What's the latest news of the V22 Osprey?
From the New Yorker article......
Dogs being very good judges of character.....wise decision!
“I want to meet that dog,” Obama said.
“If you want to meet the dog, Mr. President, I advise you to bring treats,” James joked. Obama went over to pet Cairo, but the dog’s muzzle was left on.
“If you want to meet the dog, Mr. President, I advise you to bring treats,” James joked. Obama went over to pet Cairo, but the dog’s muzzle was left on.
Thank you, 21st, looks like a few things have changed since the increase in Preadator attacks inside Pakistan's air volume (after my time) that began in 2008. Appreciate the update.
As to reporters ... I'll remain skeptical, and yes, he may be telling it straight.
As to reporters ... I'll remain skeptical, and yes, he may be telling it straight.
Bell Boeing Submits V-22 Osprey Multiyear II Contract Proposal
News Press Releases
Bell Boeing Submits V-22 Osprey Multiyear II
Contract Proposal Proposal would fortify industrial base, yield substantial savings to U.S. Government
Aug 4, 2011 Press Contact
Bill Schroeder (817) 280-7651 (office) (817) 600-4209 (mobile) [email protected]
PATUXENT RIVER, Md., Aug 4, 2011- The Bell Boeing V-22 Program, a strategic alliance between The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] and Bell Helicopter - Textron [NYSE: TXT], announced today that it has submitted its proposal to the U.S. government for a second multiyear procurement (MYP II) contract for the production and delivery of V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. The five-year, fixed price incentive proposal would provide the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) and Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) with the full complement of Ospreys outlined in the U.S. Department of Defense program of record and yield double-digit percentage savings over a single-year procurement strategy. In addition, the proposal would fortify Osprey production through 2019.
"Bell Boeing is very pleased to respond to the Navy's request for proposal for a second multiyear contract for V-22 Osprey production," said John Rader, Executive Director, Bell Boeing V-22 Program. "In an era that demands greater fiscal responsibility, the MYP II contract would enable us to most-efficiently deliver this revolutionary capability to our customers while generating further savings for the American taxpayer and bringing strength and stability to the industrial base."
The Bell Boeing V-22 program is presently on-time and under budget in successfully executing its first multiyear procurement contract, which includes fiscal years 2008-2012 and calls for the production of 174 aircraft including 143 MV-22 variants for the Marine Corps and 31 CV-22s for AFSOC. The MYP II proposal includes 122 aircraft (115 MV/ 7 CV) over fiscal years 2013-2017, continuing deliveries through 2019. Bell Boeing now awaits the results of the government's evaluation of its MYP II proposal.
Ten USMC and five AFSOC V-22 Squadrons are operational today and the two services have together logged sixteen successful combat, humanitarian, ship-based and special operations deployments since 2007. The worldwide Osprey fleet has amassed more than 115,000 flight hours, with nearly half of those hours coming in the past two years alone.
Safety, survivability and mission efficiency have become hallmarks of the operational fleet. According to Naval Safety Center records, the MV-22 has had the lowest Class A mishap rate of any tactical rotorcraft in the Marine Corps during the past decade. Further, Fiscal Year 2010 Navy flight-hour cost data also show that the Osprey has the lowest cost per seat-mile (cost to transport one person over a distance of one mile) of any U.S. Navy transport rotorcraft.
The V-22 Osprey is a joint service, multirole combat aircraft using tiltrotor technology to combine the vertical performance of a helicopter with the speed and range of a fixed-wing aircraft. With its nacelles and rotors in vertical position, it can take off, land and hover like a helicopter. Once airborne, its nacelles can be rotated to transition the aircraft to a turboprop airplane capable of high-speed, high-altitude flight.
The tiltrotor aircraft is manufactured under a 50-50 strategic alliance between Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. company, and Boeing. The current V-22 Osprey program of record calls for 360 aircraft for the Marine Corps, 50 for AFSOC, and 48 for the Navy.
More than 130 Osprey tiltrotors are currently in operation. Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys are currently deployed in Afghanistan supporting Operation Enduring Freedom and with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit supporting contingency operations, while AFSOC CV-22s are preparing to deploy once again in support of ongoing Special Operations missions.
Bell Boeing Submits V-22 Osprey Multiyear II
Contract Proposal Proposal would fortify industrial base, yield substantial savings to U.S. Government
Aug 4, 2011 Press Contact
Bill Schroeder (817) 280-7651 (office) (817) 600-4209 (mobile) [email protected]
PATUXENT RIVER, Md., Aug 4, 2011- The Bell Boeing V-22 Program, a strategic alliance between The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] and Bell Helicopter - Textron [NYSE: TXT], announced today that it has submitted its proposal to the U.S. government for a second multiyear procurement (MYP II) contract for the production and delivery of V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. The five-year, fixed price incentive proposal would provide the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) and Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) with the full complement of Ospreys outlined in the U.S. Department of Defense program of record and yield double-digit percentage savings over a single-year procurement strategy. In addition, the proposal would fortify Osprey production through 2019.
"Bell Boeing is very pleased to respond to the Navy's request for proposal for a second multiyear contract for V-22 Osprey production," said John Rader, Executive Director, Bell Boeing V-22 Program. "In an era that demands greater fiscal responsibility, the MYP II contract would enable us to most-efficiently deliver this revolutionary capability to our customers while generating further savings for the American taxpayer and bringing strength and stability to the industrial base."
The Bell Boeing V-22 program is presently on-time and under budget in successfully executing its first multiyear procurement contract, which includes fiscal years 2008-2012 and calls for the production of 174 aircraft including 143 MV-22 variants for the Marine Corps and 31 CV-22s for AFSOC. The MYP II proposal includes 122 aircraft (115 MV/ 7 CV) over fiscal years 2013-2017, continuing deliveries through 2019. Bell Boeing now awaits the results of the government's evaluation of its MYP II proposal.
