Posted on 07/12/2007 11:51:00 AM PDT by Freeport
I saw formation of about 20 of em flying just south of Camp Lejuene ( series of 4 ship formations). Quite a sight. They can move along and are much quieter then a helo. Hopefully the bugs have been worked out, they do have a lot to offer especially to the Marines.
?
Now I sometimes work in a hangar that houses several V-22's undergoing some flight testing. I always go watch when one takes off.
Ignoramuses
I got the same feeling a few months ago when I went on a business trip to Charleston, and toured the carrier Yorktown.
I could tell it was much smaller.
I also got the creepiest feeling on that ship. It was creepy walking around inside a ship, and it being completely silent. No people, no machinery in the background, nothing but my footsteps. Like the ship was haunted.
That’s what I had heard through the grapevine....What was the cause then? That was the one that went into the Potomic right?
They make such big easy targets for submarines.
Oh to have been there.....There is absolutely nothing like a full deck of aircraft waiting for the order to launch at the same time.
All that aside, when you got something in development for 25 years at a cost of $30 billion and all you get is a troop carrier that is 100 miles faster than a proven helicopter. And the production schedule calls for 100 or so to be built; that costs out these contraptions out to $300,000,000 each; this works out to a ridiculous waste of tax dollars. The purpose of defense spending is to procure weaponry to kill the enemy. The V-22 is nothing more than a flying bus; with the combat power of a rifle squad; and the technology is a dead end. The fact that the thing exists is due to pork barrel politics. For $30 billion you can buy a few Aircraft Carriers with a service life of 50 years and all the combat power of a fleet of aircraft.
Let me poke a few holes in that.
CH-53, fastest heavy lift heli in US Naval service top speed: 149.5 mph.
MV-22 top speed: *363* mph, over *200* mph faster, and more than twice as fast as *any* US chopper.
CH-53 unrefueled range: 886nm.
V-22 unrefueled range: 1050nm.
The Osprey program is not going to produce just 100 aircraft. It’s going to produce 360 for the Marines alone! The Navy wants 48, and the USAF is getting 50. The Army is still deciding if they want any. Total flyaway cost is currently $68M; not $300M. And as production ramps up, that will reduce to under $50M.
The Osprey was, as you say, originally designed as an unarmed troop carrier. Then again, so was the HU-1 - and look what happened with it! The Osprey has been fitted with a door gun, and is in flight trials for a belly turret, much like the one on the Apache. Other systems are being proposed and tested, and the sponson hardpoints may be coming back (which were removed due to budget cuts).
The M1 tank took almost as long to develop - do you think that was a waste as well?
Whatever weapons they can hang on it, one lucky shot to the complicated power-train and its going to auger in. It cant sustain any battle damage and be survivable. If a blade take a hit, they will be so unbalanced they will chew up a wing its curtains for the whole plane. The configuration is not logically defensible for anyone with a rational thought process.
The fly away costs means nothing, it is an accounting fiction, it costs $$300,000,000 each to get 100 into the air.
The Big Picture is that it can ferry 30 troops just like the CH-47F Chinook, (which is old hat) with a top speed of 196 mph, and will still be flying beyond 2030 while the v-22 will be moldering in a aircraft boneyard in AZ.
They’ve tested it against actual weapons. The Osprey mounts more armor than the CH-46. The actual power transmission system isn’t much more complex than the CH-46 or CH-47 - which also have that long, long driveshaft from the back to the front. Guess what happens if *that* gets hit in the CH46/47? Brick time.
Auger in? Sorry, no. Assuming the craft has any airspeed at all, it can glide.
If a blade takes a hit, the thing can still fly. If a chopper takes blade damage, it’s quite often game over - how do you think so many of our Apaches got taken out over Iraq by tribesmen with singleshot rifles?
The CH-47 is a good bird, but it does NOT fit aboard Marine strike carriers. The blades do not, and cannot fold. The CH-46 carries a lot fewer troops
The big picture is what you’re not looking at. Everyone else has tried to kill this bird, and the Marines have kept it together because they *need* this bird.
No offense to jar-heads...nevertheless the entire program was *politically driven* and has such turned into a big waste of funds. They had to falsify maintenance records during its long tortuous development to keep the project going.
Yes, the F-22 has more combat power than a Marine platoon, sure.
But the F-22 cannot take and hold ground. For that, you need infantry. And for that, the Marines need this craft.
As former Boeing employee (Integrated Defense), I pray for the safety of those who fly in this thing.
“Royal Navy’s strike carrier”
Now if that were only true. To the Brits, the word “strike” probably sounds too offensive. They may prefer the term “patrol”, which shouldn’t offend anyone.
See post 58.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.