NATOPS warned pilots that:
- Air Combat Maneuvering and aerobatics are prohibited
- Abrupt multi-axis control inputs are prohibited
With respect to the second bullet I believe it has been pointed out on here before that many USMC and USN helicopters also have similar wording.
Therefore I will again ask you some questions:
-What other NATOPS manuals have you read?
-What is your depth of knowledge with respect to aviation combat tactics? Have you ever conducted a tactical flight?
-Can you define Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM)? Do you know what the difference is between ACM and DM?
-Do you understand how a NATOPS manual is 'built' and the limits, notes, cautions etc are arrived at or agreed upon?
Dan,
You state that
When non-V-22 types simply asked them to prove their claims, they were not able to so, lost face and became discouraged over the contradictory data in the media
Last edited by jeffg; 15th Feb 2011 at 12:58.
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I don't want to rehash all of the MANY questions asked of supposed V-22 pilots that were not answered. For now, I'd be happy if V-22 pilots rebutted the GAO studies and reports and then the engineers studies and reports and perhaps REAL COMBAT pilots with actual combat experience in places like Viet Nam where the CH-46 acted like a pogo stick from one hot LZ to another hot LZ all day and all night. That's all..you know, like what it was SUPPOSED to do. Got it?
I don't want to rehash all of the MANY questions asked of supposed V-22 pilots that were not answered. For now, I'd be happy if V-22 pilots rebutted the GAO studies and reports and then the engineers studies and reports and perhaps REAL COMBAT pilots with actual combat experience in places like Viet Nam where the CH-46 acted like a pogo stick from one hot LZ to another hot LZ all day and all night. That's all..you know, like what it was SUPPOSED to do. Got it?
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Dan
I think Jeffg has a valid point though...the same limitations people are crying foul about are literally in dozens of other aircraft manuals that are both proven in combat and being toted as "the good" airframes we should have kept in the first place. Why is it ok for THOSE aircraft to have those limitations, but not the osprey? Epecially when the opsery does have some advantages?
I think Jeffg has a valid point though...the same limitations people are crying foul about are literally in dozens of other aircraft manuals that are both proven in combat and being toted as "the good" airframes we should have kept in the first place. Why is it ok for THOSE aircraft to have those limitations, but not the osprey? Epecially when the opsery does have some advantages?
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I'm sure you're right....if you're talking military aircraft, but the reasons are primarily BIG money overruns, time it took to get it afield, dissapointment when it was fielded and I believe we now are in the present moment, basically asking questions on subjects we've asked over and over these past years and never gotten answers for. Believe me when I say EVERYONE in this thread would love for this aircraft to be what it was advertised and contrated to do, it has not and can be said it is a failure. Harsh words but true.
You've come late to this thread but if you'd really want to come up to speed and have a better understanding of why there is so much turmoil over this POS, take some time to start at the very first post and wing your way back here. Good luck though because you'll basically see that the military says this and that whereas they cannot prove anything!
You've come late to this thread but if you'd really want to come up to speed and have a better understanding of why there is so much turmoil over this POS, take some time to start at the very first post and wing your way back here. Good luck though because you'll basically see that the military says this and that whereas they cannot prove anything!