LibriumArcana.Games

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.

The plane, which is intended to replace the Corps' 40-year-old fleet of CH-46 helicopters by 2018, can fly like a plane and land like a helicopter, giving the Marines more flexibility in the field, officials said.

The V-22 can carry troops three times as far, twice as fast and has six to seven times more survivability than the CH-46 widely used now in Iraq, the military says.

The Osprey's performance has also been noticed by the Air Force, which has plans to use it as a special operations aircraft.

The aircraft has been redesigned after two fatal accidents in 2000 that killed 23 Marines. Accidents in 1991 and 1992 killed seven other people, but Marines say the plane's problems are in the past.

"It's been through extensive operational testing and evaluation, and it is our fervent feeling that this aircraft is the most capable, survivable aircraft that we carry our most important weapon system in, which is the Marine or rifleman, and that we will successfully introduce this aircraft in combat," said Lt. Gen. John G. Castellaw, deputy commandant for aviation.

Critics say the tilt-rotor design may still be too unsafe for the complexities of flying in combat operations.

The Marine Corps maintains it is a much more controllable aircraft in those situations.

Since 2003, the Marines have lost seven aircraft in combat operations. The Marine Corps says the V-22 can better avoid being shot down because it can fly higher than the missiles that have been targeting helicopters. In addition, people on the ground cannot hear the aircraft approaching, giving insurgents less time to prepare to shoot as it flies at low altitude.

"I flown the V-22, and I have taken it and used it in a tactical manner," Castellaw said. "The ability to maneuver this aircraft is far in excess of what we have with the existing helicopters."

B4UTRUST wrote:We've got a couple of these deathtraps at my base now. So far the Air Force hasn't crashed one. So maybe they've worked the kinks out of them.

B4UTRUST wrote:The Osprey is quite possibly one of the ugliest bird's I've seen. And I work on 130s. So that's saying something.

Yes, it does have a few advantages over regular helos. It's more manuverable. It's replacing our aging MH-53 fleet.
However, the 22 is a nightmare in the making. I look at this from a maintenance point of view.

In normal aircraft in the AF we use a 5 character Work Unit Code to designate parts of the air craft. All your line replaceable units, your screens, your displays, guages, etc. We don't list panels because panels are interchangable and not individually marked for WUC, rather every type of panel is coded. So for a side panel on either side of the interior of the plane, front or back, there's a single WUC to order them. One panel fits all type of thing.
However, on a CV-22, EVERY panel is individually coded and identified. There is nothing interchangable or modifiable. Therefore, on the CV-22 you now have a 14character WUC. Every individual panel has its own WUC. This prevents many things. Such as direct canibalization from other aircraft, canibalization of non critical location parts to replace a critical location part, etc.
Flying wise it may have worked out the kinks and actually have become a viable airframe for use, but in maintenance practices from what I've seen so far it's a nightmare and then some.

From what I've heard and seen the current beast is a completely new aircraft from the one that killed so many. I'm not going to judge it by its distantly related ancestor--that would be unfair of me.

Hotfoot wrote:And why would TV or videogames be a lie?

frigidmagi wrote:To be blunt.

This is not a device that failed it first attempt at the test runs. This is a device that we were told passed all tests with flying colors. We were told this by the officer corps in charge of testing. The same morons telling us it's fine now. Let me repeat that.

So why the fuck should I believe a single peice of hot air coming from those blow holes?

B4UTRUST wrote:Distantly related ancestor?

If you were comparing this to say a FW 61 then I'd grant you the ancestor bit.

THIS IS THE SAME FUCKING BIRD!

This is the same flying deathtrap from 20 years ago!

It offers no additional functionality over our current existing MH-53 fleet. Both serve the same mission: Carrying troops and equipment. It just happens to do it in a newwer vehicle then our 53's.

Safety... Yeah... we'll talk about safety.
<snip a lot of things I'm not sure I wanted to know>

This is NOT a ground up redesign as you seem to believe it is. There was never a redesign. There was varients made, yes. These were for the different services and for different purposes. We have never ground up redesigned this deathtrap. This thing has been overbudget since it's inception over 20 years ago. We couldn't afford to do a ground up redesign nor would Bell-Boeing do it!

