thedrifter
12-28-06, 07:04 AM
Controversial Osprey set to fly into combat
By: JOE BECK - Staff Writer
MIRAMAR -- Six years after a pair of MV-22 Osprey crashes killed 23 Marines, the controversial troop transport aircraft is poised to take its place in combat within a year.
The Osprey's return from a Pentagon-ordered grounding is a story of extensive redesign and the determination of its Marine Corps backers to forge ahead with the project, despite the deadly accidents and fierce criticism of the aircraft that continues today.
The Osprey's most obvious innovation is the ability to transform itself into either a helicopter or an airplane in mid-air by tilting its twin rotor propellers vertically or horizontally in less than 20 seconds. The Osprey usually takes off vertically, then the propellers are rotated forward 90 degrees for horizontal flight, thus converting the aircraft into a turbo prop plane with a cruise speed the equivalent of 277 to 295 mph, according to specifications listed on the Navy's Osprey Web site.
One of the fatal crashes took the lives of 19 Marines, 15 of them from local bases, on a training mission near Tuscon, Ariz., in 2000. Four more died a few months later on another training mission in North Carolina.
Instead of scrapping the Osprey, which appeared likely in the aftermath of the crashes, the Pentagon in September 2005 ordered production ramped up to an eventual rate of 36 a year and 458 overall from the previous rate of 11 annually. Most of the 360 Ospreys are headed for the Marine Corps, according to a fact sheet about the aircraft on the U.S. Navy Web site.
Military officials and the Osprey's contractors, Boeing Co. and the Bell Helicopter division of Textron Inc., have pegged the Osprey's cost at $70 million each for the versions to be used by the Marines and Navy and $89 million for the version to be used by the Air Force.
The additional cost for the Air Force version comes from extra electronic equipment designed to thwart enemy radar, radio jamming devices, infrared targeting devices and other electronic-based enemy threats, according to the Air Force's official Web site. The Air Force deems those threats more likely to arise on the special operations missions it plans for the Osprey -- missions requiring quick penetration and escape from enemy territory.
Today's price is significantly higher than the $44 million each Osprey cost when the two crashes in 2000 led to its grounding.
The aircraft's comeback has confounded critics, some of whom continue to condemn it as unsafe and impractical for the battlefield.
Marine pilots who flew the Osprey in October before tens of thousands of spectators at the 51st annual air show at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar beamed triumphantly after one of their performances. Their appearance at the air show was part of a long path to redemption for the Osprey that won't be completed until it proves itself in combat.
Meanwhile, the aircraft's supporters continue to fend off criticism of the Osprey.
For example, earlier this year, ice in an engine interrupted an Osprey's transatlantic flight to an air show in Great Britain. The aircraft made an unplanned landing in Iceland, where mechanics replaced the crippled engine.
James Darcy, a civilian employee for the Pentagon and spokesman for the Osprey program, said the aircraft could have continued on to Great Britain without stopping in Iceland but "because they had set a conservative performance threshold, they elected to go ahead and do a precautionary diversion to Iceland."
The Osprey fleet is scheduled to receive de-icing equipment that is supposed to eliminate such problems before its deployment next year, Darcy said.
Navy officials are also investigating the cause of a fire that damaged an Osprey on Dec. 7 after it landed on the Mariner base at New River, N.C. No one was injured and the fire was immediately extinguished, Darcy said.
The fire started in the left nacelle, one of the structures enclosing each of the aircraft's engines, Darcy said. Marine officials said last week that damage to the Osprey has been pegged between $200,000 and $1 million.
Darcy said the rest of the Osprey fleet remains eligible for flight in the absence of any proof that the fire was caused by a problem that could affect other aircraft.
"Right now, it's being treated as an isolated incident, but neither can we rule out there might be implications fleetwide," Darcy said.
'It flies great'
The Osprey pilots who flew to the Miramar air show from their base in New River, N.C., said they were satisfied for now with showing off the Osprey's unique abilities for friendly audiences in the United States.
"It flies great," said Capt. Donald Bland of Brewster, N.Y., in an interview at the air show.
