Marines sending V-22 Osprey to Iraq(the plane that's already claimed 30)

[Jim Warren]

This thing is a loser, except for Boeing and Bell that is.
This is going to be bad when these things start falling out of the sky.




http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/04/13/osprey/
Marines to deploy tilt-rotor aircraft to Iraq
POSTED: 0505 GMT (1305 HKT), April 14, 2007
Story Highlights
• Aircraft can fly like plane, hover like helicopter
• Marines to use V-22 in place of helicopters
• Marines say V-22's development troubles in past
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The military's controversial V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft will head to Iraq for its first combat tour later this year, Marine officials announced Friday.

After 18 years and $20 billion in development, the plane will deploy to western Iraq in September to support Marine Corps combat operations for seven months, Marine officials said.



Do phrases like vortex ring state send shivers down your spine? Then this trip might not be for you, but for all the other media folks out there, here's the news: the Pentagon is offering a ride to reporters on its V-22 Osprey, the aircraft that's killed 30 people (so far).
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/04/take_a_ride_on_.html

[MADem]

1. If the enemy don't getcha, the defense establishment will NT

[katmondoo]

2. McCain might want a ride on this

Prove how safe it is. The reporters better say no thanks for now.

[flyingfysh]

3. The Osprey is a very successful craft

It has achieved its primary goal: of shifting billions of dollars to the builders.

[flamin lib]

11. I'll not be defending military spending or the contract procedure,

but I'll defend the V-22 as a piece of equipment. See down thread.

[icnorth]

31. Quote: "The Osprey is a very successful craft."

Shit, you had me going there for a minute f.f. I wuz ready fer a fight!:spank: :D

[Kutjara]

4. Smack a home-made RPG upside one of those rotors...

...and you'll have a lot of very expensive scrap metal lying on the ground. Or you could just wait for the plane to fall out of the sky on its own. Same difference.

[flamin lib]

9. And this is different from shooting a slower Blackhawk with an RPG?

The lift capacity of both helicopters and the V-22 make it impossible to armor them enough to defeat even small arms fire. The Marines changed the payload specs several times as they realized the possibilities the aircraft offered.

Gee, it'll carry a whole platoon? Can we throw in a jeep too?

[Kutjara]

12. No different at all.

As the Russians learned in Afghanistan and we (supposedly) learned in Somalia, aircraft like helicopters and propeller-driven VTOLs are very vulnerable to ground fire. The only real difference is the number of people who'll be killed when one of these things is hit.

Maybe the higher speed and consequently lower time exposed to danger of the V-22 will enhance its survivability, but that really depends on how effectively it's used from a tactical standpoint. If they just hang it up in the sky as an observation post like they used to do with Blackhawks, it's going to suffer the same fate.

[Jonathan50]

16. The V22 is actually less manuverable and slower while landing and taking off.

Than is a regular helicopter.

That makes it more vulnerable, not less, to ground fire from small arms, RPGs and the like.

http://www.g2mil.com/V-22videos.htm

V-22s may look agile during air shows when they fly with no payload, little fuel, and experienced test pilots. However, when combat loaded, they can easily lose control if they perform combat maneuvers while rotors are up. Rotorcraft expert and test pilot Nic Lappos explains:

For a tilt rotor, the blades are purposely made with less chord than a helicopter, because the thinner blades are then operating at a higher angle of attack in a hover, and are more efficient. This means that they can save power in a hover by operating at a high Ct/sigma. The downside is that there is little margin left over for maneuvering at low speed. For helos, the blade chord is sized up to allow flight at high speed, so it is way oversized for a hover. Tilt rotors don't need the extra chord for high speed because they are on the wing by then, and the rotors are props!

The V-22 has a hover Ct/sigma of 0.175, which means that it will stall at only about 1.2 to 1.3 g's in helo mode (.21/.175). A typical helo has a hover Ct/sigma of about 0.09, so it never gets close to stall at low speed.

A person can encounter 1.2 Gs while driving their car around. Imagine if cars flipped over at 1.2 Gs? Several years ago, a model of Japanese jeep was recalled because it flipped over too easily. The manufacturer argued that the driver's manual clearly warned against making sharp turns, yet this was not accepted as safe and the jeep recalled. This is Bell-Boeing's solution to the problem. The V-22 NATOPS (users manual) is filled with warnings about avoiding sharp "combat" maneuvers.

[Kutjara]

20. Great, a combat vehicle that can't...

...engage in combat maneuvers, at precisely the time when that capability is most necessary. Maybe they'll put warning labels on the outside saying "Please don't shoot at this aircraft. The pilot is having a hard enough time just keeping it in the air."

