Do we really need this aircraft? I'm not exactly sure either way, but here's what I think.

First of all, the Osprey is revolutionary in that it can carry more and fly faster than, yet act like a helicopter.

The thing has crashed 3 times in testing. All I know is that someone must have their hands in some senators pockets, because Congress still supports this. Yet, congress wants to can the F-22?

From the footage I have seen of this, and I saw one flying(or hovering) near Huntsville, Alabama, it appears that it is not really a substitute for the helicopter.

It appears to take long glide scopic landings and it's hover lands are painfully slow. On contrast, a regular old fashioned Huey could fit in tight spaces and do it rather quickly.

Well, what do you guys think? Osprey a Go? Or No Go?

Storm

Time to burn down the house and build a new one. The whole program should never have gone this far, it was originaly concieved by the president after that Iran hostage rescue dissaster. Basically nothing more than a "oh look, no need to worry, that will never happen again, because..." program.

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Originally posted by K6_Scorp:
Having never flown in a V-22, I can't make a fair accessment of it going by what I read or see on television. From the Bell website for the V-22, http://www.belltextron.com/products/tiltRotor/v22/ I like what I read, but I dont' care for the crashes. I've personally been in two emergency landings of the CH-46 (passenger not pilot), so I definitely feel that we need something a little newer, faster and can carry a few more Marines and equipment.

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Let's be realistic here. The Osprey is NEW technology and as unfortuante and sad that this accident happened, it's to be expected.
We won't know exactly what happened untill the board meets and looks over the data and figures out what the cause was.

The CH-46 is old. The frog has been around since 1958 and been through several upgrades and has just about reached the end of the road.
It is a proven plane and filled the bill that it was designed for-but today we are asking the Corps to perform in a different manner with equipment that can't meet the requirements of today's battle field.

The 46 flies into combat with 2 .50 cal machine guns and gunship support to drop it's cargo and troops into a hot lz, and as many Viet Nam vets can tell you for every 5 birds in a stick, there would be at least one go down while others would be shot up pretty bad.

The Osprey though can carry more armament and more cargo/troops than the old Frog can and survive.
It can do the job and not tie up other resources that canbe used for other duties.
400+ vs 185 knots makes a big difference. Add to that the gunship version of the Osprey can be very intimidating..

The Corps needs a new medium transport plane. To ask it to go into combat with planes and equipment that has seen it's day is like asking a F-86 pilot to go up against a SU-27/33 with only his eyeballs and guns and then shooting the Flanker down and flying away.
The Flanker's going to win. The 86 may get lucky IF he's damn lucky. Same thing here.

How many planes were lost during the R&D of the F-15, F-16, for example? How many pilots were lost?

To arbitraly decide to shut down a program because 3 planes were lost-OVER A 8 year period- is not enough to write off this plane.

Flying while safe to some extent, is still a dnagerous job. Equipent, components, wires, bolts, screws etc can fail. People make mistakes and things can cause crashes.

Are we going to shut down the 747 fleet because the fuel tank blows up on one and takes 400 people to the water?
No. We take the wreckage and examine it and then we fix it so that it won't happen again.

If the Osprey is a flawed design, then yes kill it.But if it's not then fix the bugs and get it to the FleetMarine Force and to the Marines that need it!

The V-22 simply put, doesn't work. I'd love it to death if it was working, but it isn't. It's a good concept and I'll be watching Bell's coast guard and civilian tilt rottor aircraft projects with a great deal of enthusiasm. The reason why I'm enthusiastic about the more commercial aspects of the TR concept is because the coast guard is interested in saving lives not loosing them. Businesses need something that works, not kills, other wise they wont buy.

If you dont feel the V-22 isn't worth it for mechanical reasons, then feel it isn't worth it for financial reasons. Or feel it isn't worth it for both reasons. It's a 60 million dollar a piece unit that doesn't work.

There is something wrong there.

I agree with Major Tom, its a $44 million piece of "Technological Wonder" that does not perform up to par.

Good idea, really, if it worked. Now what does Congress do? If they cancel it now, they look like fools for funding this project for so long. If they go with it, hundreds of lives could be lost, imagine if that had to be used in combat while its in its current state?

