V-22 Osprey: Controversial Dream Machine | The Most Amazing Flying Machines Ever

[Newsbot]

The V-22 Osprey takes off like a helicopter and flies like an airplane.



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[astroimgur]

We've got the CV-22s here at Cannon. I walk by them every time I step to fly on the ACs. Pretty cool looking bird if, yet also strange when watching them take off if.

[stantonjtroy]

About 11 years ago I worked at Pax River NAS just two buildings down from the V-22 hangar so I got to see it fly nearly every day. Now I make parts that go on it. Had some serious flight control problems early on but they finally have the craft the Marine Corps wanted. It is an amazing piece of machinery. The concept prototype, the XV-15, is on display at Udvar-Hazey.it's something like 1\3 the size of the CV-22. Bell and Agusta were going to develope it as a Corperate/Medevac transport to edge out helicopters. Price over runs and developement problems made it financially inpracticle.

[les]

Fantastic Machine -

But I do think the developers watched a few too many Transformer cartoons

[[POW]Eagle159]

I read the whole Wikipedia article on it after seeing this thread...

I didnt realize that this thing is so old! I still thought it was in development, and come to find out there are 120 of them flying!

Too bad we dont hear much about the V22.

[Viperfixr]

Different? Yes, undoubtedly. Amazing technological feat? That too. Faster than helicopters, and able to go anywhere? Check.

They're also horribly expensive (CV-22s are reportedly north of $140M each, making it more expensive by far than the last $94M F-22A to roll off the LMA assembly line--I know the guy that wrote that check, literally), not reliable, hard to fix, particularly vulnerable to ground fire, and complex as all get out. At Kandahar, many an MH-60G came home full of holes, only to be fixed and sent back out in days. As just one example, I saw a CV-22 get hit by indirect fire shrapnel in the fuselage, and the composite damage could not be fixed--it got folded up and flown home on a C-17, and cost an exorbitant amount to fix.

The simple fact is that helicopter technology is catching up with the CV-22 at a fraction of the cost and complexity, and our nation cannot afford Unobtainuim Expensive weapons systems that don't have strategic level capabilities. Speaking only with the USAF in mind, we should have bought upgraded MH-53s, and then more Raptors with the savings. IMHO, CV-22s are a waste of money that can't be taken into a high threat situation, like it's predecessors.

[cwbullet]

Different? Yes, undoubtedly. Amazing technological feat? That too. Faster than helicopters, and able to go anywhere? Check.

They're also horribly expensive (CV-22s are reportedly north of $140M each, making it more expensive by far than the last $94M F-22A to roll off the LMA assembly line--I know the guy that wrote that check, literally), not reliable, hard to fix, particularly vulnerable to ground fire, and complex as all get out. At Kandahar, many an MH-60G came home full of holes, only to be fixed and sent back out in days. As just one example, I saw a CV-22 get hit by indirect fire shrapnel in the fuselage, and the composite damage could not be fixed--it got folded up and flown home on a C-17, and cost an exorbitant amount to fix.

The simple fact is that helicopter technology is catching up with the CV-22 at a fraction of the cost and complexity, and our nation cannot afford Unobtainuim Expensive weapons systems that don't have strategic level capabilities. Speaking only with the USAF in mind, we should have bought upgraded MH-53s, and then more Raptors with the savings. IMHO, CV-22s are a waste of money that can't be taken into a high threat situation, like it's predecessors.

I absolutely agree. I sure hope the learning lessons make it worth the total cost. M

[[POW]Eagle159]

Different? Yes, undoubtedly. Amazing technological feat? That too. Faster than helicopters, and able to go anywhere? Check.

They're also horribly expensive (CV-22s are reportedly north of $140M each, making it more expensive by far than the last $94M F-22A to roll off the LMA assembly line--I know the guy that wrote that check, literally), not reliable, hard to fix, particularly vulnerable to ground fire, and complex as all get out. At Kandahar, many an MH-60G came home full of holes, only to be fixed and sent back out in days. As just one example, I saw a CV-22 get hit by indirect fire shrapnel in the fuselage, and the composite damage could not be fixed--it got folded up and flown home on a C-17, and cost an exorbitant amount to fix.

The simple fact is that helicopter technology is catching up with the CV-22 at a fraction of the cost and complexity, and our nation cannot afford Unobtainuim Expensive weapons systems that don't have strategic level capabilities. Speaking only with the USAF in mind, we should have bought upgraded MH-53s, and then more Raptors with the savings. IMHO, CV-22s are a waste of money that can't be taken into a high threat situation, like it's predecessors.

Yes, good points!

The V-22, as I see it is like a, "Lets see if this will work" kind of idea.
Its %50 helicopter %50 plane, so its only half good at anything.

I still like it, thought I dont think we need more V-22 than F-22 Raptors! Come one now.

[cwbullet]

Yes, good points!

The V-22, as I see it is like a, "Lets see if this will work" kind of idea.
Its %50 helicopter %50 plane, so its only half good at anything.

I still like it, thought I dont think we need more V-22 than F-22 Raptors! Come one now.

