Bell Helicopter's V-22 makes combat debut in Afghanistan

[Johnny Bravo]

By JAY PRICE

McClatchy Newspapers

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan — The Marines are hoping to resuscitate the image of the MV-22 Osprey in Afghanistan, where the aircraft made its debut into major combat on Friday.

The Osprey, which can take off and land like a helicopter but fly like a fixed-wing plane, is being put to the test in an operation dubbed Cobra’s Anger — which began Friday in Helmand Province and is the first major operation in Afghanistan since President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. was sending more troops.

The Osprey is built by Boeing Co. and Bell Helicopter. Bell makes components for the Osprey in Fort Worth and assembles the aircraft in Amarillo.

The Osprey suffered through a star-crossed development period that took more than 20 years and included several fatal crashes and huge cost overruns. After production models entered service in Iraq in 2007, the complicated aircraft was panned by the Government Accounting Office and critics in Congress.

In a report released June 23, the GAO said that it wasn’t worth the cost and questioned its ability to fly at high altitudes and to carry the needed number of troops with their gear.

At a hearing on the day the report was released, Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., said: "It has problems in hot weather, it has problems in cold weather, it has problems with sand, it has problems with high altitude, and it has restricted maneuverability. The list of what the Osprey can’t do is longer than the list of what it can do."

The Marines countered that the aircraft can do extraordinary things because of its speed and range, and that it does better at higher altitudes than critics say.

Afghanistan, with its great distances and challenging terrain — and more likelihood that the aircraft will face combat — could start to clarify whether the Marines are right and the MV-22 is worth the cost, now more than $120 million each.

"If it saves lives or somehow wins a battle, maybe people will say that it is," said Richard Whittle, author of the upcoming book The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey.

Ten Ospreys arrived about a month ago and are being flown by Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 261 (VMM-261) of Marine Corps Air Station New River in North Carolina. They officially went operational last week.

If this deployment goes well, it could start to repair the Osprey’s tarnished image. The aircraft hasn’t suffered a fatal crash since 2000, and the Marines think they’re starting to get a handle on the maintenance problems, which in many cases involved shortages of relatively minor parts such as connectors and wiring insulation that had been expected to last longer and therefore weren’t stockpiled.

"With the right parts, these planes will be as reliable as anything out there," said Gunnery Sgt. Jake Korkian, 36, of Fort Worth, who has worked with the Osprey program since 1996 and is in charge of the squadron’s maintenance of the airframe, hydraulics and other systems.

Among the parts that have to be replaced more often than expected are certain hydraulic lines — which on the Osprey are built of light but expensive and brittle titanium — and clamps for them.

"It’s just nuisance stuff, like bushings," Korkian said. "It’s nothing major, it’s just that these guys don’t know what to stock, so you either waste money and build up a stock of stuff you don’t need, or you let the supply system learn what it needs, and that’s what it’s doing right now.

"The next unit that comes out here won’t have as many problems as us, and the unit that comes after that won’t have as many problems as them."

In Afghanistan, where required flying distances can be much greater than Iraq, the additional speed and range the Osprey offers will boost what the Marines and other units can do.

For one thing, it will allow them to react to information about the enemy much quicker. The aircraft is so fast, in fact, that it can sometimes make two trips back and forth in the time it takes a helicopter to make one trip.

[fightingquaker13]

I am generally all in favor of letting the services get what they want. I will defer to the Marines here as well. But for $120 mil a pop and with all the problems, the chinook sure starts looking better and better. I hope the guys who approved this thing are required to ride in it with our troops in cold weather at 14,000 feet.
FQ13

[tombogan03884]

Chinooks have been greatly upgraded since my time, but they were intended to be phased out 20+ years ago.
I will reserve judgment until we see how they work out under real operational conditions.
The fact that all the quoted reservations came from a Democrat make me figure the Corps knows what it has and how to get the most out of it.

[CurrieS103]

All new weapons systems have their teething problems.  Especially the ones with radical new designers.  Examples:
F-111 "Aardvark" - The first variable geometry wing (swing wing) aircraft in the US inventory.  Problems with the wing pivots, engines and the terrain following radar had it pulled out of Vietnam until the problems were fixed.  But when it came back...it was going downtown (Hanoi).  Reagan set it to Libya and in the Gulf War it was the only plane capable of delivering the 5,000 pound bunker buster that was rushed into theater and helped crush the Iraqi command and control. 
F-16 Fighting Falcon - First Combat Aircraft in the world with fly-by-wire flight controls and "relaxed stability" design.  Yup, a lot of them crashed in th early days due to its radical design and hot performance.  A lot of pilots went in with them.  They figured it out and it is still the standard by which all fighters are compared to today.  249 Vipers were in Gulf War I and few 13, 500 sorties in a little over a month.  And still in production with orders still coming in.
F-117 "Nighthawk" - The "Wobbly Goblin" is what the press called it and a couple were lost due to pilots becoming spatially disoriented at night, the environment it was designed to operate in.  But when the bugs were worked out...it was the only thing they would send into Baghdad and Belgrade
The V-22 will work and be successful and bring a whole new aspect to combat ops...give it time.

[twyacht]

When living in NC, one of the fatal crashes was off Camp LeJuene than another crash soon after. Many "bugs" were worked out, at the expense of human lives. But as Chuck Yeager if testing and pushing the envelope was worth it.

The V-22 flew over my house in Wilmington, NC often. Their sound was different and easily identifiable, and I hope the years of testing and improvements, give the pilots and soldiers what they need.

If I recall, the Harrier "jump" jet had similar issues in development, with casualties both of the pilots, and ground personnel in England.

 

[Sponsor]

[tombogan03884]

 They used to call the F 16 the "Yard Dart".
The Harrier killed Marines as well, they had problems transitioning from vertical to horizontal flight, they had one "lock up" at Cherry Point MAS .
The  P-51 used to come apart in mid air during dives they finally figured out that as it approached the speed of sound in a dive the air flow caused turbulence that ripped the plane apart the fixed it by lowering the air inlet 3 inches. the P-38 was effected by the same phenomenon, the turbulence would lock the elevator so the pilot could not pull out, the only pilots that survived had enough altitude to use the trim control to come out of the dive, they never DID find a fix for that.

[Big Frank]

Years ago I heard the Osprey was a few inches to narrow for something it was supposed to haul around. I think it was a howitzer.    Whatever it was just wouldn't fit and that was one of the reasons for getting the V22 in the first place.