It should have been canceled years ago, or, it should have regulated better so that it would not take over 11 years to land the thing.

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Originally posted by Lucky_1:
I don't see how the Osprey is any tougher than a regular helo? Anything that relies on rotors to stay afloat, which it's propellors actually do, is a sitting duck in a hot LZ. It seems as if this thing has been tested for 20 years and its still not fixed.
<< It is more heavily armored than the current Frogs, which is much like the old M-113 APCs, a round hits it and rattles around it.
It can carry more defensive weapons than the Frog or the Stallion. As I said before, 2 .50 cals in the doors are it for these planes.

It's only been in R&D for 11 years. As I said earlier 3 planes lost isn't a bad record.

There is something wrong there.

I agree with Major Tom, its a $44 million piece of "Technological Wonder" that does not perform up to par.

Good idea, really, if it worked. Now what does Congress do? If they cancel it now, they look like fools for funding this project for so long. If they go with it, hundreds of lives could be lost, imagine if that had to be used in combat while its in its current state?

It should have been canceled years ago, or, it should have regulated better so that it would not take over 11 years to land the thing.

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Man, you don't have any idea of how thourogh a R&D of a new plane is. Before ANYTHING is given to the services,it is pulled apart, put together, tested and retested, put through the ringer BEFORE the 1st plane is delivered. That's why the F-15 took so long to get to the USAF. Designed in 1969, it wasn't untill 1977 before the 1st Albino made it into the AF. The E took even longer..

This is the case with any thing be it a aircraft, tank, pistol ( It took the USA about 10 years to replace the Colt .45 with the Baretta. Any new piece of equipment has to show it works.

The AV-8A costed the govt $$ and it had a rough teething period and they lost quite a few of them.

If the MV-22 proves that it's a bad design, it won't be bought. It will get cancelled and the process starts all over again.

Just to call for the cancellation of a program for a crash when the cause isn't known is not good policy.

Back in the old days, before Cray computers and the like, they just built the things and let the test pilots work the "bugs" out. Needless to say, many died in this dangerous line of work.

Nowadays, things are different. We have the ability to completely simulate how an aircraft will perform in various scenarios all on super computers. As you said the F-15 took 8 years to reach service, that was back when technology was primitive compared to now.

The Osprey has taken over 11 years, and it is still not in service, even with today's high tech computers and test bed systems.

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Originally posted by Lucky_1:
On the contrary Hunter Cole, I do know what goes into R&D for planes, and this proves my point.

Back in the old days, before Cray computers and the like, they just built the things and let the test pilots work the "bugs" out. Needless to say, many died in this dangerous line of work.

Nowadays, things are different. We have the ability to completely simulate how an aircraft will perform in various scenarios all on super computers. As you said the F-15 took 8 years to reach service, that was back when technology was primitive compared to now.

The Osprey has taken over 11 years, and it is still not in service, even with today's high tech computers and test bed systems.

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It's still the same process.The computers and wind tunnels can only predict the performance envelope, just like the sims we fly around with. You can only get an approxiamte. You have to build it to see if those perameters are right.

The Marines test program is much different from the Other services.Any aircraft that is going to become a part of the corps' inventory has to be able to operate in some primitive areas on the ground and on sea, and because of this it's abit longer.

Another point is that the program only gets so much money per year in the budget and sometimes this will stretch a R&D out abit. ook at the F-22 program for example.. That bird should have been ready to go into the field and it too is still in R&D and that plane has been chugging along for nearly 10 years too..And it's had it's share of missteps too.. Want to kill that one too?

Todays R&D is a blend of the old and the new, and I'll tell you this, If I had to fly a new plane that hadn't been wrung out in the flesh as it were, I don't think I'd be too confident about it.

I still think the OSprey is a good design and will prove itself to be so. 3 crashed planes and the loss of 26 people is still an acceptable loss-sad and unfortunate, but that's the way of the world.

Guys, bash the V-22 all you want, but remember that there are LOTS of a/c that have just as bad records that were NOT paraded in the media because of political considerations. (I feel the adverse publicity is the product of political hatred from certain quarters that dislike V-22)