Osprey Tilt-Rotor flies first SAR mission

[gobi1570]

Got my info from the History Channel. Modern Marvels did a segment on it. Discovery Channel also did a show called FutureWeapon that covered it last year. They sent a guy to fly on it. Maybe the producers of those shows were on crack, but both shows emphasized that a LOT of changes had been made in the V22 since those crashes.

gobi1570:
I didn’t catch those shows and of course the Marines are going to sing the party line. They must have made MAJOR changes since the basic aerodynamics cause the vortex ring state. And the hydraulic system snakes it self everywhere onboard. Then there is my personal bias against fly-by-wire. Having programmed and tested SW longer than I like to think, I just don’t trust those systems. A complex SW system can’t ever test all the decision paths.
Huh, maybe that’s why I live on a simple boat now?
If your interested check out how NASA has the Space Shuttle system computers programmed. But most programs won’t spend NASA kind of money.

Cbruger:
Your statements are correct but I think your romanticizing modern weapon system acquisition. I would suggest that every American should research how weapon systems are created. It should shock and appall you.

[hellosailor]

Gobi-
" my understanding was that the Marines were lobbying pretty hard for them."
Assuming you were not mislead...If ten thousand riflemen say they want this cool new flying machine, does that make ANY OF THEM qualififed to make the decision to buy it?
I don't think so. The average Marine is a young gung-ho with many things to his credit--but a knowledge of aviation safety, military history, and major weapons platforms is not among them.
I would say that "a few of the top Marine Corps brass" wanted the Osprey, and I'd still say that most of THEM were not qualified to pass judgement on it either. Only after you debug the platform, train the pilots, and see if it can make a thousand flights without killing everyone on board a couple of times, can you put the decision to the fine riflemen as to whether they should ride that particular "horse".

The US military has a sadly long and consistent reputation for saying "We'd like an order of pie in the sky" and then having Congress roll the pork barrel until something can be hammered out of it. Sometimes, a good weapons platform or system. Often--a huge boondoggle that kills good men trying to tame it.

The Osprey? Damned thing still looks awfully vulnerable to many attacks, including tall sticks and rocks thrown at those huge props. Not to mention, how many more GI's could have gotten better housing, medical care, and pensions from the money that was thrown into the Osprey.

Oh yeah....

[gobi1570]

I agree totally on it's vulnerability. It's an absolute scandal that it only has that one lame ass small calibre gun on the back, and the rear exit has to be left open, with a marine hanging out, for that to be used. It was supposed to ship with a large calibre gatling gun on the front, but last I heard that wasn't even ready to test yet.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

... I would say that "a few of the top Marine Corps brass" wanted the Osprey, and I'd still say that most of THEM were not qualified to pass judgement on it either. Only after you debug the platform, train the pilots, and see if it can make a thousand flights without killing everyone on board a couple of times, can you put the decision to the fine riflemen as to whether they should ride that particular "horse" ...

Originally Posted by Reality Check

The Osprey is a project that not one of the services wanted or needed ...

So, if no-one is qualified to judge, how would you (anyone) recommend that new gear be selected/targeted for research, development, proving, manufacturing, and deployment?

Getting a handle on these difficult decision-making processes could be extrapolated for use in the cruisers’ milieu.

[LtBrett]

I find it amazing that this aircraft is still so controversial that it stirs up a hornet's nest on a cruising message board. It was a bit harder to develop than other aircraft, causing all sorts of misguided 'facts' to be put forward. Like Jones, I have a little familiarity with the early stages of its development. The engineers I knew on the program were pretty pessismistic. But the fact remains that the aircraft has come a long way. I'm no longer in the loop, so I can't comment on the current safety record. What I can say with some certainty is why the aircraft was ordered. The Marine Corps has a mission requirement to move men and materiel over the horizon from a ship with a short runway to an unprepared operating area as rapidly as possible. The challenge for the corps is to procure equipment that is best suited for that mission requirement. Fixed wing aircraft can transport heavier loads at higher speed with greater efficiency when compared with rotary wing aircraft. But they require runways to take off and land. Short/vertical take off and landing aircraft don't require runways, but before the Osprey, they were much less efficient, carried less payload, and were slower than fixed wing aircraft. I don't think it requires a very large leap to see the logic in ordering an aircraft that promised near the range, speed, payload and efficiency of fixed wing aircraft with the go anywhere capability of short/vertical take off. ON PAPER the Osprey is an absolutely ideal machine for the Marine Corps, and those attributes make make the aircraft ideal for SAR missions as well. So the only controversey should be whether or not the Osprey meets the operating parameters it is supposed to meet and whether or not it does so safely. Now that the aircraft has been deployed, it's operating capabilities are no longer debatable. It meets its specifications. Should specifications be added for increased survivability and weapons? Probably. Is it safe? I don't know and neither does anyone else who has responded here.