Maj. Frank Conway, of Lindenwold, N.J., another Osprey pilot, pronounced the aircraft's dual capabilities as "awesome."
"You get the best of both worlds, and it's due mainly to the electronic flight controls," he said.
Darcy said in a telephone interview from his office in Maryland that the MV-22 is on track for deployment in mid-2007.
In the meantime, he said, crews are being trained to take the Osprey into combat while it continues to receive new equipment, such as the de-icing device and rear-mounted machine guns.
Iraq or Afghanistan are the most obvious areas in which the Osprey is likely to see action, but it could also be used in a conflict looming in the unknown future. Earlier this year, Lt. Col. Rick A. Pagel, the station operations officer at Miramar, said that he expected the Osprey would be deployed to Iraq in 2007. The Secretary of Defense, Darcy said, will make the final decision on the time and place of the Osprey's deployment, which will also be determined by the availability of spare parts, maintenance capabilities and other unglamorous issues.
"We have to prove at every step we are not only getting the aircraft ready to deploy, but that we have a good plan in place to support the aircraft once it gets over there," Darcy said.
Critics are conceding little, even as the Osprey's comeback gains altitude. They say that impressing friendly civilians in their chairs at air shows and flattening an enemy on a distant battlefield are entirely different missions.
Philip Coyle, a senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that often criticizes the Pentagon's spending priorities, said the Osprey needs to be subjected to more rigorous testing before being sent into combat.
Coyle's dissatisfaction with the Osprey dates back to his first-hand experience with the program from 1994 to 2001, he says, when he worked in the Pentagon as the top adviser to the Secretary of Defense on testing and evaluation of military equipment.
"The question is: In battle where they have sudden pull-up maneuvers or evasive maneuvers, will the pilots be trained enough for how this aircraft system operates and will there be surprises?" Coyle said.
Twice the training
All military aircraft face similar questions before they are sent into combat, but the Osprey's dual identity as an airplane and helicopter requires everyone involved with the aircraft to master unusually complex technology, Coyle said.
"In this particular instance, it has turned out to be a very expensive aircraft, first, in terms of cost but also as an expensive aircraft to support and sustain. The contractor continues to have trouble where things fail, things break," Coyle said.
The Osprey's manufacturer specifications show it is designed to carry twice as many Marines as other helicopters in its classification. The Osprey is most frequently compared to the CH-43 Sea Knight helicopter. The Pentagon lists the Sea Knight as capable of carrying 12 Marines, compared to 24 for the Osprey.
The Osprey, designated a "medium-lift" helicopter, is designed to carry its load farther and faster than helicopters such as the CH-53 Sea Stallion, which can hold more passengers and lift more cargo.
All Ospreys are equipped for mid-air fueling and can carry a full load of Marines 2,600 miles across the United States within nine hours or span the oceans in a single flight. Darcy said the aircraft has flown 3,000 miles on a single mid-air refueling, enough to cover the distance between its base in North Carolina and San Diego with more than 600 miles to spare.
Among older model aircraft, the Harrier jump jet, developed by the British, matches the Osprey's vertical takeoff and landing capability, but the Harrier cannot convert itself into a helicopter.
Its backers say the Osprey can perform 41 sorties -- flights involving military duties -- carrying a total of 975 Marines from aboard a ship to a land battle in three hours, although their claims have never been fully tested in live exercises or combat.
The CH-43 Sea Knight requires 12 hours and 82 sorties to perform the same feat.
The Osprey can take off with a load of 52,870 pounds, a number that will decrease with the added weight of machine guns, but not enough to affect the aircraft in ways that would keep it from conducting the missions envisioned for it, Darcy said.
Safety features added
Military planners say the Osprey's capabilities -- to the extent they can be determined through noncombat testing -- also mean the aircraft can fly over enemy positions as an airplane, convert into a helicopter, then deposit large numbers of Marines behind hostile forces, a potentially decisive advantage in battle.
Skeptics remain troubled by the reasons for the two crashes in 2000, the first on a training mission near Tucson, Ariz., that killed 14 Marines from Camp Pendleton and one from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. That crash was blamed by Pentagon investigators on a condition called vortex ring state, a danger for all helicopters and one that poses special risks in the Osprey. Vortex ring state is a condition created when an Osprey descends too quickly at too slow a speed, causing one propeller to grab more air than the other as the aircraft descends. As a result, the aircraft spins violently and crashes.