Ten USMC and five AFSOC V-22 Squadrons are operational today and the two services have together logged sixteen successful combat, humanitarian, ship-based and special operations deployments since 2007. The worldwide Osprey fleet has amassed more than 115,000 flight hours, with nearly half of those hours coming in the past two years alone.
Safety, survivability and mission efficiency have become hallmarks of the operational fleet. According to Naval Safety Center records, the MV-22 has had the lowest Class A mishap rate of any tactical rotorcraft in the Marine Corps during the past decade. Further, Fiscal Year 2010 Navy flight-hour cost data also show that the Osprey has the lowest cost per seat-mile (cost to transport one person over a distance of one mile) of any U.S. Navy transport rotorcraft.
The V-22 Osprey is a joint service, multirole combat aircraft using tiltrotor technology to combine the vertical performance of a helicopter with the speed and range of a fixed-wing aircraft. With its nacelles and rotors in vertical position, it can take off, land and hover like a helicopter. Once airborne, its nacelles can be rotated to transition the aircraft to a turboprop airplane capable of high-speed, high-altitude flight.
The tiltrotor aircraft is manufactured under a 50-50 strategic alliance between Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. company, and Boeing. The current V-22 Osprey program of record calls for 360 aircraft for the Marine Corps, 50 for AFSOC, and 48 for the Navy.
More than 130 Osprey tiltrotors are currently in operation. Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys are currently deployed in Afghanistan supporting Operation Enduring Freedom and with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit supporting contingency operations, while AFSOC CV-22s are preparing to deploy once again in support of ongoing Special Operations missions.
Ya gotta spend money to save money, eh? 
Double digit savings? Multiyear buys can be a way to keep program costs down, yes.
Do you have a link to the numbers in the proposal, Sans?
Double digit savings? Multiyear buys can be a way to keep program costs down, yes.
Do you have a link to the numbers in the proposal, Sans?
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Boeing and Textron Try to Prevent Osprey from Going the Way of the Dodo
By ANDRE FRANCISCO
A new multi-year contract for 122 V-22 Ospreys has been submitted to the Navy for consideration by Boeing and Textron. The contract would renew the current deal for five more years at a cost of $8 billion, according to Bloomberg.
The current contract is on time and under budget, but you may remember that POGO and others have raised a number of concerns about the Osprey, including questions about its safety, cost and how thoroughly the Pentagon tested the aircraft.
As part of our blueprint to reduce the deficit, POGO and Taxpayers for Common Sense recommended declining to renew the V-22 program. In our report, we recommended that the program not be renewed because it was not cost effective and the V-22s could be replaced by MH-60 or Ch-53 helicopters. “According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the V-22 costs over $11,000 per hour to fly and had a full mission capability (FMC) rate of just 6 percent in Iraq,” the report said.
The current $10.9 billion contract for 174 Ospreys has each aircraft costing about $62.6 million, but the new proposed contract puts the cost at $65 million each, according to the Bloomberg article. Shouldn’t the cost of building V-22s go down over time as experience and the economies of scale kick in? Why the $2.4 million increase for each aircraft?
Some people have offered their support of the Osprey. A Defense Daily articleabout the new proposal said “the MV-22 has had the lowest Class A mishap rate of any tactical rotorcraft in the Marine Corps during the past decade. Fiscal year 2010 Navy flight-hour cost data also show that the Osprey has the lowest cost per seat-mile, or the cost to transport one person over a distance of one mile, of any U.S. naval transport rotorcraft,” according to the Naval Safety Center.
But at the same time, a number of reports have questioned the safety and cost problems of the Osprey. In January, we wrote about a National Journal article that summarized four separate, independent reviews of Pentagon spending that all included cutting the V-22 program as part of a larger program of spending reduction.
As the Bloomberg article said, “Signing a multi-year contract also virtually guarantees those aircraft can’t be canceled because the military would face steep termination costs.”
We are sticking with our recommendation from the blueprint for debt reduction—don’t renew the procurement contract. We need the money elsewhere, and we don’t need the risks of the V-22.
Andre Francisco is a POGO Associate. Follow Andre on Twitter.
By ANDRE FRANCISCO
A new multi-year contract for 122 V-22 Ospreys has been submitted to the Navy for consideration by Boeing and Textron. The contract would renew the current deal for five more years at a cost of $8 billion, according to Bloomberg.
The current contract is on time and under budget, but you may remember that POGO and others have raised a number of concerns about the Osprey, including questions about its safety, cost and how thoroughly the Pentagon tested the aircraft.
As part of our blueprint to reduce the deficit, POGO and Taxpayers for Common Sense recommended declining to renew the V-22 program. In our report, we recommended that the program not be renewed because it was not cost effective and the V-22s could be replaced by MH-60 or Ch-53 helicopters. “According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the V-22 costs over $11,000 per hour to fly and had a full mission capability (FMC) rate of just 6 percent in Iraq,” the report said.
The current $10.9 billion contract for 174 Ospreys has each aircraft costing about $62.6 million, but the new proposed contract puts the cost at $65 million each, according to the Bloomberg article. Shouldn’t the cost of building V-22s go down over time as experience and the economies of scale kick in? Why the $2.4 million increase for each aircraft?
Some people have offered their support of the Osprey. A Defense Daily articleabout the new proposal said “the MV-22 has had the lowest Class A mishap rate of any tactical rotorcraft in the Marine Corps during the past decade. Fiscal year 2010 Navy flight-hour cost data also show that the Osprey has the lowest cost per seat-mile, or the cost to transport one person over a distance of one mile, of any U.S. naval transport rotorcraft,” according to the Naval Safety Center.
But at the same time, a number of reports have questioned the safety and cost problems of the Osprey. In January, we wrote about a National Journal article that summarized four separate, independent reviews of Pentagon spending that all included cutting the V-22 program as part of a larger program of spending reduction.
As the Bloomberg article said, “Signing a multi-year contract also virtually guarantees those aircraft can’t be canceled because the military would face steep termination costs.”