Brett

Hey Brett,
Did you work at Pax,MFS back in the V-22 dev days? There was an airframe guy named Brett on the sim. Is that you?
Ed

[LtBrett]

Actually, the only time I've been through Pax River was to test the EMP hardening of my ship. Best crab cakes I've ever had! I got exposure to the Osprey through a friend who was both a pilot and a PhD on the development team in 1993 or so. One of the many hats I wore was safety officer, so I saw nearly every mishap report and I discussed the Osprey at some length with him. Like you, he was pretty convinced that the aerodynamics inherent in the design precluded safe operation. But I really liked the concept of the aircraft, and I've followed its development on and off ever since.

Brett

[hellosailor]

All twin-engine prop jobs suffe badly when one prop fails. Twin-engine props THAT BIG and sometimes deployed as vertical lift rotors, even worse. Pray tell, what miracle has taken place to solve the problem that the Osprey originally had, i.e., two incredibly large and delicate props just daring the world to smack one and send the aircraft into "aerobatic mixmaster" mode?

I understand that with damage to one prop/rotor, the Osprey's flight characteristics make a dead stick space shuttle seem like a great aircraft.

Your very right, in fact the V-22 is impossible to fly on single prop. There is a composite cross shaft that transfers power from port to starboard or the other way. Unfortunately the composite shaft was one of those compromises and has resulted in at least one crash and loss of the crew. That was an instrumented bird and we recovered data which enabled us to “see” what the crew saw and it’s a very disturbing to know this was the last things those brave men saw.

[hellosailor]

Jones, in the odd event that I recall it correctly, the Osprey has twin engines and the purpose of the cross shaft is to ensure that both props can be driven by either engine, so an engine failure is not catastrophic.

What I'm talking about is a prop/rotor failure. Shatter one blade on either prop (or rotor, whatever you call them) and then you're really out of control, regardless of both engines working. And there are some really nifty ways to destroy rotors that are that big, simply elegant but for obvious reasons--them gummint fellows don't go around talking about them. Props even easier than rotors.

I'm still impressed by that Orion (P3?) that the Chinese forced down some years ago. Beat the crap out of the plane, and it kept on flying. That's a modified Lockheed Electra, which was classed as a deathtrap when it was new (many major problems) and went on to become a mainstay of the US short-haul aviation industry. I loved those buggers, four turboprops and it was quite happy to run on only two. I understand the last of them were sold to assorted south american airlines to do yeoman work over the Andes.

[Chief Engineer]

"Remember, This Plane Yor Are About To Take Off In Was Built By The LOWEST Bidder.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Chief Engineer

"Remember, This Plane Yor Are About To Take Off In Was Built By The LOWEST Bidder.

I'm sure you know that the Lowest Bid is never the off the ramp price of a plane. Each and Every modification impacts the low bid price significantly and the final "Approved" build to configuration is always higher, often by an order of magnatude... and each subsequent mod adds more cost that the builders are paid for.

ken
former life engineer
Martin, McDonnell Douglas, Boeing

[hellosailor]

Or as they used to joke on the NASA launches, "This spacecraft contains ten million individual critical parts, each one of which was supplied by the lowest possible bidder."

Let's face it, eveyone in the "aviation business" knows that today flight safety is not based on technology, it is based on mortuary accounting. That's some fine way to build an aircraft.