The core technology behind the Osprey has been around for decades, so why do the damn things keep crashing? True, they’ve kicked the primary cause, a stall-like condition that occurs under specific circumstances during landing transition, but how is a pilot supposed to remember that shit while taking fire on a combat drop?
Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway said the New River, N.C.-based “Thunder Chickens” of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 will deploy to al Asad air base Iraq in September.
The Corps had declined to reveal the location of its first real-world deployment of the Osprey for months; leading some to speculate the transport would be sent on a lower-profile deployment to guard against programmatic shock-waves should something go wrong.
Sadly, good people will die “dialing in” this aircraft and it may never achieve full operational readiness.
The NYT story on the osprey deployment notes that, because of fears that the plane’s own rotors will be caught in its turbulence, the osprey must come in for a landing at 9mph and in a straight line:
“The plane’s most widely cited design problem is that one of its propellers can get caught in its own turbulence as it comes in for a landing, and that can cause the V-22 to roll over and head into the ground.
For that reason, V-22 pilots are trained to steer clear of their own turbulence by rules prohibiting them from making the quick maneuvers used by helicopters to evade enemy fire. 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.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/business/14osprey.html
I am filled with dread.
bummer….. pity we dont have the materialsstrong enough to build one of these
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/photo/X-Wing/HTML/EC86-33555-2.html
Alix, I’m certain I can find at least one of the photos I shot a while back of these dudes training with the Ospreys in my “backyard”. Yup. Solid security.
Landing and takeoff is so cumbersome, I think you could take one out with a fifty-caliber anything. And, though, I’ve not looked up any stats, I have to say the power-to-net weight ratio on the critter makes the average 20-year-old chopper look great.
I shall refer you to the wisdom of Dave Barry as it pertains to the Osprey.
“All the government ever seems to do is suck up our hard earned money and spew it out on projects such as the V22 Osprey military aircraft, which the Pentagon doesn’t even want, and which tends to crash, but which Congress has fought to spend millions on anyway, because this will help the re-election efforts of certain congresspersons, who would cheerfully vote to spend millions on a program to develop a working artificial hemorrhoid as long as the money would be spent in their districts.”
“The wisest course for the Mobsters would be to turn all their worldly goods over to the government right now. Because if they keep attempting to file the correct form, they’re going to wind up in serious trouble, fleeing through the swamps around Pensacola, pursued by airborne IRS agents in the new V22 Osprey, suspended via steel cables from some aircraft that can actually fly.”
Tough luck for the Osprey. That’s just what we need now, brave men without real equipment. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bell Helicopter, just wishing for a real Osprey won’t get it done. And the tax dollars spent make me ill….
Can you believe the Chinook has been in service for 45 years? Designed in the 1950’s and fielded in 1962, still the best. Wish I’d flown one. Perhaps the B52 of helicopters. Osprey this:
http://tinyurl.com/388n9p
The most successful military helicopter ever, Bell’s UH :
http://www.bellhelicopter.com/en/aircraft/military/bellUH-1Y.cfm
Aeronauts and all, enjoy.
Here’s the best close-in shot from August 2005. The was the first Osprey brought to northern NM for training and high altitude eval.
Even when cruising the mesa across the valley – where our “neighborhood” medivac helicopter crews train – the critter always impressed me as something I would not want to go up in.
The Russians build good rotary wing aircraft also. Simple and built like a tank.
#5
I wouldn’t call the Huey the most successful helicopter. Sure, it’s the most known and probably the most deployed one, but as for the most successful… that probably goes to the AH-64 Apache.
So when exactly did Bell become a division of Halliburton? They MUST be; the only way to explain how they could come up with such a useless, money-sucking turkey, designed only to make some rich people richer, as opposed to actually solving some problem.
Reality is this: just like high-stealth airplanes, the craft is fundamentally aerodynamically unsound.
However, we understand the instabilities of stealth craft well enough to implement stabilization through computed feedback through their fly-by-wire controls; but the turbulence problems that plague the V-22 are so poorly understood at this point that we can’t fix it in software – yet.
It’s obviously inevitable that we’ll be able to at some point in the future, but for now, until the absolutely necessary breakthrough in turbulence modelling happens, the goddamn thing needs to go back to the hangar and stay there.
#2 and #8, thanks for the links. Re: xwing, that would have been a great job for a test pilot. Re: Apache, yep, it’s a great one — the flying tank.
Now all I need is a good used Chinook converted into a flying RV. Have to win the lottery to pay for the maintenance, though…
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/apache/
http://science.howstuffworks.com/apache-helicopter.htm
Osprey? I wouldn’t even test pilot that mess. Igor Sikorsky must be spinning faster than the rotors.
You see, what we do to solve the terrorism is just donate all the Ospreys (and Canada’s old Sea King helicopters too, just for good measure) to Osama. If the crappy equipment doesn’t kill him, the maintenance costs will bankrupt him. Brilliant! (Tell the US government that I want a million dollars for the idea too – seems like it would be a bargain for the military strategy they’ll be getting)
There are plenty of inexpensive wide body STOL aircraft available. My favorite is the Pilatus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilatus_PC-6
Why this project got off the ground (no pun intended) is puzzling. The Marines usually adopt only the proven technologies.