We are sticking with our recommendation from the blueprint for debt reduction—don’t renew the procurement contract. We need the money elsewhere, and we don’t need the risks of the V-22.
Andre Francisco is a POGO Associate. Follow Andre on Twitter.
Dan,
With the flight hour costs of a 53E the V-22 is cheap. Hell the S-92 as reported by Heli-one in commercial service is near $10K.
After the loss of our brave war fighters in one obsolete slow helicopter I believe the V-22 will surge ahead and the Army will begin buying.
The Sultan
With the flight hour costs of a 53E the V-22 is cheap. Hell the S-92 as reported by Heli-one in commercial service is near $10K.
After the loss of our brave war fighters in one obsolete slow helicopter I believe the V-22 will surge ahead and the Army will begin buying.
The Sultan
Some people have offered their support of the Osprey. A Defense Daily articleabout the new proposal said “the MV-22 has had the lowest Class A mishap rate of any tactical rotorcraft in the Marine Corps during the past decade. Fiscal year 2010 Navy flight-hour cost data also show that the Osprey has the lowest cost per seat-mile, or the cost to transport one person over a distance of one mile, of any U.S. naval transport rotorcraft,” according to the Naval Safety Center.
But at the same time, a number of reports have questioned the safety and cost problems of the Osprey.
But at the same time, a number of reports have questioned the safety and cost problems of the Osprey.
If the Chinook is slow, lumbering, and lands slowly.....why not replace them with Ospreys which we are all told are fast, manuverable, and land quickly?
It would seem that would sort it out pronto! Or do I miss something here?
Are Osprey's immune to RPG's?
Are Osprey's immune to small arms fire?
Do Osprey's not land where the Bad Guys are by some onboard kit we know nothing of yet?
Or....should we be asking questions like....."Did we plan this mission properly? Did we become predictable in our Tactics and thus fall prey to the enemy adapting to our tactics? Did we have airborne surviellance assets over head scanning the LZ and surrounds for enemy activity? If we did...was there a failure in capability, command and control, and/or application of technology/assets? Were on-scene Troops properly tasked/resourced for the mission? Was there effectively coordination of all units tasked? Was Command and Control elements properly informed, knowledgeable, and in effective control of all units/assets/resources? Are we getting complacent due to the sheer number of these operations being undertaken? Are the units involved in these missions experiencing over-saturation? Are the Rules of Engagement too restrictive? Did the engaged units receive adequate and timely support from Tube Artillery, Scout and Attack helicopters, and Tactical Aircraft?"
This smacks of another Takur Ghar fight (Robert's Ridge) where things went down hill fast after pre-assault intel was inadequate and command and control was absolutely a disgrace. Senior officers in Bahrain have no reason to be involved in local goings on in Afghanistan. That kind of decision making and coordination is best done by the commanders on the scene.
It would seem that would sort it out pronto! Or do I miss something here?
Are Osprey's immune to RPG's?
Are Osprey's immune to small arms fire?
Do Osprey's not land where the Bad Guys are by some onboard kit we know nothing of yet?
Or....should we be asking questions like....."Did we plan this mission properly? Did we become predictable in our Tactics and thus fall prey to the enemy adapting to our tactics? Did we have airborne surviellance assets over head scanning the LZ and surrounds for enemy activity? If we did...was there a failure in capability, command and control, and/or application of technology/assets? Were on-scene Troops properly tasked/resourced for the mission? Was there effectively coordination of all units tasked? Was Command and Control elements properly informed, knowledgeable, and in effective control of all units/assets/resources? Are we getting complacent due to the sheer number of these operations being undertaken? Are the units involved in these missions experiencing over-saturation? Are the Rules of Engagement too restrictive? Did the engaged units receive adequate and timely support from Tube Artillery, Scout and Attack helicopters, and Tactical Aircraft?"
This smacks of another Takur Ghar fight (Robert's Ridge) where things went down hill fast after pre-assault intel was inadequate and command and control was absolutely a disgrace. Senior officers in Bahrain have no reason to be involved in local goings on in Afghanistan. That kind of decision making and coordination is best done by the commanders on the scene.
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The V-22 is Safer Than Helos, Effective, Says Man Who Wrote the Book
By Richard Whittle
Published: August 09, 2011
I commissioned this story from one of the foremost -- if not the foremost -- independent authorities on the V-22 because I thought it important to address the basic question: is the V-22 worth the lives and treasure it has cost America? The answer by reporter Richard Whittle -- the man who literally wrote the book on the Osprey -- is a resounding yes. That yes, I believe, should be taken note of by those less expert who reside at august institutions such as the New York Times, who persist in viewing the V-22 as a "troubled" aircraft. But enough of that. Read Richard's piece for as close to ground truth on this issue as we are likely to get. The editor.
Once upon a time, the evil ogres of the military-industrial complex spawned a mutant flying machine, a freakish helicopter-airplane hybrid so dangerous and costly it deserved to die. Yet tribes of pork-addicted toadies and blind intellectual dwarfs shielded the beast from knights in shining armor who sallied forth tirelessly -- heavily armed with GAO reports -- to slay it.
That's the fairy tale the V-22 Osprey's bitterest critics like to believe, but the facts about the tiltrotor transport, which the Marines fought a quarter of a century to get into service, tell a far happier story. This ugly duckling is turning out to be a swan.
The Marines and the Air Force Special Operations Command have been flying Ospreys in combat zones nearly four years now and they love them, for while the V-22 isn't a very pretty bird to look at, it has a graceful and extraordinary way of flying. It tilts two big rotors on its wingtips upward to take off and land like a helicopter but swivels them forward to fly like an airplane. That lets it cruise at nearly 290 miles an hour – more than twice as fast as military helicopters, whose top speeds are limited by the aerodynamics of rotors to about 140 to 175 mph.
By the time the Marines first put the Osprey into service in Iraq in 2007, though, it had cost more time, money and lives than any other piece of equipment the Corps has ever bought -- 25 years, $22 billion and 30 deaths in crashes during its development. The Osprey was a very ugly duckling.