Darcy said the Osprey had shown itself in tests to be less likely than other helicopters to encounter vortex ring state and more likely to escape safely when it does.
"The V-22 can come into a landing zone faster than any helicopter we have in our inventory," Darcy said.
Darcy cited a new visual display warning that is designed to make the current Osprey safer than the version that crashed in 2000.
A display screen shows a scale illustrating the Osprey's air speed and rate of descent, thereby allowing the pilot to see when the Osprey is close to entering vortex ring state. Darcy said Ospreys also come equipped with an automated voice system informing the pilot of imminent vortex ring state.
Coyle remained critical of the Osprey, but said he agreed that the vortex ring condition was now much less of a threat.
"They're handling that problem and have done quite a number of tests to understand the conditions under which it occurs. The pilots are well-informed about it," he said.
Another defect, this one involving chafing and leakage in the hydraulic lines used to control the Osprey, was the reason for the deadly crash in North Carolina, according to an official military investigation. Since then, the Osprey's engineers and project managers, according to Darcy and those involved in testing and redesigning the aircraft, have worked to regain the confidence of Pentagon officials.
Bell Helicopter and Boeing say they have rerouted the Osprey's titanium hydraulic lines so they will not rub against anything that would chafe them. So far, no problems have cropped up in 5,000 flight hours, according to a Pentagon evaluation.
'Not a new plane'
Conway, one of the Osprey pilots at the Miramar air show, described nearly round-the-clock shifts by engineers trying to make the Osprey combat-worthy after the two crashes. Years of flight testing and evaluation by several military panels followed, he said, all of which culminated in the decision by the Pentagon in September 2005 to order full-scale production.
"Underneath the skin, it's not a new plane, but it's pretty well revamped," said Conway, who has been flying the Osprey since 2003.
To Coyle and others, there are too many signs that the Osprey's rebirth is a case of putting old wine in new bottles.They cite a long list of doubts they still have about the aircraft, from inadequate defense armaments during landings and takeoffs to a high number of potentially dangerous bird strikes in mid-air.
"They've had dozens and dozens of stupid things happen" since the two deadly crashes in 2000, said Harry Dunn, a retired Air Force colonel and engineer who spent his career developing some military helicopters. His projects include the HH-3E, more commonly known as the Jolly Green Giant, a twin-engine, heavy-lift helicopter.
Darcy dismissed the criticisms from Dunn and others as exaggerations of minor, manageable problems, "urban myths" unsupported by test data or based on outdated information.
Darcy cited what he described as wide support for the Osprey among Marines, from the highest to the low ranking, as one of the biggest reasons why civilian critics should have more confidence in the program. The Marine Corps has been the lead service in the development of the Osprey, according to the official Navy Web site. The Osprey was designed to transport assault troops, equipment and supplies -- jobs that are often crucial to Marine missions.
"Marines who lacked faith in its capability 10 years ago are now some of the strongest advocates" of the Osprey, Darcy said.
Tom Spidel, a former Marine gunnery sergeant, called today's Osprey "100 percent better" than the version he flew in six years ago. Spidel has been with the Osprey program for 12 years. He has retired from the Marines but has helped redesign and maintain the aircraft as a civilian employee during the last several years.
"I was never scared to fly in that airplane but there were things that needed to be fixed and luckily we did that." he said.
Coyle said such support comes as no surprise to him.
"I think the people involved in any new defense acquisition program feel that way. They're not the ones we're worried about," he said. "We're worried about future Marines in battle, whether they'll be burdened by this aircraft or even endangered by it."
One fact is not in dispute: No one has been injured or killed in the Osprey in six years of redesign, redevelopment and testing. Meanwhile, the debate among experts inside and outside the Pentagon continues.
The lingering question whether the Osprey is an example of military technology at its finest or a deadly boondoggle is unlikely to be settled until it undergoes the only test that really matters: flying in combat.
-- Contact staff writer Joe Beck at (760) 740-3516 or jbeck@nctimes.com.