I have to agree. I am a ground guy but we need more F22s than V22s. There is no benefit to having these vehicles in a combat zone. We can easily use Blackhawks.

[aerostadt]

The V-22, as I see it is like a, "Lets see if this will work" kind of idea.
Its %50 helicopter %50 plane, so its only half good at anything.

Kinda like the F-35 trying to be 50% Harrier and 50% supersonic jet and turning out to be a very expensive experiment.

[Viperfixr]

I still like it, thought I dont think we need more V-22 than F-22 Raptors! Come one now.

Rockets is a hobby passion, but this stuff is my day job. The airshow routine is amazing, but that is the shinny penny to wow the crowds. This fact harms the Raptor more than anything else, and there is no way around it. People see a 'high' price tag and get sticker shock, but never know what it can DO.

In my opinion, and it's an educated one, the Raptor is the most amazing "fighter" plane EVER developed. Whereas the F-15 was an evolutionary jump from the F-4, the F-22 is a REVOLUTIONARY jump from the F-15. And, to pigeon hole it as an F-15 replacement is woefully wrong--it does much more. Aircraft with this level of capabilities take DECADES to develop, de-bug, refine, and be employed as effectively as possible. A competently flown F-4 still kicked the Eagle's butt regularly until the early to mid-1980s, almost a decade after the Eagle first flew. Then the tables reversed significantly, forever, as the Eagle matured into the amazing fighter it is--even today, with upgrades keeping it relevant.

The F-22 is just now coming into it's own, and it will only get better from here on out. Raptors today don't just dominate the battlespace, they OWN IT. Would we want our fellow Americans going to war with anything less? The F-22 wasn't made to support the Army directly, but sure would impact the entire battlespace with the EFFECTS it can generate--service branch independent. A V-22 cannot even come close to having that kind or level of impact.

The only tragedy in the Raptor program is that we bought much less than what we needed. Restarting the Raptor production line would take years and cost billions in avoidable costs had we just built what we objectively needed. You just cannot flip the light switch "on" a program of this complexity and expect a working result anytime within a decade, and that would be rushing like hasn't been done for decades. KC-X was an example of how messed up our acquisition system is, especially with the "oversight" meddling that never ends.

For example, the USAF recently tried to move the sole F-16 fighter squadron still at Eielson AFB, AK. Can you imagine how expensive it must be to upkeep an entire Air Force Base, just next to the Artic Circle, for just one squadron (18 jets) of NON-combat coded aircraft that was originally built to hold 3-4+ squadrons of them? Guess what--an AK senator held several general officer promotions from going through until the USAF gave up their plan to move the F-16s. So, despite the draconian cut-backs being levied on the armed forces DURING a time of war, the AF was denied a credible means to lower their sunk costs for an emotional, non-objective position by one law maker. One. There are lots of other examples like this.

And, lets not even get started on the F-35. Been working that wonderful program (sarcasm intended) for the last 2.5 years. That jet may get to where it need to be, but it has a LONG way to go. That's a classic "too many chefs in the kitchen" situation, making what could have been a good jet a mess instead. It's just impossible to please everyone that's putting (big) money into that program, and the resulting compromises may be its Achilles Heel. Just me, but I wish we'd just bought more Bk52+ F-16s with conformal tanks, built-in DRFM & AESA radars, and then bought others things with the savings.

Rant mode off...

[Viperfixr]

BTW, here's one of my jets from Nellis AFB...



She's Very Purty, if you ask me!

[[POW]Eagle159]

Wow, I hate you! That is a wonderful photo! I love how the F22 sits low to the ground.

What I dont get, When we need new aircraft to replace the planes from the 60-70s, like the tankers and transports, Why not just make new planes of the dame type, instead of designing a whole new airplane. We know that these plane can last for 40+ years.
Do we not do this because they are no longer manufactured?

[cwbullet]

Because they are from the 60s and 70s. They do not have the capability to maintain the standards for the modern battlefield. Very view aircraft are as flexible and durable as the A10 or B52.

[Viperfixr]

What I dont get, When we need new aircraft to replace the planes from the 60-70s, like the tankers and transports, Why not just make new planes of the dame type, instead of designing a whole new airplane. We know that these plane can last for 40+ years. Do we not do this because they are no longer manufactured?

How many of you own cars, that you drive every day, as your primary transportation, that are more than 25+ years old? Perhaps some of you, but I bet not many. Just like with your car, beyond a certain point it becomes more and more difficult and expensive to sustain. Sure, we can do Service Life Enhancements on aircraft just about forever--look at the KC-135s and B-52s. Because the aircraft is considered airworthy does not mean it is still relevant in terms of capabilities, or that it is economically feasible to keep the airframe going. In general, the higher, faster and/or more loads put onto an airframe (i.e. such as G-forces), the more logistics challenges (obsolescent technology & vanishing vendors), sustainment deficiencies and structural issues that aircraft will have over time.