Since then, the saga has taken a very different turn, but many of the Osprey's loudest critics – notable among them the New York Times editorial page – went to sleep in the middle of the story. In February, the Times declared that "the unsafe V-22 Osprey aircraft should...be scaled down now." In April, the Times again called for cutting the "accident-prone V-22 Osprey."
Labeling the Osprey "unsafe" and "accident-prone" could be justified a decade ago, when two of the three fatal crashes that occurred during its development had just occurred. Yes, that number is correct; there were only three fatal crashes before the Osprey went into service. Thirty people died in them because the Osprey is a troop carrier, and 19 Marines – 15 of them passengers – were killed in one star-crossed test flight alone. After the last of those terrible crashes, though, the Pentagon grounded the Osprey for 17 months – and fixed what was wrong with it.
As I described in The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey, between 2001 and 2005, the Osprey was redesigned and retested. Sloppily laid out hydraulic lines were rerouted, putting a stop to frequent and dangerous leaks. Flaws in flight control software, which in combination with a hydraulic leak had caused one fatal crash, were fixed. A trio of brave test pilots deliberately and repeatedly flew the Osprey into the little-understood aerodynamic condition that caused its worst crash and figured out how a pilot could get out of it. Cockpit warning devices were installed to keep future pilots from putting an Osprey into this "vortex ring state" in the first place.
The result is that Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., unwittingly spoke the truth in May when she futilely tried for the umpteenth time to cut the V-22 from the defense budget by arguing that the "Osprey's mishaps have become practically the stuff of legend."
"Legend" is the right word. Since Dec. 11, 2000, the Osprey has suffered one fatal accident – one in 11 years. On April 8, 2010, an Air Force V-22 hit the ground rolling half a mile short of its intended landing zone while carrying Army Rangers on a night raid in Afghanistan, then flipped over onto its back after its front wheels hit a ditch, killing four of the 22 souls aboard. Other than that, the only Osprey since 2000 to suffer a "Class A Mishap" – an accident causing fatalities, permanent disability or more than $2 million in damage – was a V-22 from the Marine training squadron in North Carolina that made an emergency landing on Nov. 6, 2007, after a dirt and dust filter at the mouth of one of its engines started a fire. No one was injured in the incident, and the design of the filter, known as an Engine Air Particle Separator, was subsequently modified.
Sadly, the helicopters the critics would buy instead of Ospreys can't claim such a sterling safety record. Compare the record of conventional helicopter safety with the Osprey. Since Oct. 1, 2001, the military has lost 405 helicopters worldwide at a cost of 583 American lives, and less than one third of those were brought down by enemy fire. Those figures include the 30 U.S. troops killed Aug. 6 when Taliban insurgents apparently shot down a CH-47 Chinook transport with a rocket-propelled grenade. The statistics also include 20 other American deaths since 2001 in six losses of CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters -- the primary aircraft the Marines are buying the Osprey to replace.
The redesigned, retested Osprey's safety record is so good that it's actually the safest rotorcraft the Marine Corps flies, based on Class A mishaps per 100,000 flight hours. Those are official Naval Safety Center statistics.
Given that record, anyone who calls the Osprey "unsafe" or "accident-prone" these days either hasn't bothered to learn the facts or is willfully ignoring them.d
One reason for the Osprey's great safety record is that while the Marines and Air Force have flown their V-22s for roughly 20,000 combat hours since 2007, not one has been shot down, though some in Afghanistan have been hit by 7.62mm rounds, the type fired by AK-47s, and they all returned to base safely. Why things don't happen is often impossible to prove, but one probable reason for this is that it may be harder to hit a V-22 than a helicopter with the sort of weapons at the Taliban's disposal. The Osprey takes off and lands much the same way as a helicopter but can get out of small arms range quickly when leaving a landing zone by converting to airplane flight and climbing. Marine Ospreys also spend most of their time in the air at 8,000 feet or more, well above most threats. Helicopters generally fly low in combat zones because they're slower, and hugging the ground makes it harder for the enemy to see them in time to shoot at them. Unlike flying above 8,000 feet, though, flying low doesn't make it impossible to get hit by small arms.
The Osprey's capabilities are saving lives in combat in other ways, too. Just ask the F-15E pilot who was picked up by an Osprey in Libya last March after bailing out of his aircraft. Two Marine V-22s sent from the USS Kearsarge covered the 150 or so miles between him and the ship in about 45 minutes and got him to safety before dictator Moammar Gaddafi's forces could find him.
The only valid reason to oppose the Osprey these days might be cost, but many of the V-22's critics have trouble keeping up with the facts on this point, too.
"The V-22 Osprey helicopter has been long hampered by cost overruns," the liberalish Center for American Progress declared in early July, repeating history as if it were current news. True, the Osprey suffered plenty of cost overruns when it was still an ugly duckling, and it cost a lot to correct its original inadequacies. But since 2008, when the Naval Air Systems Command signed a five-year contract with co-manufacturers Bell Helicopter and Boeing, the program has actually enjoyed substantial cost underruns -- savings Bell and Boeing project will amount to around $200 million over the life of the $10.9 billion deal, according to a senior official who's been briefed on the figures. Costs have come down because Bell and Boeing have learned how to make the aircraft more quickly, and thus cheaper, and NAVAIR has subjected the Osprey to a stringent cost reduction campaign.
On Aug. 4, Bell-Boeing gave the government a proposal for a second five-year contract to produce the last 122 Ospreys needed to give the Marines and Air Force the 410 those two services plan to buy between them. The price the companies offered is secret and subject to negotiation, but by law, the government can't sign such deals unless they offer "substantial savings" over a series of single-year contracts for the same period. By informal congressional fiat, "substantial savings" means at least 10 percent.