Ellie
By: JOE BECK - Staff Writer
MIRAMAR -- Six years after a pair of MV-22 Osprey crashes killed 23 Marines, the controversial troop transport aircraft is poised to take its place in combat within a year.
The Osprey's return from a Pentagon-ordered grounding is a story of extensive redesign and the determination of its Marine Corps backers to forge ahead with the project, despite the deadly accidents and fierce criticism of the aircraft that continues today.
The Osprey's most obvious innovation is the ability to transform itself into either a helicopter or an airplane in mid-air by tilting its twin rotor propellers vertically or horizontally in less than 20 seconds. The Osprey usually takes off vertically, then the propellers are rotated forward 90 degrees for horizontal flight, thus converting the aircraft into a turbo prop plane with a cruise speed the equivalent of 277 to 295 mph, according to specifications listed on the Navy's Osprey Web site.
One of the fatal crashes took the lives of 19 Marines, 15 of them from local bases, on a training mission near Tuscon, Ariz., in 2000. Four more died a few months later on another training mission in North Carolina.
Instead of scrapping the Osprey, which appeared likely in the aftermath of the crashes, the Pentagon in September 2005 ordered production ramped up to an eventual rate of 36 a year and 458 overall from the previous rate of 11 annually. Most of the 360 Ospreys are headed for the Marine Corps, according to a fact sheet about the aircraft on the U.S. Navy Web site.
Military officials and the Osprey's contractors, Boeing Co. and the Bell Helicopter division of Textron Inc., have pegged the Osprey's cost at $70 million each for the versions to be used by the Marines and Navy and $89 million for the version to be used by the Air Force.
The additional cost for the Air Force version comes from extra electronic equipment designed to thwart enemy radar, radio jamming devices, infrared targeting devices and other electronic-based enemy threats, according to the Air Force's official Web site. The Air Force deems those threats more likely to arise on the special operations missions it plans for the Osprey -- missions requiring quick penetration and escape from enemy territory.
Today's price is significantly higher than the $44 million each Osprey cost when the two crashes in 2000 led to its grounding.
The aircraft's comeback has confounded critics, some of whom continue to condemn it as unsafe and impractical for the battlefield.
Marine pilots who flew the Osprey in October before tens of thousands of spectators at the 51st annual air show at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar beamed triumphantly after one of their performances. Their appearance at the air show was part of a long path to redemption for the Osprey that won't be completed until it proves itself in combat.
Meanwhile, the aircraft's supporters continue to fend off criticism of the Osprey.
For example, earlier this year, ice in an engine interrupted an Osprey's transatlantic flight to an air show in Great Britain. The aircraft made an unplanned landing in Iceland, where mechanics replaced the crippled engine.
James Darcy, a civilian employee for the Pentagon and spokesman for the Osprey program, said the aircraft could have continued on to Great Britain without stopping in Iceland but "because they had set a conservative performance threshold, they elected to go ahead and do a precautionary diversion to Iceland."
The Osprey fleet is scheduled to receive de-icing equipment that is supposed to eliminate such problems before its deployment next year, Darcy said.
Navy officials are also investigating the cause of a fire that damaged an Osprey on Dec. 7 after it landed on the Mariner base at New River, N.C. No one was injured and the fire was immediately extinguished, Darcy said.
The fire started in the left nacelle, one of the structures enclosing each of the aircraft's engines, Darcy said. Marine officials said last week that damage to the Osprey has been pegged between $200,000 and $1 million.
Darcy said the rest of the Osprey fleet remains eligible for flight in the absence of any proof that the fire was caused by a problem that could affect other aircraft.
"Right now, it's being treated as an isolated incident, but neither can we rule out there might be implications fleetwide," Darcy said.
'It flies great'
The Osprey pilots who flew to the Miramar air show from their base in New River, N.C., said they were satisfied for now with showing off the Osprey's unique abilities for friendly audiences in the United States.
"It flies great," said Capt. Donald Bland of Brewster, N.Y., in an interview at the air show.
Maj. Frank Conway, of Lindenwold, N.J., another Osprey pilot, pronounced the aircraft's dual capabilities as "awesome."