This is the same fucking flying death trap that people were ordered to falsify the maintenance records on just so this thing could get through the fucking test runs! Yes, that's right. Maintenance personal doing the same job I do in my every day life were ordered by the higher ups to falsify the data to make it appear safer then it was.

The head of Air Force Special Operations Command gave a strong endorsement Wednesday for the special operations variant of the V-22 Osprey, saying it's as safe to fly as a commercial airliner.

Calling the CV-22 "a wonderful airplane," Lt. Gen. Mike Wooley said his command is confident the hybrid aircraft has emerged from its troubled history of crashes and fatalities and will deliver a "transformational leap" to commandos for their covert missions.

"The thing that we're excited about that the airplane brings to the fight is speed and range," Wooley said at a May 9 breakfast meeting with reporters in Washington. "When you really get down to it, that's what the Air Force does: bring speed and range to the fight."

Controversy swirled around the Osprey program for years after two crashes in 2000 killed 23 Marines. The deadly incidents grounded the transport and sent the program back to the drawing board, forcing the Air Force and Navy - which is buying the Osprey to replace a portion of its search and rescue helicopter fleet - to mute their enthusiasm for the new transport.

But citing the Air Force's checkered history converting from a prop-driven aircraft fleet to jets, Wooley brushed aside the Osprey's past problems, saying the Navy and Marine Corps had worked out the kinks over the past several years of re-engineering.

"Any time you take a transformational leap in the aviation business, there is going to be stuff that you are going to learn literally on the fly … it's a shame that there were lives lost," Wooley admitted.

"It's no different from jumping on a [Boeing] 777, an AC-130 [gunship] or a CV-22 - something could slip, break or come loose at any time," he added. "But that's the aviation business."

The Marine Corps - which is purchasing the MV-22 to replace its fleet of Vietnam-era CH-46 Sea Knight transports - announced April 16 it planned to deploy the first operational Osprey squadron to Iraq in September. The announcement surprised critics of the program who speculated the Corps would send the Osprey on a lower-profile assignment, such as supporting operations in Djibouti.

Air Force spec ops pilots should get their first operational CV-22s by 2009, filling out the 50 aircraft buy in 2018. But that's not soon enough for Wooley who said the delay is "my biggest concern with that airplane."

The AFSOC CV-22 will employ four crewmembers, adding a flight engineer to the mix. The Corps uses a three-man crew during its operations.

"Our machines are pretty dang complicated," Wooley admitted. "But they're pretty dang complicated because we designed them."

Wooley said the complexity of the flight systems needed for spec ops missions demanded the extra manpower "because there's a lot going on in the cockpit" and was not an indication that the Osprey was any more difficult to fly than other conventional transports.

The AFSOC version of the Osprey may also differ from the Corps' MV-22 by incorporating a chin-mounted gun - a modification the Air Force requested. The Corps will use a .50 cal machine gun mounted on the Osprey's loading ramp for fire suppression in a hot landing zone.

Wooley said he's sending an Air Force team with the Marine squadron heading to Iraq this fall to learn what he can from the first deployment in hopes of making AFSOC's eventual stint in the combat zone error-free.

"We want to be there to learn those lessons the same time the Marines learn theirs," Wooley said.

Batman wrote:Of course there's going to be problems with any new aircraft, especially if it's a new type of aircraft. But if after two decades worth of development and a double-figure billion amount of dollars having been spent on it the problem still persists, there is something inherently wrong with either the concept or your way of going about making it work.
At least jets where new technology back when the Air Force made the transition. Tilt-rotors have been around since the 1950s.

SirNitram wrote:

Batman wrote:Of course there's going to be problems with any new aircraft, especially if it's a new type of aircraft. But if after two decades worth of development and a double-figure billion amount of dollars having been spent on it the problem still persists, there is something inherently wrong with either the concept or your way of going about making it work.
At least jets where new technology back when the Air Force made the transition. Tilt-rotors have been around since the 1950s.

Congratulations! You just realized what we've all been saying: The Osprey is fundamentally flawed from the onset!