This is going to be bad.

[Jim Warren]

29. follow-up

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2005/10/pogo-takes-aim-at-v22-osprey/index.php

Here they refer the POGO article:

http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2005/09/pogos_v22_conce.html

[Jonathan50]

30. From your second link..

Duma called for further testing on the aircraft’s ability to maneuver in the heat of battle. "Further testing and tactics development is needed to expand the maneuvering flight envelop as much as possible, and to determine whether there is operational utility in the use of more extreme helicopter-style maneuvering in a high-threat environment," his report said.


I suspect all they need to do is ask some Vietnam vet chopper pilots if they would wish to have their craft's maneuvering ability reduced.

My guess is the answer would be a very loud "HELL NO".

[wakeme2008]

5. Just wait until the blowing sands of Iraq get to it.

[Monkeyman]

8. Yep

[flamin lib]

10. Sand is gonna' be a problem no matter what vehicle or machine

you talk about. The grunts are using condoms to keep sand out of the rifle barrels. It's a problem, but no more so than for Blackhawks or Apaches. Or HummVees for that matter.

It's not that bad an airplane anymore.

[Monkeyman]

13. I'll take you word for that. I still want to see it battle tested

Marines like it. Must of what I heard it was not it but error

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. or give it to the insurgents,

it would probably be most effective against the enemy if we just left them in the desert with the keys in the ignition,

[Greyhound]

25. Now there's an idea worth investigating. If we left enough of them lying around

maybe we could "achieve victory in Iraq".:rofl:

[flamin lib]

7. Well, not so much a loser. It's actually a pretty good airplane

now that the two issues which plagued it have been fixed.

Issue one is vibration. Lotsa' shake rattle & roll goin' on. Early versions had hydraulic tubing leaks because the lines were routed too close to cowlings and engine parts. The vibrations lead to holes in the lines which lead to control failure. The fix was to re-route the lines and expose them to easy visual inspection. A little more maintenance than was originally expected, but still much less than something like the FA-18 Hornet.

Second issue was software for engine/rotor speed control. The rotors have to maintain rpm to function. If one engine loses power the software would reduce the pitch of the rotor on that side to compensate. Sufficient loss of pitch caused the airplane to flip as one side continued to lift. This only happened in the hover mode, as in landing or taking off. The fix was to re-write the code and cross link both engine/rotor controls (added some horse power too). Now if one engine loses power, say by being shot, the worst case is the airplane will slowly land. Not the best situation. but no worse than conventional time-tested helicopters.

The advantages to the Osprey are three: It's fast. Top speed in excess of 300 MPH. It's harder to shoot at, med-evac is faster and insertion is also faster. It's fuel efficient. It can go farther into theater to insert or retrieve troops. It's quieter. Choppers are noisy because of the rotor cavitation. While not silent, the V-22 is a lot quieter than a Blackhawk.

I'll admit a certain bias as, in a previous lifetime, I helped specify electronic parts for it. That's how I know the reasons for the early failures and the fixes that cured them.

It's a good airplane that fills a very necessary niche and is a great improvement over both the venerable HUEY or Blackhawk and fixed wing craft like the C-47 and the C-130.

[Wilber_Stool]

14. How fast it can transition between modes will be the real problem.

When it goes between hover and forward flight, it will be a sitting duck. From what I've seen it takes much too long.

[BearSquirrel2]

17. As long as they fixed it ...

As long as they fixed it ... great. Even without the heavy lift capacity, it's a great concept as far as shuttling troops in and out of combat areas.

But this is a defense department that insists that missile defense works. I really don't expect them to give the proper amount of scrutiny to the situation.

They're deploying it. If they use it and the things aren't flipping themselves over, we'll know.

[karlrschneider]

19. What is rotor cavitation?

??

[Jonathan50]

23. "Choppers are noisy because of the rotor cavitation."

The "whump whump" noise you hear from big choppers is because the blade tip on the advancing side is approaching the speed of sound and creates a shock wave.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1991ahs..procQ....F

In this paper we discuss the problem of high speed rotor noise prediction. In particular, we propose that from the point of view of the acoustic analogy, shocks around rotating blades are sources of sound. We show that, although for a wing at uniform steady rectilinear motion with shocks the volume quadrupole and shock sources cancel in the far field to the order of 1/r, this cannot happen for rotating blades. In this case, some cancellation between volume quadrupoles and shock sources occurs, yet the remaining shock noise contribution is still potent.