"You get the best of both worlds, and it's due mainly to the electronic flight controls," he said.
Darcy said in a telephone interview from his office in Maryland that the MV-22 is on track for deployment in mid-2007.
In the meantime, he said, crews are being trained to take the Osprey into combat while it continues to receive new equipment, such as the de-icing device and rear-mounted machine guns.
Iraq or Afghanistan are the most obvious areas in which the Osprey is likely to see action, but it could also be used in a conflict looming in the unknown future. Earlier this year, Lt. Col. Rick A. Pagel, the station operations officer at Miramar, said that he expected the Osprey would be deployed to Iraq in 2007. The Secretary of Defense, Darcy said, will make the final decision on the time and place of the Osprey's deployment, which will also be determined by the availability of spare parts, maintenance capabilities and other unglamorous issues.
"We have to prove at every step we are not only getting the aircraft ready to deploy, but that we have a good plan in place to support the aircraft once it gets over there," Darcy said.
Critics are conceding little, even as the Osprey's comeback gains altitude. They say that impressing friendly civilians in their chairs at air shows and flattening an enemy on a distant battlefield are entirely different missions.
Philip Coyle, a senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that often criticizes the Pentagon's spending priorities, said the Osprey needs to be subjected to more rigorous testing before being sent into combat.
Coyle's dissatisfaction with the Osprey dates back to his first-hand experience with the program from 1994 to 2001, he says, when he worked in the Pentagon as the top adviser to the Secretary of Defense on testing and evaluation of military equipment.
"The question is: In battle where they have sudden pull-up maneuvers or evasive maneuvers, will the pilots be trained enough for how this aircraft system operates and will there be surprises?" Coyle said.
Twice the training
All military aircraft face similar questions before they are sent into combat, but the Osprey's dual identity as an airplane and helicopter requires everyone involved with the aircraft to master unusually complex technology, Coyle said.
"In this particular instance, it has turned out to be a very expensive aircraft, first, in terms of cost but also as an expensive aircraft to support and sustain. The contractor continues to have trouble where things fail, things break," Coyle said.
The Osprey's manufacturer specifications show it is designed to carry twice as many Marines as other helicopters in its classification. The Osprey is most frequently compared to the CH-43 Sea Knight helicopter. The Pentagon lists the Sea Knight as capable of carrying 12 Marines, compared to 24 for the Osprey.
The Osprey, designated a "medium-lift" helicopter, is designed to carry its load farther and faster than helicopters such as the CH-53 Sea Stallion, which can hold more passengers and lift more cargo.
All Ospreys are equipped for mid-air fueling and can carry a full load of Marines 2,600 miles across the United States within nine hours or span the oceans in a single flight. Darcy said the aircraft has flown 3,000 miles on a single mid-air refueling, enough to cover the distance between its base in North Carolina and San Diego with more than 600 miles to spare.
Among older model aircraft, the Harrier jump jet, developed by the British, matches the Osprey's vertical takeoff and landing capability, but the Harrier cannot convert itself into a helicopter.
Its backers say the Osprey can perform 41 sorties -- flights involving military duties -- carrying a total of 975 Marines from aboard a ship to a land battle in three hours, although their claims have never been fully tested in live exercises or combat.
The CH-43 Sea Knight requires 12 hours and 82 sorties to perform the same feat.
The Osprey can take off with a load of 52,870 pounds, a number that will decrease with the added weight of machine guns, but not enough to affect the aircraft in ways that would keep it from conducting the missions envisioned for it, Darcy said.
Safety features added
Military planners say the Osprey's capabilities -- to the extent they can be determined through noncombat testing -- also mean the aircraft can fly over enemy positions as an airplane, convert into a helicopter, then deposit large numbers of Marines behind hostile forces, a potentially decisive advantage in battle.
Skeptics remain troubled by the reasons for the two crashes in 2000, the first on a training mission near Tucson, Ariz., that killed 14 Marines from Camp Pendleton and one from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. That crash was blamed by Pentagon investigators on a condition called vortex ring state, a danger for all helicopters and one that poses special risks in the Osprey. Vortex ring state is a condition created when an Osprey descends too quickly at too slow a speed, causing one propeller to grab more air than the other as the aircraft descends. As a result, the aircraft spins violently and crashes.