It's a hard point to predict, but you always know when you've passed the point of diminishing returns on a weapons system. Beyond that point, it makes more sense to go with a whole new system, tailor designed to the current and emerging threats, rather than continuing to upgrade/modify/sustain the current weapons system, at an ever increasing cost level, for missions it may have never been designed for. In this case, the F-15 was designed for a post-Vietnam, Cold War scenario. It had to be the best interceptor/fighter in the sky, bar none. It was for nearly 25 years, but is no longer able to sustain that level of superiority over the current or emerging threats, such as the SU-30, PAK-TA, J-20, etc. And, there's very little that can be done to that jet to change this. Our armed forces haven't been the recipient of an adversary's air power effects since WWII for a good reason, and merely keeping on par with adversary capabilities will not continue to ensure this.

That's where the Raptor comes in. True, the Raptor currently has no fielded threats to its superiority--nothing flying or on the known drawing boards will pose a "peer-level threat" to it. However, go back to the decades of development the F-22A went through to get there—capabilities like this aren’t developed overnight. The Raptor wasn't designed for today's fight. It was made to reign supreme far into the future, flying against threats we can only now conceptually consider. Given the upgrades long scheduled & programmed (because we didn't have the money or time to buy them outright), it will be.

All that said, the Eagle’s a magnificent jet. We had 30+ of them flying at my last base, and I loved seeing the Eagle in the overhead landing pattern. Majestic.

[Viperfixr]

Very view aircraft are as flexible and durable as the A10 or B52.

I am not a B-52 guy, but I know a lot about the A-10 of today--had 13 of those at Nellis too. We're frankly struggling to keep that airplane going. It has significant structural issues, and will require a virtual re-making to fly to the end of its projected service life in the late 2030s. Boeing is already making all-new wings for the remaining fleet, and the fuselages need a similar level of intervention. The engines have needed replacement for well over a decade, and continue to decline in performance and sustainment. The C-model upgrade brought an amazing level of capability to an old, simple plane, at the cost of near F-16-like complexity, thereby reducing its reliability and making sustainment very challenging because we did the C-model upgrade on the cheap--did not buy enough spares or long-term logistics planning.

Since 9/11, the amazing Hog has been flown at a 'burn rate' well above anything anyone considered or planned for. Many of these jets have well over 10,000 flying hours on them, an already amazing feat for a fighter. With the budget being slashed with Attila the Hun-like methodology, the Hog will get nothing but band-aid fixes until it can no longer be sustained, and then it will retire early. Nothing we have today, or plan to have, will truly match its capabilities.

[BEAR]

I worked at a machine shop as a quality control inspector that made aerospace components, more specifically, titanium parts for Boeing airliners and for and for the V-22 Osprey. This was taking place more than a decade ago. Where the airliner parts were made of Ti-6Al4V, the Osprey parts were made of commercially pure titanium. We did not need to do destructive testing on the airliner parts, every batch of Osprey parts had to have destructive testing, and many other tests, that were not required for the Boeing parts. The cost of these parts, some not any bigger than my fist, were absolutely staggering. It appears to me that the parts were so absolutely specialized, in such small production runs, makes the parts and therefore the aircraft cost prohibitive. 68% reliability, (according to the wikipedia article, is not a very high percent), to the effect that 1/3 of the time it is likely to fail.

As for maintaining older aircraft, when I worked for the helicopter company, we had a 40 year old helicopter that was sitting on the tarmac in Montana get blown over in a severe windstorm, and roll down a hill. Of course it was totally destroyed. The main thing that we did after trucking it back to our main base of operations was to collect the rotables and the ID plate. With the ID plate in hand, we built a new helicopter and put the plate back on it and it was the same helicopter again. It was just the airframe had zero hours, but the rotables still had hours, depending on which parts we placed on it. You can do the same thing on other aircraft so that even if some components on an aircraft are 50+ years old, it can still be made new again, providing you can get the parts. Of course we had the STC for a lot of the components and could make our own, but I know that the depot in Oklahoma City has been re-manufacturing and putting upgraded engines, avionics, and glass cockpits in KC-135's for years, including new wing spars, (because we made some of those parts also). I do wonder about some of our decisions though. Like on the B-52, why not re-engine those birds to use 4 engines instead of 8? I know that when the C-5A first came out, they tested those engines on the engine pylon on a B-52. One C-5 engine is more powerful than 2 or 3 regular engines of the B-52 and has much greater fuel economy. I know we have upgraded them so that the crew has been reduced from up to 11 in 1958 down to as little as 3 or 4 on some occasions. Yet as I have read, having not had the actual experience, the B-1B Lancer can carry a greater bomb load internally than a BUFF can. A different story when it comes to external ordinance; that is where the BUFF shines. I would think on the Warthog, we could do similar, and make that amazing aircraft new again. I know we have flown it long past it's projected lifespan, but I cannot think of anything that can do the same job and have the loiter capability. There are options that do not require a new aircraft. As far as the Raptor and the Lightning II, if we get the bugs worked out, they may be very good. But with the economy the way it is and the almost guaranteed inflation that is headed our way, we may see the costs of these two birds triple or quadruple in price in the near future. so tell me how a bankrupt nation is going to afford these necessities?