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The bird with more lives than a cat The MV-22 Osprey programme has survived so many fatal crashes and attempts to kill it in congress that perhaps it should be renamed the MV-22 ‘Rasputin’. Yet still it continues, though I see that one of the two MV-22s flown from the US to Farnborough a couple days ago had to divert to Iceland because of engine difficulties.
Yet every time I look at the amazing disc loading on those things, I wonder how the hell they intend to use them? Given that when hovering the downwash has been known to knock people off their feet and send fast moving debris flying in all directions, how is this kite going to replace the CH-46E and CH-53D? An aircraft designed for unprepared LZ special operations that has to hover high to avoid downwash related problems and which cannot auto-rotate if damaged fills me with grave foreboding. Although the range and speed are very impressive, I wonder if this aircraft will not just be too hot and too inflexible for practical operations at the current state of technology.
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Although technically bold, the Osprey has been a complete turkey from the start. Some things work – the Chinook, A10, Hercules, B 52, F 15, Harrier etc – and some things don’t. The poor Osprey is very definitely in the second category. It always reminds me of some doomed British design of the 1950s rather than a 21st century plane. Can you imagine flying one of those things when someone’s shooting at you?
…yet the guys who fly it and who have been working with it think it’s pretty much the neatest damned thing in the world.
Twice the speed, twice (or more) the range? Sheesh, a little thing like prop wash isn’t going to bother the troops too much, when they can go visit people at “impossible” ranges. Autorotation? Dream on, for just about any big copter (and even the V-22 has a certain amount of that).
At the same level of development and testing, the F-14 had more crashes, and had a lot more big problems. Ditto for most of our fron’t line combat aircraft. The CH-47 was a pretty big disaster in testing, but they went right on ahead.
Looking at late-model improvements on old designs is a bad comparison for any new airframe.
It’s a damned good idea though, you’ve got to admit that.
Is there a post-mortem on this thing yet? That would be fascinating.
I’m no engineer, but it seems to me the thing is fundamentally flawed. It looks like it was designed by a committee.
Ever been in the Deutsche Museum in Munich? Ever seen the DO31? If not, there’s a link : http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_31
That actually worked!
I can’t read german, but from the pictures I’d guess that it used some kind of vectored thrust jet engine and not prop engines like the osprey. Less moving parts. Less to go wrong but with a tendency for the downwash to cook anyone beneath it rather than just knock them over.
Sure, never mind the fact grunts may have to fast rope down 100 feet to get out of the damn plane or that it has almost no lateral agility (as in “sitting duck”) and that you can only rope out of the rear because of the insane downwash. Things you could do in 1-2 minutes in a CH-53 will take you 5-6 minutes in a VM-22.
Sure the range is great but the load sucks. A medium lift VH71, which is a total sweetie to fly (I know!) even well loaded, can beat a VM-22 in the real world.
You can ABSOLUTELY autorotate a CH-53. If you’re had a close encounter with an RPG, that means the difference between a crash-landing and large hole in the ground. Try that in a MV-22 and you flip over! In fact, try many of the things you can do in a CH-53 and you flip over. And the Osprey’s tendency to no-warning Vortex Ring State problems due to its side-by-side configuration are also well documented. The damn thing flips over at the slightest provocation.
This aircraft is going to be the mother of all USMC widow-makers.
Looking at the Osprey makes me realise just how advanced the British Fairey Rotodyne was ahead of its time.
Saw them flying over London on Sunday afternoon – over the thames at 18:00-19:00 ish – first time I’ve seen them in the air – whether they actually do the job their supposed to, they look amazing.
What amazes me is how the British dropped the ball wrt the Harrier and now are reliant on a foreign replacement, when the original was such (still is) a marvel…as are hovercraft.
p.s.The Fairey looks like it belongs on the set of a Supermarionation production…and that is no insult. If there was an example of needed to, as Prof Heinz Wolf recommends, reviewing past technologies, then this is it.