As the Marines, the Air Force, NAVAIR and Bell-Boeing gain more experience with the 21st Century Osprey, its operating expense is also coming down. Over the past year, its cost per flight hour declined from more than $11,000 an hour to about $9,500, according to Marine Col. Greg Masiello, the program manager at NAVAIR.
At this year's Paris Air Show, Masiello also unveiled an analysis showing that because of the Osprey's greater speed, which means greater range, it can be a far cheaper way to transport troops in a war zone than a utility helicopter, such as the Army's UH-60 Black Hawk, the alternative critics often advocate. According to this analysis, to carry a company of troops requires either four Ospreys or sixteen helicopters. The Ospreys could deliver those troops 250 nautical miles in one hop, but the helicopters would have to stop at a Forward Arming and Refueling Point, or FARP, which requires more people to operate and guard the facility and to deliver fuel to it via ground convoys. Add up all the expenses avoided by using four Ospreys instead of 16 helicopters and the savings are about $224 million, Masiello said.
Another internal Marine Corps analysis done last year that employs a measure of efficiency favored by civilian airlines – cost per seat mile, meaning cost per flight hour per passenger per mile – found that the Osprey's speed and range make it much cheaper on that basis than Marine Corps and Navy helicopters. Using the Osprey's fiscal 2010 flight hour cost of $11,651 per flight hour, this study pegged the 24-passenger V-22's cost per seat mile at $1.76 compared to $2.84 for the Navy's seven-passenger MH-60S Black Hawk, $3.17 for the 12-passenger CH-46 Sea Knight, and $3.12 for the 24-passenger CH-53E Super Stallion.
Against that background, foreign interest in buying Ospreys, which evaporated after the crashes of 2000, is warming up. Israel recently showed serious interest by sending a team of experts to New River Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina to spend some time kicking the tires and flying the Osprey. Bell-Boeing says as many as a dozen nations may end up buying V-22s. This suggests that those who take the time to learn the latest facts about the Osprey are impressed. And that's no fairy tale.
By Richard Whittle
Published: August 09, 2011
I commissioned this story from one of the foremost -- if not the foremost -- independent authorities on the V-22 because I thought it important to address the basic question: is the V-22 worth the lives and treasure it has cost America? The answer by reporter Richard Whittle -- the man who literally wrote the book on the Osprey -- is a resounding yes. That yes, I believe, should be taken note of by those less expert who reside at august institutions such as the New York Times, who persist in viewing the V-22 as a "troubled" aircraft. But enough of that. Read Richard's piece for as close to ground truth on this issue as we are likely to get. The editor.
Once upon a time, the evil ogres of the military-industrial complex spawned a mutant flying machine, a freakish helicopter-airplane hybrid so dangerous and costly it deserved to die. Yet tribes of pork-addicted toadies and blind intellectual dwarfs shielded the beast from knights in shining armor who sallied forth tirelessly -- heavily armed with GAO reports -- to slay it.
That's the fairy tale the V-22 Osprey's bitterest critics like to believe, but the facts about the tiltrotor transport, which the Marines fought a quarter of a century to get into service, tell a far happier story. This ugly duckling is turning out to be a swan.
The Marines and the Air Force Special Operations Command have been flying Ospreys in combat zones nearly four years now and they love them, for while the V-22 isn't a very pretty bird to look at, it has a graceful and extraordinary way of flying. It tilts two big rotors on its wingtips upward to take off and land like a helicopter but swivels them forward to fly like an airplane. That lets it cruise at nearly 290 miles an hour – more than twice as fast as military helicopters, whose top speeds are limited by the aerodynamics of rotors to about 140 to 175 mph.
By the time the Marines first put the Osprey into service in Iraq in 2007, though, it had cost more time, money and lives than any other piece of equipment the Corps has ever bought -- 25 years, $22 billion and 30 deaths in crashes during its development. The Osprey was a very ugly duckling.
Since then, the saga has taken a very different turn, but many of the Osprey's loudest critics – notable among them the New York Times editorial page – went to sleep in the middle of the story. In February, the Times declared that "the unsafe V-22 Osprey aircraft should...be scaled down now." In April, the Times again called for cutting the "accident-prone V-22 Osprey."
Labeling the Osprey "unsafe" and "accident-prone" could be justified a decade ago, when two of the three fatal crashes that occurred during its development had just occurred. Yes, that number is correct; there were only three fatal crashes before the Osprey went into service. Thirty people died in them because the Osprey is a troop carrier, and 19 Marines – 15 of them passengers – were killed in one star-crossed test flight alone. After the last of those terrible crashes, though, the Pentagon grounded the Osprey for 17 months – and fixed what was wrong with it.
As I described in The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey, between 2001 and 2005, the Osprey was redesigned and retested. Sloppily laid out hydraulic lines were rerouted, putting a stop to frequent and dangerous leaks. Flaws in flight control software, which in combination with a hydraulic leak had caused one fatal crash, were fixed. A trio of brave test pilots deliberately and repeatedly flew the Osprey into the little-understood aerodynamic condition that caused its worst crash and figured out how a pilot could get out of it. Cockpit warning devices were installed to keep future pilots from putting an Osprey into this "vortex ring state" in the first place.
The result is that Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., unwittingly spoke the truth in May when she futilely tried for the umpteenth time to cut the V-22 from the defense budget by arguing that the "Osprey's mishaps have become practically the stuff of legend."
"Legend" is the right word. Since Dec. 11, 2000, the Osprey has suffered one fatal accident – one in 11 years. On April 8, 2010, an Air Force V-22 hit the ground rolling half a mile short of its intended landing zone while carrying Army Rangers on a night raid in Afghanistan, then flipped over onto its back after its front wheels hit a ditch, killing four of the 22 souls aboard. Other than that, the only Osprey since 2000 to suffer a "Class A Mishap" – an accident causing fatalities, permanent disability or more than $2 million in damage – was a V-22 from the Marine training squadron in North Carolina that made an emergency landing on Nov. 6, 2007, after a dirt and dust filter at the mouth of one of its engines started a fire. No one was injured in the incident, and the design of the filter, known as an Engine Air Particle Separator, was subsequently modified.