[karlrschneider]

26. That is part of the noise source in certain flight conditions, but a more significant

contributor is the fact the rotor blades "flap" - a necessary design feature to achieve proper balance between
lift (thrust) and centripetal forces - and act something like a large loudspeaker (Half of one, more accurately) and
produce pressure waves (sound) at approximately rotor RPS with harmonics depending on the number of blades.

By the way, "cavitation" doesn't occur in air because it's already in the gaseous state.

[Jonathan50]

32. I was wondering how air bubbles would form in air :)

[karlrschneider]

34. Vacuum bubbles?

:rofl:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

35. whatever happened to NASA's prop experiments

to achieve higher speeds, lower noise, and great efficiency?
those weird, curved props that produced lots of thrust?

[Jonathan50]

37. Here they are on a C 130 J

[ChairmanAgnostic]

39. thanks. that must be the latest genX

because the ones I saw were massively curved, almost like half a question mark.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

27. oh goody. let's expose the hydraulics for easy access

to stones, sand, gunfire, rocks, rain, wind, spit.

By the way, in winds higher than 20 mph, you don't want to take off or land. In rain, forget it.

[Jim Warren]

28. Time will tell......

time will tell. Unfortunate for those who fly in it if it isn't.

[applegrove]

15. They are the loudest thing I have ever heard in the sky.

[frylock]

18. those might come in handy..

http://vwt.d2g.com:8081/22gialongstreet.gif

[BearSquirrel2]

21. It's designation should be MARINE-1

Let the President test it!!!!

[Gabi Hayes]

22. more here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x650390#650484

[Greyhound]

24. Oh yes, the $20 billion dollar Republik welfare program.

I see they finally got at least a few that don't immediately crash and kill everyone on board. Like Star Wars, this boondoggle has been killed and resurrected more often than Dennis Miller's career. The genius of this monstrosity is it's clever merging of all the disadvantages of both an airplane and a helicopter, without any of the advantages of either, wrapped up with an enormous price tag.

As another poster pointed out, it should be required transportation for all politicians of the party that will not let it die it's well deserved death.

[hootinholler]

33. Can we replace Air Force One and Two with a fleet of these?

Pretty please? If they're good enough for the troops, they're good enough for * and Dearth Dicky.

-Hoot

[gravity]

36. The craft is not dangerous

It's flaws have been fixed, and is ready for deployment. It's not the same aircraft that killed the 30 marines.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

40. and we are winning the war on terra in Iraq.

and success is around the corner.
and the surge is already a sucksess.
and condi rice is the best diplomat in the world
and darth cheney is saving America from really bad guys

[Strelnikov_]

41. Oh, yea, it's just a fine piece o equipment at $80M/ea

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/business/14osprey.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

All for $55 B total program cost.

Instead, the V-22 must land at speeds as slow as nine miles an hour and in a fairly straight line. A 2005 Pentagon report said these limitations “may prove insufficient” in protecting the V-22 from ground fire. As a result, that Pentagon evaluation said the V-22 was suited only for low- and medium-threat environments, and is not “operationally effective” in high-threat environments.

. . .

Each V-22 costs about three times the price of a modern helicopter and nearly the same as a fighter jet. The Marines will get 360 Ospreys, Air Force Special Forces will get 50 and there will be 48 for the Navy.

. . .

All new weapons have problems in testing. But critics say the V-22 is plagued with basic design problems. Should the V-22 lose power, it can not “autorotate” like a helicopter and allow the updraft of air to rotate its propellers for a hard, but survivable, landing. Because of this, according to the 2005 Pentagon report, emergency V-22 landings without power at altitudes below 1,600 feet “are not likely to be survivable.” “If you lose power on a V-22, you just burn and crash,” said one Pentagon official involved in testing the craft but who was not authorized to speak publicly. “There is no way to survive. ”

. . .

Three engine fires occurred recently because of problems related to hydraulic lines. In March 2006, a computer problem led an idling V-22 to suddenly take off on its own. It then slammed into the ground, breaking off its right wing. All 54 V-22’s were grounded for weeks in February because of a faulty computer chip.

[karlrschneider]

42. It's the same idiotic design.

I hope you're right but I wouldn't accept a ride in that abortion...and I've flown over 200 types of aircraft. As in piloted and been an aeronautical engineer for 40 years.

[PsN2Wind]

38. Shoulda been named

"The Albatross"
For those that had to read "The Ancient Mariner".

[karlrschneider]

43. The name was already taken...the Grumman Albatross

:D

http://aeroweb.brooklyn.cuny.edu/database/museums/imgthumb.htm?id=4073

[PsN2Wind]

44. Didn't think about the Grumman

A fine aircraft long used by the Coasties for search and sea rescue.
Just thought of the albatross around the Mariners neck.

[Name removed]

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