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http://query.nytimes.com/search/full-pa ... A9659C8B63

Pentagon Orders 11 New Ospreys
WASHINGTON, May 15 -- The Pentagon ordered 11 new V-22 Osprey aircraft today for $817 million, helping a program plagued by deadly crashes and other problems.

The Osprey had been in danger of being eliminated after 23 marines were killed in crashes during testing in 2000. The aircraft's maker, a joint venture between the Boeing Company and Textron's Bell Helicopter unit, had to redesign parts to fix hydraulic and other problems.


The Osprey has fixed wings and propellers that can tilt upward so it can take off and land like a helicopter, then tilt forward so it can fly like an airplane. The Marine Corps wants to use it to replace its aging fleet of transport helicopters. The Air Force and Navy are interested in it, too.

The Osprey has a longer range and flies faster and more quietly than the Marines' current fleet of transport helicopters.

A design flaw was blamed for a December 2000 crash in North Carolina that killed four Marines. The flaw allowed electrical and hydraulic lines to rub together while the rotors were being tilted.

The deadliest crash occurred in an unusually rapid descent. Nineteen Marines died in that crash, in April 2000, near Tucson.



"Retreat, hell! We just got here!"-Captain Lloyd Williams, 2nd Marine Division, Belleau Wood, France, WWI

LOL, what a bargain....

Wouldn't it be nice if i was actually wrong about this POS, and it actually goes ahead and works as advertised?

Too bad it won't happen....

"Trample the wounded...hurdle the dead"

see this is just insane <shaking head in beurocratic dissbelife> I fully support the V-22, but for me right now it's STILL a tech demo!! Why are we buying more before we have all the fixxes done and testing is finished!!! I HATE fly then fixx, Grrrr!

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

Well what you are going to get in reality is buy minimally then retire at the earliest possible date.

Make ya feel any better?

"Trample the wounded...hurdle the dead"

course not LOL

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

There IS a civilian tilt-rotor aircraft that DOES work. Why don't the Marines just buy one or two of those and study them? Or just buy 50-100 of them and give them a designation and fancy name. Either way you get something that works and doesn't kill Marines while it's at it.

"Retreat, hell! We just got here!"-Captain Lloyd Williams, 2nd Marine Division, Belleau Wood, France, WWI

They are MUCH smaller.

The vrs phenomenon is not nearly as pronounced with rotors of smaller diameter, and the downwash forces are not even remotely comparable.

Methinx the lesson there is that Tilt rotor is fine for small aircraft, but becomes increasingly problematic as size is increased.

The Osprey is so large that it is waaaay into the problematic category.

"Trample the wounded...hurdle the dead"

How large is it in comparison the heavy transport choppers like Ch-46/-53 and medium choppers like the UH-60?

"Retreat, hell! We just got here!"-Captain Lloyd Williams, 2nd Marine Division, Belleau Wood, France, WWI

Osprey wieghs more than twice what a UH-60 does. I'd haveta look up the exact weights, but it is a BIG aircraft.

"Trample the wounded...hurdle the dead"

The sad thing is that with all that extra weight, your transport capacity isn't but twice that of the UH-60 or another medium chopper. I think it's in the low 20's for the V-22 and like 10 or 11 for the Black Hawk...?

The range isn't that much greater with the Osprey, and I haven't seen any plans for armament other than a single 12.7-mm gun. Not a great idea to put a slow tilt-rotor transport aircraft out in a hot zone with no means of defense, save that of the infantrymen aboard.

I live in Arlington, Texas, and I work about 2 miles from a Bell Helicopter plant that does frequent testing of the Osprey. I've watched it fly over one of two major highways in our city on test flights since some time in the late '90s, and I've always thought it was a neat idea. However, when functinoality is as crucial as it is when American lives are at stake, I don't think that I'd be putting my money on the V-22 at this point in time.

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” Benjamin Franklin, 1759

the XV-15 has been flying for like 20 years or something but it is VERY small and is being used as the base for the BA-609 exec shuttle which are just going into testing.

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

[quote]


The Osprey has a longer range and flies faster and more quietly than the Marines' current fleet of transport helicopters.

A design flaw was blamed for a December 2000 crash in North Carolina that killed four Marines. The flaw allowed electrical and hydraulic lines to rub together while the rotors were being tilted.

------------

They have flown 460 odd hours in an easy test flight program since the last crash. They don't reveal the amount of DMMH per flight hour either. It can only haul 15 passengers so far. Which isn't much more than a Blackhawk.

They still haven't explored how it handles icing. Every fix wing transport has serious deice and anti-ice capability. We lost a few choppers in Afghan from icing too.

If you hit www.pogo.org they have a 4 page report on the recent Osprey test program.

They still need to explore VRS. It uses VMS for it's software.

