More Osprey problems
Marines May Seek New V-22 Engines
If any program by the military needs to be scrapped, its this one. The Osprey has never worked as it was suppossed to and they still keep pissing away money on it. Drop the Osprey and go back and try again.
The lack of a viable long-term sustainment solution for the V-22's Rolls-Royce engines may drive the U.S. Marine Corps to look for entirely new engines in a few years.
If any program by the military needs to be scrapped, its this one. The Osprey has never worked as it was suppossed to and they still keep pissing away money on it. Drop the Osprey and go back and try again.
posted by davis14633 at 05:15
3 Comments:
I disagree. Sure it has development problems; that's because it's a completely new type of vehicle. Many people said the same thing about the helicopter during early development, but visionaries such as Igor Sikorsky soldiered on, often with little or no funding, to prove a concept they knew would work.
For the same reason, it took many years and dozens of fatal crashes to get the Harrier into service. But it was eventually put into service, despite the nay-sayers, and has proven itself a boon to Marine assault forces. They provided all of the fixed-wing air support to my brigade when we went ashore during Desert Storm. That's because they could do something no other fixed-wing plane could: fly from a helicopter assault ship. Without the Harrier, we'd have been at the mercy of the Air Force for air support... and as a Marine, that should make you shudder. =o)
The Osprey offers a type of force multiplier and projection capability that conventional helicopters will never be able to match. The problem with "trying again" is that the CH-46 fleet is already long past retirement; they fall out of the air on pretty much a monthly basis. It would cost more to revive the assembly line for them, which was long ago scrapped, than it would to continue Osprey development for decades more. And, were we to follow such a route into folly, we'd have a brand new fleet of fifty year old helicopters which are notoriously cranky and unreliable even when new.
The Osprey will prove itself, but new things take time to get there. Just finding people who can fly it is a challenge, since it requires a combination of the skills of both helo and Harrier pilots. Once it is in service, however, its range, speed, capacity and loiter time will provide a quantum leap in the capabilities of Marine MEU-SOC battalions.
My problem with the osprey is the use of rotors in its current configuration. They have been trying to get the Osprey to work for almost 27 years.The main problem is that by placing the rotors at the end of the fixed wing away from the main body has shown to put undo stress on the whole structure. That is the reason they have had so much trouble getting it to do what its suppossed to do, rotate the engines while in flight from verticle to the traditional airplane configuration.
The biggest issue however is that there was a design with a seperate central rotor and blade and fixed wing jet engines that was felt by many to be a better design. The current design was chosen I'm sure by some money exchanging hands and thus the current Osprey design.
There has been also criticism that the builders were designing avionics that would be obsolete in a few years and would have to be updated instead of using the off the shelf avionic designs that were being employed in the f-15 and F/A 18 and were considered more fluid and adaptable to new technology. The whole thing just screams under the table shady deals to keep the Osprey cash cow from running dry for Bell Helocopter.
My point I am trying to make is that I believe in the need for a new air transport system that has hover capabilities and heavy payload lift, and that staying with the 46 and 53 is not the way to go. What I am saying here is that Ford thought the Edsel was a new way to go in midsize luxury vehicles, but even they knew when it was time to try something else.
Hrm. Can't argue with you that there may be "under-the-table" military-industrial complex deals happening vis-a-vis the Osprey. That's pretty well impossible to prove, but is always a possibility.
I think the concept is viable, while a combined-engine concept as you describe entails the downfall of increased complexity and maintenance overhead. As you say, the Corps needs a new vertical assault vehicle, regardless of what it may end up being. I think the Osprey has more detractors than real problems, but that's my perspective.
In any case, as we've both been strapped into 46s in the past, I'm sure we can agree that we'd like to see that come to an end sooner rather than later.
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