Thursday, May 7, 2009
Posted on Wed, May. 06, 2009
Senior Marine Corps general open to buying fewer of Bell's V-22s

By BOB COX
rcox@star-telegram.com

A senior Marine Corps general indicated Wednesday that the service is willing to consider buying fewer V-22 Ospreys and more helicopters.

The Marines have long argued that they need at least 360 V-22s, built by Bell Helicopter and Boeing, to replace their aging transport helicopters. But in a conference call, Lt. Gen. George Trautman III, deputy commandant for aviation, eased away from that position when he was asked about studies urging a shift in priority to helicopters.

The Marines are "a thoughtful, learning organization, and we are very open-minded . . . [about] how many V-22s we ultimately want to have," Trautman said. "I don’t think that this is an urgent question, but we’re prepared to have that dialogue inside the Quadrennial Defense Review if that’s one of the topics that comes to the fore."

A Marine spokesman said later that the service was not considering cutting V-22 purchases. "The Marine Corps requirement is 360 V-22s," Maj. Eric Dent said. "That requirement could well grow."

Marine weapons programs were largely unscathed from cuts in the 2010 budget that Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed, which will be released today. But Gates has said he will also challenge the Marines to justify future weapons plans.

Several defense think tanks have written reports suggesting that the Marines should buy modern, less-costly helicopters in place of some V-22s. The Marines’ MV-22s Ospreys cost about $80 million each, compared with $20 million each for Black Hawk helicopters.

In November, the influential Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis argued that the Marines should rethink their V-22 procurement plans and opt to buy more helicopters.

The study was written by an ex-Marine officer, Dakota Wood. Another ex-Marine analyst at the think tank, Robert Work, has been nominated by President Barack Obama as Navy undersecretary and will play a key role in Marines planning.

The Pentagon is just beginning the Quadrennial Defense Review, a long-range study of future defense requirements. Analysts suggest that it will give Gates and like-minded Pentagon officials an opportunity to push the military services to buy fewer, less-costly weapons systems and focus on meeting more immediate combat needs.

The V-22 is a core product of Fort Worth-based Bell, which is counting on sales to the Marines and Air Force to generate sizable profit for years to come.

Trautman said the Marines’ deployment of Ospreys into Iraq over the last 19 months was "marvelously successful. The performance thus far tells us that the aircraft completed every assigned mission . . . flying faster, farther, and with safer flight profiles" than helicopters.

Ospreys continue to have more reliability problems than the Marines would like, but Trautman said Bell and Boeing are working on them.

"We think this aircraft is exactly the type of capability that is going to make the . . . operations of our Marines in that part of Afghanistan far more capable than they would be otherwise."

Ellie