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Subject: Osprey story
Bob Roberts    10/2/2007 4:58:11 PM
Hey I ran across this story on the osprey the other day and was curious to see what you guys had to say about. He's pretty critical on the osprey. What I'm really interested in is if this story totally true or if the writer has stretched the truth in some cases. http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20070927/us_time/v22ospreyaflyingshame
 
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Bob Roberts       10/2/2007 5:02:09 PM
It's hard to imagine an American weapons program so fraught with problems that Dick Cheney would try repeatedly to cancel it - hard, that is, until you get to know the Osprey. As Defense Secretary under George H.W. Bush, Cheney tried four times to kill the Marine Corps's ungainly tilt-rotor aircraft. Four times he failed. Cheney found the arguments for the combat troop carrier unpersuasive and its problems irredeemable. "Given the risk we face from a military standpoint, given the areas where we think the priorities ought to be, the V-22 is not at the top of the list," he told a Senate committee in 1989. "It came out at the bottom of the list, and for that reason, I decided to terminate it." But the Osprey proved impossible to kill, thanks to lawmakers who rescued it from Cheney's ax time and again because of the home-district money that came with it - and to the irresistible notion that American engineers had found a way to improve on another great aviation breakthrough, the helicopter.
 

Now the aircraft that flies like an airplane but takes off and lands like a chopper is about to make its combat debut in Iraq. It has been a long, strange trip: the V-22 has been 25 years in development, more than twice as long as the Apollo program that put men on the moon. V-22 crashes have claimed the lives of 30 men - 10 times the lunar program's toll - all before the plane has seen combat. The Pentagon has put $20 billion into the Osprey and expects to spend an additional $35 billion before the program is finished. In exchange, the Marines, Navy and Air Force will get 458 aircraft, averaging $119 million per copy.

 

The saga of the V-22 - the battles over its future on Capitol Hill, a performance record that is spotty at best, a long determined quest by the Marines to get what they wanted - demonstrates how Washington works (or, rather, doesn't). It exposes the compromises that are made when narrow interests collide with common sense. It is a tale that shows how the system fails at its most significant task, by placing in jeopardy those we count on to protect us. For even at a stratospheric price, the V-22 is going into combat shorthanded. As a result of decisions the Marine Corps made over the past decade, the aircraft lacks a heavy-duty, forward-mounted machine gun to lay down suppressing fire against forces that will surely try to shoot it down. And if the plane's two engines are disabled by enemy fire or mechanical trouble while it's hovering, the V-22 lacks a helicopter's ability to coast roughly to the ground - something that often saved lives in Vietnam. In 2002 the Marines abandoned the requirement that the planes be capable of autorotating (as the maneuver is called), with unpowered but spinning helicopter blades slowly letting the aircraft land safely. That decision, a top Pentagon aviation consultant wrote in a confidential 2003 report obtained by Time, is "unconscionable" for a wartime aircraft. "When everything goes wrong, as it often does in a combat environment," he said, "autorotation is all a helicopter pilot has to save his and his passengers' lives."

 

The Plane That Wouldn't Die

 

In many ways, the v-22 is a classic example of how large weapons systems have been built in the U.S. since Dwight Eisenhower warned in 1961 of the "unwarranted influence" of "the military-industrial complex." The Osprey has taken years to design, build, test and bring to the field. All that time meant plenty of money for its prime contractors, Bell Helicopter and the Boeing Co. As the plane took shape and costs increased, some of its missions were shelved or sidelined. And yet, with the U.S. spending almost $500 billion a year on defense - not counting the nearly $200 billion annually for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan - there's plenty of money for marginal or unnecessary programs. Pentagon reform and efficiency are far less of a cause among lawmakers today than during the years of Ronald Reagan's comparatively modest defense-spending boom. "Almost every program the U.S. military is now buying takes longer to develop, costs more than predicted and usually doesn't meet the original specifications and r

 
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Bob Roberts       10/15/2007 4:13:04 PM
I would have figured that this article would have stirred debate a little more than this.  I guess it was too long.  Either way is the the Osprey the unreliable, maintenance heavy, flying deathtrap that this article makes it out to be.
 
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phrogdriver       10/16/2007 11:34:00 PM
The article is completely bogus.  The critics have finally figured out that the vortex ring state non-phenomenon was a non-problem, so they focused on the autorotation and gun issues.  
 
The Osprey is more survivable than any other rotorcraft in the world.  It is faster and more agile than any other assault aircraft.  This more than offsets the lack of guns on the sides.  The Time article makes it appear as if assault aircraft anywhere have forward-firing ordnance--they don't.  In a couple years the Osprey will.  Look at the data--the ramp is the most vulnerable quadrant, anyway. 
 
It won't GET hit, if it does, it can better SURVIVE the hit, and if somehow it doesn't, the crew and pax will be more likely to LIVE through a crash. 
 
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PowerPointRanger    Ready or not...   10/16/2007 11:59:59 PM
Well, I guess we're about to find out if it's a blessing or a boondoggle.
 
Hopefully, they've fixed all of the numerous problems with the design.  Regardless, it remains the weapons system with the greatest cost overrun in our inventory.  That's a fact.
 
I doubt it was money well spent.
 
 
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Ezekiel       10/17/2007 1:25:23 AM
I think the osprey has some amazing capabilities, especially on the logistical and transport fronts. But the lack of a real defensive weapon mounted on the front of the craft is very troubling for a transport that is expected to deliver in a hot LZ.
 
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Berova       10/17/2007 3:29:26 AM
Hmmm... do Chinooks, Blackhawks, etc. have front mounted armament?

Ospreys have the potential to be transformational should they prove to be reliable mechanically and operationally.

 
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