British Aviation is a catalog of brilliant innovation. It is also a catalog of disasters; not so much of the ball of fire category, rather the ‘yes but’, ‘where’s the advantage or the money’, ‘yes, clever, but what do we need it for?’ variety.
Never mind Aviation, the list of neglected British inventions exploited by others, is shameful.
It appears to me that the very different American attitude is: “Wow! Great! OK, we’ll build one or two. If it works we’re all rich. If not, you’re fired!”
There was one hovering over the Tesco in Aldershot the other week. Made one hell of a racket. Like a monkey on amphetamines was beating a bass drum next to your ear.
The Fairey Rotodyne! Exactly, that was the one I was thinking of.
The Osprey has been in development for 20 years and it’s still not in front line service. Dick Cheney tried to cancel it during the first Bush administration (George Herbert Walker Bush that is) and still the damn thing won’t die. It’s only survived because of pork barrel sentators arguing for yet more tax dollars for their states. The price has rocketed and it still doesn’t work.
I’m all for expensive war planes if they do the job, the F22 Raptor is a superb fighter for instance, but the Osprey has a two decade record of failure. So much has been spent on it and so much time invested that it’s too late to pull the plug now but when one thinks of all the great planes that got canned – the TSR2 of course among others – it’s remarkable that this one has survived. Why didn’t they just go for a super chinook sort of design? Who needs a huge range if it can’t carry that much, is inherently vulnerable to accidental loss and just has ‘shoot me down’ written all over it?
Sorry Nick but 20 years isn’t too bad – Eurofighter (as is now) was started in 1980 and only just got in service – and is designed to do a job which the western air forces just don’t need to do anymore. We still have enemies but there ain’t a lot of dog fighting on the horizon. Admitedly it’s supposed to be a brilliant aircraft but it was redundant before it was finished. Air forces need to be geared toward ground attack these days. Let’s hope they turn the JSF round a lot quicker, before the rate of change in the world makes that obsolete too.
I rather think they have them in the UK this week since the Royal Navy is considering the Osprey as its one-aircraft-suits-all equivalent for carrier-borne AWACS support (similar to the E-2C Hawkeye) and an Anti-Submarine Warfare platform, for the 2 new HMS Tony and Cherie-class carriers. Still, not the safest of aircraft to have hovering over Vincent Square on a sunny Sunday afternoon and noisy as hell.
They were at the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford at the weekend – I’ve got some pictures here if anyone’s interested (the Ospreys are about two thirds of the way down the page). They will be at Farnborough this weekend as well.
The Osprey is already in service with two Marine units stateside. I think its current assignments are to continue to flush out the bugs in real world conditions and determine the best operational procedures before they are used in the field. An army captain I work with said he saw one in Afghanistan in 2005, so there probably have been some trials with spec ops or perhaps simple field tests in different theaters to see how the parts react to different conditions in the real world. If it works it’ll be worth the money over the years of its service, if not, ugh……….
Spec Ops? That things about as stealthy as a heavy metal concert! As for survivability, well that just sucks, and when the bad guys can here you coming several miles away……..
‘on time, under budget or works – pick any two’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadair_CL-84
Excellent photos Andrew!
I think the Typhoon’s been unfairly criticised, it’s a great aircraft, able to outfly and outfight anything except the Raptor and is a great deal better than its French counterpart for instance. Of course military aircraft take a long time to develop but you could put the Typhoon in a war situation right now and be very confident that it would perform excellently, I don’t think anyone would say that of the Osprey.
The RAF hasn’t actually had a proper fighter since the Lightning, the F3 Tornado being a heavy interceptor rather than a true fighter, and the JSF and Tornado are there to handle the strike role which I agree is most important. The Typhoon’s going to be an important plane for the next 30 years and it’s been hampered by penny pinching cost cutting and political interference (the gun!) rather than any inherant technological problem.
The Osprey just strikes me as a turkey and I haven’t read anything about it which makes me change my mind. Of course I could be completely wrong about that. I think seeing an Apache or Chinook or A10 or Harrier around would be a great comfort if you were on the ground in a shooting situation, and I can’t see anyone cheering themselves up with the thought that the Ospreys were coming. Maybe it’ll prove to be a multi tasking world beater but one thing the Dakota or Hercules or Chinook or Canberra or similar work horses had going for them is that they’re robust. The Osprey looks like it’s going to snap any minute.