Sadly, the helicopters the critics would buy instead of Ospreys can't claim such a sterling safety record. Compare the record of conventional helicopter safety with the Osprey. Since Oct. 1, 2001, the military has lost 405 helicopters worldwide at a cost of 583 American lives, and less than one third of those were brought down by enemy fire. Those figures include the 30 U.S. troops killed Aug. 6 when Taliban insurgents apparently shot down a CH-47 Chinook transport with a rocket-propelled grenade. The statistics also include 20 other American deaths since 2001 in six losses of CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters -- the primary aircraft the Marines are buying the Osprey to replace.
The redesigned, retested Osprey's safety record is so good that it's actually the safest rotorcraft the Marine Corps flies, based on Class A mishaps per 100,000 flight hours. Those are official Naval Safety Center statistics.
Given that record, anyone who calls the Osprey "unsafe" or "accident-prone" these days either hasn't bothered to learn the facts or is willfully ignoring them.d
One reason for the Osprey's great safety record is that while the Marines and Air Force have flown their V-22s for roughly 20,000 combat hours since 2007, not one has been shot down, though some in Afghanistan have been hit by 7.62mm rounds, the type fired by AK-47s, and they all returned to base safely. Why things don't happen is often impossible to prove, but one probable reason for this is that it may be harder to hit a V-22 than a helicopter with the sort of weapons at the Taliban's disposal. The Osprey takes off and lands much the same way as a helicopter but can get out of small arms range quickly when leaving a landing zone by converting to airplane flight and climbing. Marine Ospreys also spend most of their time in the air at 8,000 feet or more, well above most threats. Helicopters generally fly low in combat zones because they're slower, and hugging the ground makes it harder for the enemy to see them in time to shoot at them. Unlike flying above 8,000 feet, though, flying low doesn't make it impossible to get hit by small arms.
The Osprey's capabilities are saving lives in combat in other ways, too. Just ask the F-15E pilot who was picked up by an Osprey in Libya last March after bailing out of his aircraft. Two Marine V-22s sent from the USS Kearsarge covered the 150 or so miles between him and the ship in about 45 minutes and got him to safety before dictator Moammar Gaddafi's forces could find him.
The only valid reason to oppose the Osprey these days might be cost, but many of the V-22's critics have trouble keeping up with the facts on this point, too.
"The V-22 Osprey helicopter has been long hampered by cost overruns," the liberalish Center for American Progress declared in early July, repeating history as if it were current news. True, the Osprey suffered plenty of cost overruns when it was still an ugly duckling, and it cost a lot to correct its original inadequacies. But since 2008, when the Naval Air Systems Command signed a five-year contract with co-manufacturers Bell Helicopter and Boeing, the program has actually enjoyed substantial cost underruns -- savings Bell and Boeing project will amount to around $200 million over the life of the $10.9 billion deal, according to a senior official who's been briefed on the figures. Costs have come down because Bell and Boeing have learned how to make the aircraft more quickly, and thus cheaper, and NAVAIR has subjected the Osprey to a stringent cost reduction campaign.
On Aug. 4, Bell-Boeing gave the government a proposal for a second five-year contract to produce the last 122 Ospreys needed to give the Marines and Air Force the 410 those two services plan to buy between them. The price the companies offered is secret and subject to negotiation, but by law, the government can't sign such deals unless they offer "substantial savings" over a series of single-year contracts for the same period. By informal congressional fiat, "substantial savings" means at least 10 percent.
As the Marines, the Air Force, NAVAIR and Bell-Boeing gain more experience with the 21st Century Osprey, its operating expense is also coming down. Over the past year, its cost per flight hour declined from more than $11,000 an hour to about $9,500, according to Marine Col. Greg Masiello, the program manager at NAVAIR.
At this year's Paris Air Show, Masiello also unveiled an analysis showing that because of the Osprey's greater speed, which means greater range, it can be a far cheaper way to transport troops in a war zone than a utility helicopter, such as the Army's UH-60 Black Hawk, the alternative critics often advocate. According to this analysis, to carry a company of troops requires either four Ospreys or sixteen helicopters. The Ospreys could deliver those troops 250 nautical miles in one hop, but the helicopters would have to stop at a Forward Arming and Refueling Point, or FARP, which requires more people to operate and guard the facility and to deliver fuel to it via ground convoys. Add up all the expenses avoided by using four Ospreys instead of 16 helicopters and the savings are about $224 million, Masiello said.
Another internal Marine Corps analysis done last year that employs a measure of efficiency favored by civilian airlines – cost per seat mile, meaning cost per flight hour per passenger per mile – found that the Osprey's speed and range make it much cheaper on that basis than Marine Corps and Navy helicopters. Using the Osprey's fiscal 2010 flight hour cost of $11,651 per flight hour, this study pegged the 24-passenger V-22's cost per seat mile at $1.76 compared to $2.84 for the Navy's seven-passenger MH-60S Black Hawk, $3.17 for the 12-passenger CH-46 Sea Knight, and $3.12 for the 24-passenger CH-53E Super Stallion.
Against that background, foreign interest in buying Ospreys, which evaporated after the crashes of 2000, is warming up. Israel recently showed serious interest by sending a team of experts to New River Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina to spend some time kicking the tires and flying the Osprey. Bell-Boeing says as many as a dozen nations may end up buying V-22s. This suggests that those who take the time to learn the latest facts about the Osprey are impressed. And that's no fairy tale.
Sas,
The Osprey's secret is not letting your enemy know your coming 10 minutes ahead of time as it is so quiet in cruise, and not lumbering off of an LZ after a mission, but departing at a high level of acceleration.
The Sultan
The Osprey's secret is not letting your enemy know your coming 10 minutes ahead of time as it is so quiet in cruise, and not lumbering off of an LZ after a mission, but departing at a high level of acceleration.
