On March 19, 1989 the MV-22 Osprey had its first flight. That was some 7 years ago. Today, the compressor stall that forced one of two of these poor machines into an unscheduled landing in Iceland, was spun as “…very normal, not only within military aircraft, but in commercial aircraft,"
http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=8c6a897f-5273-4d56-80ef-bbf42847ae02&
The MV-22 is perhaps the single worst example of how the MARINE corps lost its focus and bought a boondoggle instead of an operationally reliable machine. 7 years is a long time to bring something that is supposed to be the future MARINE over-the-horizon ‘force projector’ to the point where it can reliably fly “over-the-horizon”. Apparently it aint there yet. 7 years is more than enough time for something that costs the tax payer what the Osprey is costing us. I might point out that 7 years has been filled with deception and test data falsification
(reference this link among many http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b7d79a05c57.htm) a "two-star" being threatened with losing their job is NEVER a sign of a solid and honestly run program....
and a lot of time wasting instead of solid science to refine a technology that is not ready for prime time. For all the obsfuscation we might have had what we bought into by this time. Regardless, MV-22 isn’t anywhere close to being something that I would want to stake my life on in a combat environment.
Make no mistake, I think tilt-rotor is an amazing technology and most certainly one that needs to be examined and put forth for the future. Certainly is makes more sense for those odd 500 nm dashes in to the deep fight than say a CH-53 (and that is if the tail rotor or some other critical piece stays on the -53) but it would take the most neophyte and aviation-ignorant of people to agree that MV-22 is even remotely ready for prime time. If for no other reason, as an operational machine, when one goes in, for all practical purposes, everyone is gonna die.
The MH-47 is a proven airframe. No it doesn’t do the weird origami trick that seems to be a requirement (and also the bane of aircraft like the MV-22) of all MARINE rotary-wing aircraft, but it hauls as much at not much less speed, and most importantly, we are not forced to conduct continued test-flight programs with the thing while using live MARINES on board during operational missions.
The point here is this; we certainly need a kick in the door ability worldwide but lets get real, nobody is going to sneak up on any country today with an LHA and quickly launch a bunch of fold-up airplanes. NEWS FLASH!, Pretty much any time we sortie anywhere, they know we are coming. Our strength lies in being able to leverage the night and all weather navigation to use the elements to our advantage. This does not necessitate Rube Goldberg mechanical nightmares.
There is no question that for efficiency and speed the fixed wing will always trump the helicopter, but it is time to put the brakes on the Osprey. It is okay, we’ll get the Osprey eventually and it will be right and not kill MARINES or fail to get to the fight. We can afford to delay the operational deployment date of the machine for the sake of simplifying what is both ‘young’ and wayyyyy too complex for serious operational reliability. The cost of the Osprey is a lot, I mean enough of a lot that if we use them in any serious fashion, and we will, and when (not if) we lawn dart them in (recall the early UH-60s), and we will, we are going to be looking at some serious money and tragedy in terms of lost lives and pain. All the worse if in the accident investigations we continue to find that in our zeal to create this technological monstrosity we ignored the practical reality that simplicity and survivability tend to be directly related.
For this reason, not to mention the fact that the thing can’t seem to get across the Atlantic…which again begs the question, if you are planning to self-deploy why do you need the absurd complexity of folding it up like a paper crane?...without stopping for the engine change and I am sure vodka in the company of blue eyed platinum blondes basking in hot springs; we need to stop the program. We need to get it completely right before we go further. There are plenty of interim options and while the CH-46 death trap is trying to find its way in the history books, it is still operational and somewhat reliable.
The joint environment means that it is perfectly acceptable to get a company of Army CH-47s to help haul you if need be and heaven knows that after 35 years we have the Blackhawk reasonably worked out. It might not be the perfect ‘self-contained’ solution, but it will save lives and keep us out of the nightmare of a lot of accident investigations and solemn visits to mothers and wives back home.