Are you kidding me? What a bunch of pussy’s! As a retired military helicopter pilot with 20 years in H-53s, I’d give my left testicle to fly this machine! Every new aviation technology has problems, look at all of the jet crashes in the 40’s and 50’s. The V-22 is the future of rotary wing aviation and it will serve the USMC and USAF for years to come. BTW, the V-22 is replacing the CH-46 Sea Knight, not the CH-47 Chinook… which is flown by the U.S. Army (morons!)
13, edwinrogers, what a superb aircraft. Wish I could afford one, they are a real piece of work. SSTOL, and they land like some old aerobats. Now if they could just carry the cargo…
http://www.pilatus-aircraft.com/
Does anyone here understand the concept of vortex ring state? I doubt it.
VRS is not a tiltrotor only issue. It affects every rotorcraft ever built. It is not a flaw of the V-22 or tiltrotor technology. All rotorcraft experience VRS at low speed and high descent rates. The V-22 is simply different in that the rotors are side by side, an altogether new configuration for rotorcraft. Peculiarities with VRS for the V-22 are now widely understood.
The famous crash that killed over twenty three Marines happened because the pilot did not follow the proper descent pattern to the LZ, as he was taught in V-22 flight training. The pilot was too high and tried to correct his error by descended at about twice the rate that is specified in flight manuals.
It is analogous to trying to get off of a three lane freeway at 70 MPH from the the fast lane. That pilot error caused that crash. It was not a flaw in the aircraft design or tiltrotors in general. The pilot screwed the pooch.
For a quick education on the V-22 and VRS, see the following link:
http://tinyurl.com/35l8sb
16, Does anyone here understand the concept of vortex ring state? I doubt it.
I do. And you are 100% correct on the pilot error. Pooch is dead. Don’t ask about my 5 engine failures in 6 years. Bummer.
I’m not an aircraft designer, but I remember NACA before it was NASA. I’ve less than 10,000 hours, and I’d love to fly the Osprey, but perhaps not until some of the ‘minor’ bugs are worked out. Harrier? Gimme !!
Or just box up a BD-5 jet and mail it to me. Thanks !!
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/av-8.htm
http://www.bd5.com/
#17, Oops forgot to mention that on the Harrier link above
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/av-8.htm
all the cool pix are at the end of the page. My bad.
Would you really feel safe flying in something called a “thunder chicken”? :O/ Yet another good example of the military industrial complex throwing money at things that no one asked for or needed.
Sounds like the Harrier all over again. Actually it is worse than the Harrier because the Marines are going to die by the dozens when these turkeys start smacking into the ground. I just wonder what accident rate it will take before they yank these things from service.
There will be no shortage of gung ho Leather Necks pushing and shoving to get a ride in the new whirly bird. Too bad so many of them are going to die.
I sure hope I am wrong.
Don
Ex Army Reserve and Ex Active Air Force.
#16, you might be capable of flying the CH53 (which has, I have to admit, some spectacular performance), but your knowledge of rotorcraft history seems to have some blind spots.
Actually, the first helicopters had some very amazing rotor designs to counter the rotor torque. Amongst them, the German built Focke Wulf Fw-61 with a side-by-side twin rotor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_FW-61
Even more spectacular, I think, was the Flettner doublerotor:
http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/AC/aircraft/Flettner-282/flettner.php
Here, the two rotor axis sat side by side and the rotor discs were intermeshing.
But aside from that: This is a rather complex aircraft and it’s aerodynamics don’t seem to be fully understood or controlled yet. Vertex ring states have happened with other helicopters as well, it’s not specific to this aircraft. However, and I think that’s the initial statement made: given the current limitations of the flight envelope, it’s questionable if it’s wise to deploy the thing to Iraq. In a battle zone, the last thing you want to have is an aircraft that moves like a sitting duck when it’s close to the ground.
pj
PJ – yes, I knew about the early Folke-Wulf rotorcraft. That was the very first viable helicopter every flown. I didn’t mention it because it is pretty much a footnote in rotorcraft design.
The beauty of the V-22 is that it will come in so fast that there will be little reaction time for forces on the ground. Currently, you can hear and see helicopters coming from miles away. The V-22’s will dash in, drop their cargo, and be gone.
It is a true revolution in capability for the Marines and they are, as we speak, perfecting new strategies to take advantage of it. Some strategies will work, others maybe not. But this is the process you go through with revolutionary changes in technology. All the naysayers need to give it a rest.
That Dave Barry article about what a dud the Ospreys are was written almost 20 years ago. The entire idea should have been scrapped then, but some asshole kept the dream alive, namely “The dream of spending taxpayer dollars without really providing anything functional in return.”
These being deployed to Iraq of all places simply means that common sense has been thrown out the window there in favor of an orgy of military graft.
So Randall, I guess your the asshole that would cry when the aircraft they are replacing end their service. You would rather dump money into a 40+ year aircraft that is already past it’s life cycle.
What have you done to contribute to military aviation besides complain about it? I work on it.