The Sultan
The Osprey's secret is not letting your enemy know your coming 10 minutes ahead of time as it is so quiet in cruise, and not lumbering off of an LZ after a mission, but departing at a high level of acceleration.
You have been asked time after time to provide some data, facts, figures, videos, reports, first hand accounts to buttress your statements......but yet all you do is repeat the same ol' generalities.
Do you think we are giving you any credence when you post such thins as that quoted above?
Have you served in combat flying Osprey's or helicopters....and if so when, where and in which unit so we can assess your bona fides? Seems only fair as you present yourself as an expert on the Osprey and we know there are very few of them about the place.
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Or....should we be asking questions like....."Did we plan this mission properly? Did we become predictable in our Tactics and thus fall prey to the enemy adapting to our tactics? Did we have airborne surviellance assets over head scanning the LZ and surrounds for enemy activity? If we did...was there a failure in capability, command and control, and/or application of technology/assets? Were on-scene Troops properly tasked/resourced for the mission? Was there effectively coordination of all units tasked? Was Command and Control elements properly informed, knowledgeable, and in effective control of all units/assets/resources? Are we getting complacent due to the sheer number of these operations being undertaken? Are the units involved in these missions experiencing over-saturation? Are the Rules of Engagement too restrictive? Did the engaged units receive adequate and timely support from Tube Artillery, Scout and Attack helicopters, and Tactical Aircraft?"
Fact of the matter is none of us on here has enough information to say that one aircraft would have been better suited for this mission than another, so we shouldn't.
You have been asked time after time to provide some data, facts, figures, videos, reports, first hand accounts to buttress your statements......but yet all you do is repeat the same ol' generalities.
So if the F22 is operated by the USAF, and they can claim that its stealth attributes prevent it from being detected effectively by modern SAM systems, you want them to give you the actual ranges at which it would be detected to assuage your suspicions, and justify their commentary?
The marines say over and over how much quieter the Osprey is upon approach prior to conversion. Most normal human beings who have seen one at an airshow will agree on the spot.
I dont understand what you want here.
The marines say over and over how much quieter the Osprey is upon approach prior to conversion. Most normal human beings who have seen one at an airshow will agree on the spot.
I dont understand what you want here.
Sans,
Having lived smack dab in the middle of the New River training area for the Osprey....and having a wee bit of experience listening to them and other aircraft to include every single helicopter in the military's inventory and those of the UK, France, Italy, and more than a few other countries I know what the Osprey sounds like. As you state in the quote....in cruise mode it is perhaps a bit quieter but in helicopter mode that is another thing altogether. Likewise we are aware of the limits placed upon the aircraft during descent and slow airspeeds while in the "Hover" mode of flight. We also know what avionics are installed as that is not a "secret".
Combine that with the capabilities and method of operation of an RPG....and most normal people you refer to would have reasonable questions as to just how superior the Osprey really is as suggested by your dear friend and colleague "Sultan".
He is the one calling the Chinook noisy, slow, lumbering and obselete. All I am asking is he prove his claim.
Don't give us this "If I tell you I will have to kill you!" hogwash. As usual, you and Sultan cloak yourself in flag and country when challenged to support your comments.
Sultan stated the "interconnect shaft" was excess to need for if it fails on the Osprey all that happens is a Caution Light illuminates. Now I suggest to you that is not a classified system and is not protected by OpSec criteria. If you insist I can hit google and within five minutes give you a full description of the technology and engineering design concept published by Bell-Boeing on the issue.
When asked to substantiate that claim....we hear nothing more from Sultan.
All I asked for is a technical discussion of Tilt Rotor technology that is incorporated into the AW-609 and earlier models of the Bell Tilt Rotor aircraft dating back to probably the 1950's.
Now how about you take a position.....is the Osprey Interconnect Shaft a required item or is it not as Sultan states?
Is that an impossible question for you to answer.....but as we do know the right answer you will find it impossible to answer and side with Sultan at the same time.
Having lived smack dab in the middle of the New River training area for the Osprey....and having a wee bit of experience listening to them and other aircraft to include every single helicopter in the military's inventory and those of the UK, France, Italy, and more than a few other countries I know what the Osprey sounds like. As you state in the quote....in cruise mode it is perhaps a bit quieter but in helicopter mode that is another thing altogether. Likewise we are aware of the limits placed upon the aircraft during descent and slow airspeeds while in the "Hover" mode of flight. We also know what avionics are installed as that is not a "secret".
Combine that with the capabilities and method of operation of an RPG....and most normal people you refer to would have reasonable questions as to just how superior the Osprey really is as suggested by your dear friend and colleague "Sultan".
He is the one calling the Chinook noisy, slow, lumbering and obselete. All I am asking is he prove his claim.
Don't give us this "If I tell you I will have to kill you!" hogwash. As usual, you and Sultan cloak yourself in flag and country when challenged to support your comments.
Sultan stated the "interconnect shaft" was excess to need for if it fails on the Osprey all that happens is a Caution Light illuminates. Now I suggest to you that is not a classified system and is not protected by OpSec criteria. If you insist I can hit google and within five minutes give you a full description of the technology and engineering design concept published by Bell-Boeing on the issue.
When asked to substantiate that claim....we hear nothing more from Sultan.
All I asked for is a technical discussion of Tilt Rotor technology that is incorporated into the AW-609 and earlier models of the Bell Tilt Rotor aircraft dating back to probably the 1950's.
Now how about you take a position.....is the Osprey Interconnect Shaft a required item or is it not as Sultan states?
Is that an impossible question for you to answer.....but as we do know the right answer you will find it impossible to answer and side with Sultan at the same time.
I think SASless is losing the plot ...and the argument.The only advantage the Chinook would have had in the situation was that it could carry a heavier payload ,maybe that was the need?
Otherwise the Osprey could indeed have moved in and out more quickly and presented less of a target opportunity...but huge propoganda kudos for the Taliban if they managed to shoot a tiltrotor down.