Darcy said the Osprey had shown itself in tests to be less likely than other helicopters to encounter vortex ring state and more likely to escape safely when it does.
"The V-22 can come into a landing zone faster than any helicopter we have in our inventory," Darcy said.
Darcy cited a new visual display warning that is designed to make the current Osprey safer than the version that crashed in 2000.
A display screen shows a scale illustrating the Osprey's air speed and rate of descent, thereby allowing the pilot to see when the Osprey is close to entering vortex ring state. Darcy said Ospreys also come equipped with an automated voice system informing the pilot of imminent vortex ring state.
Coyle remained critical of the Osprey, but said he agreed that the vortex ring condition was now much less of a threat.
"They're handling that problem and have done quite a number of tests to understand the conditions under which it occurs. The pilots are well-informed about it," he said.
Another defect, this one involving chafing and leakage in the hydraulic lines used to control the Osprey, was the reason for the deadly crash in North Carolina, according to an official military investigation. Since then, the Osprey's engineers and project managers, according to Darcy and those involved in testing and redesigning the aircraft, have worked to regain the confidence of Pentagon officials.
Bell Helicopter and Boeing say they have rerouted the Osprey's titanium hydraulic lines so they will not rub against anything that would chafe them. So far, no problems have cropped up in 5,000 flight hours, according to a Pentagon evaluation.
'Not a new plane'
Conway, one of the Osprey pilots at the Miramar air show, described nearly round-the-clock shifts by engineers trying to make the Osprey combat-worthy after the two crashes. Years of flight testing and evaluation by several military panels followed, he said, all of which culminated in the decision by the Pentagon in September 2005 to order full-scale production.
"Underneath the skin, it's not a new plane, but it's pretty well revamped," said Conway, who has been flying the Osprey since 2003.
To Coyle and others, there are too many signs that the Osprey's rebirth is a case of putting old wine in new bottles.They cite a long list of doubts they still have about the aircraft, from inadequate defense armaments during landings and takeoffs to a high number of potentially dangerous bird strikes in mid-air.
"They've had dozens and dozens of stupid things happen" since the two deadly crashes in 2000, said Harry Dunn, a retired Air Force colonel and engineer who spent his career developing some military helicopters. His projects include the HH-3E, more commonly known as the Jolly Green Giant, a twin-engine, heavy-lift helicopter.
Darcy dismissed the criticisms from Dunn and others as exaggerations of minor, manageable problems, "urban myths" unsupported by test data or based on outdated information.
Darcy cited what he described as wide support for the Osprey among Marines, from the highest to the low ranking, as one of the biggest reasons why civilian critics should have more confidence in the program. The Marine Corps has been the lead service in the development of the Osprey, according to the official Navy Web site. The Osprey was designed to transport assault troops, equipment and supplies -- jobs that are often crucial to Marine missions.
"Marines who lacked faith in its capability 10 years ago are now some of the strongest advocates" of the Osprey, Darcy said.
Tom Spidel, a former Marine gunnery sergeant, called today's Osprey "100 percent better" than the version he flew in six years ago. Spidel has been with the Osprey program for 12 years. He has retired from the Marines but has helped redesign and maintain the aircraft as a civilian employee during the last several years.
"I was never scared to fly in that airplane but there were things that needed to be fixed and luckily we did that." he said.
Coyle said such support comes as no surprise to him.
"I think the people involved in any new defense acquisition program feel that way. They're not the ones we're worried about," he said. "We're worried about future Marines in battle, whether they'll be burdened by this aircraft or even endangered by it."
One fact is not in dispute: No one has been injured or killed in the Osprey in six years of redesign, redevelopment and testing. Meanwhile, the debate among experts inside and outside the Pentagon continues.
The lingering question whether the Osprey is an example of military technology at its finest or a deadly boondoggle is unlikely to be settled until it undergoes the only test that really matters: flying in combat.
-- Contact staff writer Joe Beck at (760) 740-3516 or jbeck@nctimes.com.
Ellie