Posted on 07/19/2006 11:19:44 AM PDT by 68skylark
One of the hardest things to do is say how much an airplane costs. There are so many costs associated with standing up squadrons, buying aircraft, buying spares and hangars and paying the gas and electric bill, etc.
Current flyaway cost of one MV-22 is about $71 million, down from over $100 million a couple of years ago. Target cost is $58 million, which is about twice the cost of a medium-lift helo that flies at 120 knots (the V-22 cruises at 250 knots).
Exactly.
How many guys have been killed in helo accidents and shootdowns just in Iraq and Afstan in the last few years? For a time, it seemed like there were a couple a week with 16-18 dead in a Chinook or 6-8 in a Blackhawk.
I'm no expert, but military aviation is not a risk-free proposition. I think the Osprey will shake out okay and give the good guys some capabilities we haven't had before.
welcome and thanks for the insight. I hope this turns out to be a safe and reliable platform.
Thanks for the kind welcome. I am basically an optimistic guy, although my job (and career for 30+ years) is to be a critic. So when I say the V-22 program produced all it was supposed to (eventually) it is out of character. Want to hear about the upgraded H-1? (say no)
I was visting Allison R&D in the mid 90's.
The number of critical moving parts to insure cross connected transmission of power in case of a single engine failure is what scared me. If you loose an engine, land quickly. But the idea of faster and quicker sure has to appeal to anybody waiting for extraction.
The battlefield has it's own test criteria.
Remember the Army thought Dr Gatling's gun fired too many bullets.
"Want to hear about the upgraded H-1? (say no)"
Yes. Pretty please...
"Remember the Army thought Dr Gatling's gun fired too many bullets."
That was also one of the reasons that the BAR was not used in WWI! We had the technology, but our soldiers and Marines were forced to use that piece of crap FRENCH machine gun! ARRRGGGGGHHHH!
That's a good point.
FR tends to be "conservative" in more ways than one -- lots of us are skeptical of new-fangled inventions. But I think a lot of us are open-minded enough to welcome new ideas that really work.
If I can bridge some of the feelings of the optimists and pessimists about this aircraft, I think we can agree it's a technological marvel. As we study it and learn how to improve it in future years, it's very likely to be the forerunner of some very wonderful and very useful aircraft in coming decades.
I came across this compund auto-gyro built in the late 1950s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Rotodyne
Any thoughts on how it would compare to a tilt-rotor aircraft like the Osprey? Would such an autogyro be more feasible with today's technology?
That's a cool looking aircraft -- thanks for the link.
Lets think about this:
500 nautical mile range / UH 60L, 315
240 knot speed / UH60L, ca. 160
An Osprey can carry 24 troops a UH60 12. The Osprey has the ability to land in places like a helicopter but in flight is like a plane and per pound of weight carried more efficient.
It’s “capabilities” that matter. An AV8B has a horrible track record in regards to maintenance or safety. Nonetheless the Marines are using this plane because it can do things others can’t.
(Compared to a UH60L which is the more powerful UH60 in use)
A near 40% increase in range, a 33% increase in speed and a 100% increase in volume in an airframe that can still land on a LZ an Osprey does seem like an improvement.
Look at the maintenance schedule for ANY helicopter and compare that to fixed wings and you’ll come up with similar trends.
1. Constant vibration
2. Everything spinning in circles
3. An airframe under constant torque
4. A machine that inherently is less stable
I think a more fair comparison would be to compare the Osprey to many helicopter developments.
[The number of critical moving parts to insure cross connected transmission of power in case of a single engine failure is what scared me. If you loose an engine, land quickly.]
Q: How far can this aircraft take us on just one engine?
A: All the way to the crash site.
But rather then tell you what a fine aircraft it was, I'd like to challenge anyone that thinks the Osprey is a bad aircraft to prove to me that the CH-46 had a better safety record during it's first few years of service.
For the sake of the arguement let's make it the first five years the CH-46 was in service vs the same period for the MV-22.
Know what the MV-22 is replacing before you tell us how unsafe it is.
It was ungodly noisy, to the point of physical illness. not the sort of thing you want to fly into a landing zone with.
...and you will get there at least 20 mins. before the SAR team.
The negativity and lack of confidence in some posts reminded me of Murtha talking about our military.
'CH-46 had a better safety record during it's first few years of service.'
Blood tax in wartime. How a helo 'tests' out doesn't mean much when guys are flying it to save their ass. 410 problems with the frog early on were a result of misuse or stated another way a result of guys flying it to save their ass.
I thought the biggest mistake in the program was the selection of 130/Harrier guys to test it instead of helicopter guys.
I'm prejudiced as a helo guy and because the civie HAC killed a friend of mine during a VIPEX.
That said, if the Corps can limit the blood tax on it, and figure a way to land in tall grass without fires, it should be a helluva bird.
That's what liberals say about all new military technologies -- "fundamentally unsound". They confuse what is capable in theory with what has been implemented in practice, and never give the engineers the time to work out the problems.
The Osprey design is a very old and very well-known engineering problem that many have failed to solve. In theory, the engineering problem can be solved and doing so would have huge military advantages, and the DoD has the patience and money to see that it actually does get solved. That the Osprey works at all is a testament to the engineers who were able to solve a number of longstanding theoretical problems surrounding those types of designs.
This is no different than ABM systems and hyperkinetic rocket motors. People dismiss them because they are buggy and unreliable for decades, but once the systems finally come together people wonder how our military functioned without them. Difficult engineering rarely works perfectly out of the box, and some problems will never be discovered until put into use, something true of just about everything.
They've invested too much time bad mouthing the V-22 to ever admit they were wrong.
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