Otherwise the Osprey could indeed have moved in and out more quickly and presented less of a target opportunity...but huge propoganda kudos for the Taliban if they managed to shoot a tiltrotor down.
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Would the Taliban Have Hit an Osprey?
By Carlo Munoz
Published: August 10, 2011
Washington: The loss of 38 American soldiers, including members of SEAL Team Six, this week is spawning more questions than answers as DoD begins to piece together what happened that night in eastern Afghanistan.
Gen. John Allen, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, tried to answer some of those questions during yesterday's briefing at DoD.
One question was why an regular Army CH-47 Chinook, and not a special operations-type aircraft like a Blackhawk or Osprey, was used during the mission.
The 30-man quick reaction force deployed late Tuesday night to Wardak province, where Army Rangers had come under fire while hunting down a regional Taliban leader in the area.
As the force entered the landing zone, the helicopter was hit by enemy fire, destroying the Chinook and killing all aboard.
Allen said the incident was not "a decision point" to judge the Chinook's battlefield capability, adding the helo would continue to perform similar ops in the future.
But as the details of the incident begin to surface, the question still remains: If the team was on a different aircraft, would they have had a better shot of coming home alive?
One long time defense observer and reporter suggests they could have, if they had been aboard a Osprey.
In an article penned by Richard Whittle, the man who literally wrote the book on the V-22, the aircraft's speed and durability may have been the edge those U.S. troops needed to get out of the Tangi valley.
During its entire time with the Marine Corps and Air Force Special Operations Command, an Osprey has never been brought down because of hostile fire, Whittle says.
"Why things don't happen [in theater] is often impossible to prove, but one probable reason for this is that it may be harder to hit a V-22 than a helicopter with the sort of weapons at the Taliban's disposal," he added.
While the V-22 does land and takeoff in the same way as a helicopter, it can get out of dangerous landing zones -- where helos are most vulnerable to attack -- faster, since it can switch to a fixed-wing aircraft in mid flight.
But speed and maneuverability alone may not have been enough to save those troops, defense aviation expert Joel Johnson said.
"I would think that anything that [can fly] higher and faster is going to be less susceptible" to enemy fire, including the type of rocket-propelled grenade that hit the Chinook, he said.
For his part, Allen would not confirm the helo was hit with an RPG as has been reported by several news outlets.
However, even if Ospreys were used that night, the situation on the ground may have prevented it from using its speed to full effect, Johnson pointed out. "Were they coming in high and going down fast, as you learn to do in a place like Iraq where they did have missiles," he said.
Another defense source with knowledge of counterterrorism operations noted there are just too many unknowns to say for sure an Osprey would have made a difference.
What altitude was the Chinook flying at when hit? How many RPG's were fired at the helo before it was hit and were Ospreys even available at the time of the mission, the source said.
"We have no idea how the engagement was," the source said. "You get three or four of those [RPGs] coming at you at fairly short range, you're hosed."
But until the answer to that question and others surrounding the mission are resolved by DoD, it is unclear whether any kind of aircraft would have changed the outcome of what is now the single largest loss of U.S. soldiers in the Afghan war.
By Carlo Munoz
Published: August 10, 2011
Washington: The loss of 38 American soldiers, including members of SEAL Team Six, this week is spawning more questions than answers as DoD begins to piece together what happened that night in eastern Afghanistan.
Gen. John Allen, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, tried to answer some of those questions during yesterday's briefing at DoD.
One question was why an regular Army CH-47 Chinook, and not a special operations-type aircraft like a Blackhawk or Osprey, was used during the mission.
The 30-man quick reaction force deployed late Tuesday night to Wardak province, where Army Rangers had come under fire while hunting down a regional Taliban leader in the area.
As the force entered the landing zone, the helicopter was hit by enemy fire, destroying the Chinook and killing all aboard.
Allen said the incident was not "a decision point" to judge the Chinook's battlefield capability, adding the helo would continue to perform similar ops in the future.
But as the details of the incident begin to surface, the question still remains: If the team was on a different aircraft, would they have had a better shot of coming home alive?
One long time defense observer and reporter suggests they could have, if they had been aboard a Osprey.
In an article penned by Richard Whittle, the man who literally wrote the book on the V-22, the aircraft's speed and durability may have been the edge those U.S. troops needed to get out of the Tangi valley.
During its entire time with the Marine Corps and Air Force Special Operations Command, an Osprey has never been brought down because of hostile fire, Whittle says.
"Why things don't happen [in theater] is often impossible to prove, but one probable reason for this is that it may be harder to hit a V-22 than a helicopter with the sort of weapons at the Taliban's disposal," he added.
While the V-22 does land and takeoff in the same way as a helicopter, it can get out of dangerous landing zones -- where helos are most vulnerable to attack -- faster, since it can switch to a fixed-wing aircraft in mid flight.
But speed and maneuverability alone may not have been enough to save those troops, defense aviation expert Joel Johnson said.
"I would think that anything that [can fly] higher and faster is going to be less susceptible" to enemy fire, including the type of rocket-propelled grenade that hit the Chinook, he said.
For his part, Allen would not confirm the helo was hit with an RPG as has been reported by several news outlets.
However, even if Ospreys were used that night, the situation on the ground may have prevented it from using its speed to full effect, Johnson pointed out. "Were they coming in high and going down fast, as you learn to do in a place like Iraq where they did have missiles," he said.
Another defense source with knowledge of counterterrorism operations noted there are just too many unknowns to say for sure an Osprey would have made a difference.
What altitude was the Chinook flying at when hit? How many RPG's were fired at the helo before it was hit and were Ospreys even available at the time of the mission, the source said.
"We have no idea how the engagement was," the source said. "You get three or four of those [RPGs] coming at you at fairly short range, you're hosed."
But until the answer to that question and others surrounding the mission are resolved by DoD, it is unclear whether any kind of aircraft would have changed the outcome of what is now the single largest loss of U.S. soldiers in the Afghan war.