Jack

All they 'need' to do is cancel this damned thing before it eats up the entire USMC budget.

The USMC could have revitalized their ENTIRE helo fleet ALREADY for what has ALREADY been spent on Osprey.

"Trample the wounded...hurdle the dead"

The Osprey is like the ugly chick that someone asks to the prom because they feel sorry for her. What a POS.

"Speed puts me in the zone."

So is the USMC doomed to never grace the skies behind the controls of a VTOL/VSTOL aircraft?

They've had problems with both the AV-8 and now the V-22...

I think someone on the design board of both aircraft is plotting against the Corps. Maybe a jaded ex-applicant who couldn't pass the ASVAB or PFT? (Just a joke, y'all)

But seriously... it seems like other than choppers, the USMC's not had any luck with going vertical. What gives?

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” Benjamin Franklin, 1759

Actually, the AV-8's problems were USMC leadership created when they decided to lower the standards for the flight training program.

The Harrier is just unforgiving in a hover, but it doesn't need to ingress and egress hot LZ's, so it's not nearly as big a problem.

"Trample the wounded...hurdle the dead"

[quote]
Actually, the AV-8's problems were USMC leadership created when they decided to lower the standards for the flight training program.

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They knew long ago as in the 70s, they needed more flight time and more TLC for the Harrier. Marines were crashing at 4X more the UK. Big hint not enough flight time.

Betting on Harriers and then the money sucking Osprey has cost the Marines damn near their aviation assets.

Naval Safety Center had identified problems with the Harrier and Tomcat by 78. In the Tomcats case it was the damn motors.

BTW, the Army bailed from the Osprey program in the early 80s. They knew pigs couldn't fly.

Jack

It is easy to Monday Morning QB the Osprey, and in light of the loss of life and money, the program deserves some scrutiny.......However, look at the concept.......We have a helo, fixed wing morph. It will require some time for the pilot to cut his teeth. For example, I am a layman, but in certain emergency procedures, fixed wing flight characteristics, and rotary wing flight characteristics reqires completely different escape procedeures...........In a crisis a pilot will revert back to his training, and in the case of the OV-22 what training does a pilot have to revert to??? We have never before had an aircraft within our inventory that has the flying qualities of the OV-22. Simualtors can only acomplish so much. Now the fact that the USMC hiearchy got sneaky and tried to hide some design flaws that they knew about is not helping this program. I believe once the teething process is finished, this will be a viable asset..........Lets just not hope the costs of these growing pains will not be to tremendous to bear, like they have been. I am sure this argument would not fly in the livingroom of the parents of a US Marine PFC who lost his live as a result of the OV-22 mismanagement.............But we need the damn aircraft, once again we have painted ourselves into a corner so to speak because politicians lack the abaility to see beyond the next election in their prospective district(s). Sound familiar, look at NAVTACAIR.


In the case of the Tomcat, it was the damn motors.........

We can thank a few people for that snafu, but lets start at the top and Assistant SECDEF Packard........Grumman and NAVAIR had concerns about the PWTF-30 in 1971.........The F-14 was never supposed to go into fleet service with the interm powerplant.

If your not having fun, your not doing it right!

Edited by - chadrewsky on May 30 2003 1:05 PM

Edited by - chadrewsky on May 30 2003 1:11 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=1 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Why are we buying more before we have all the fixxes done and testing is finished!!! I HATE fly then fixx, Grrrr! <hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

BTW Boomer, does the F/A-18E/F wing drop ring a bell?
I don't hate the aircraft, it has some cool features, but a fly-off competition would have been better for the program.

If your not having fun, your not doing it right!

yeah the wing drop was a freak show,it was like when NASA found out Al Gores X-33 was aero-dynamically unstable AFTER the contract was lett(wind tunnel? what's a wind tunnel?). I dont know why they didnt find that gem earlier. And I've always been against "fly then fix" it's just backasswards to every entry in the "Common sense in buisness" handbook. The procurment process we use doesnt help any either "buy it now cause it's cheaper than buying it later" yeah untill someone finds an "oopsie" in the mayo somewhere and it all has to go back to the drawing board for fixxes.

"We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would harm us". George Orwell

Fighting For Justice With Brains Of Steel !
<img src="http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/atengun2X.GIF" border=0>

Edited by - boomer on May 30 2003 5:07 PM

_________________
The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

I agree with chad 110% <img src=icon_smile_approve.gif border=0 align=middle>
Your going to get mad but the other helos are getting old! And congress is pushing for more and more modern break threw Aircraft. Not proven designed. I have no doubt that we can design these break threw Aircraft and set a new bar. I believe that once the osprey gets it's foothold it will take hold and not look back. I feel were in a blur area like the 20'. Once we get threw and are well adjusted with the new tech we can have a strong modern 21-century fleet.

"the closer we are to danger the father away we are from harm."