I’m no expert on it though so if you guys are I’ll bow to your superior knowledge.
I think seeing an Apache or Chinook or A10 or Harrier around would be a great comfort if you were on the ground in a shooting situation, and I can’t see anyone cheering themselves up with the thought that the Ospreys were coming.
If I was in the shit, I’d be cheered up with the thought that *any* friendlies were headed my way to help.
The Osprey will get there before an Apache or Chinook would be, and unlike the A10 or Harrier, the Osprey will be able to drop off reinforcements and evac wounded. That’s a big deal.
Admittedly, my first choice for air support would be a B-52, but having them tell you an Osprey full of Marines is on it’s way is a lot better than being told that you’re going to have to resort to bayonets and harsh language when you run out of ammo.
The true test is if the Osprey can prove the technology and lead to a whole new class of flying machines and not just remain a one-off which will, in the future, be seen as a wonderful machine but a technological dead-end.
“The Osprey just strikes me as a turkey and I haven’t read anything about it which makes me change my mind. Of course I could be completely wrong about that. I think seeing an Apache or Chinook or A10 or Harrier around would be a great comfort if you were on the ground in a shooting situation, and I can’t see anyone cheering themselves up with the thought that the Ospreys were coming.”
I’m trying to recall a major weapons system in the past half-century that _hasn’t_ been continually bad-mouthed during it’s development.
The Apache was a waste of funds that required too much maintence and couldn’t find it’s targets.
The Chinook was a mass murderer that killed both pilots and passengers.
The Abrahms was a gas guzzler that would suffer from multiple failures from over-complicated gear as soon as it entered combat.
The Bradley was an overpriced death-trap that would turn responsible crewmen into reckless wanna-be tankers.
The F-117 couldn’t hit it’s targets, and wasn’t really that stealthy anyways.
The B-2 would become magically visible on radar if it was left out in the rain.
The B-1… well, I don’t have enough space in this comments block to cover what’s been said about it.
Frankly, I would not be surprised to see, 50 years from now, newspaper articles decrying the idiocy of replacing worthwhile, combat proven Ospreys with new, unproven deathtraps.
Well Dave, I flatter myself that I am hardly a technological luddite and that I know a thing or two about aerospace and yet whilst the Apache, Chinook, Abrams, Bradley, Wobbly Goblin, B-2 and B-1 have all had their fault, in concept they all made sence and their basic configurations were not flawed.
The Osprey on the other hand is, I would argue, not even a good idea if it works as designed (and it does not even come close to doing that). The increase in range (significent) and speed (not that significent) are vastly off set by the reduction in flexibility and survivability. In other words, I do not think the VM-22 is just not yet ready and therefore just needs to go through a few more development iterations, I think it is a bad idea to begin with.
Nick M: Osprey isn’t air support, it’s transport! As to the best air support… depends what you’re facing. Personnel in open order: B52, Armor: A-10 or Apache, Personnell as point targets or in buildings: AC-130.
PDH: Osprey is great for what it does, extending the range of Marines and Spec-Ops for insertion and extraction. Improving on Chinooks and Blackhawks is VERY HARD and looks to require a completely new paradigm. Osprey is something. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is a solution.
Stuart: There’s no such thing as a stealthy cargo Helo (or hell cargo airframe). They’re big beasts, with monstrous engines, that are expected to be used hard with a very large range of payloads. A much different situation from stealth bomber and fighter platforms, or attack and scout helos. You’ll notice that B52s, AC130s and A10s aren’t quiet or stealthy either, and the AC130s are used for Spec-Ops. There’s all sorts of different types of things you do on spec ops, outside from a halo drop, which outside of fictional B2 insertion aren’t done by stealth platforms either.
hey,
I never said anything about air-support.
A longer range death-trap is not a solution in my view!