A Final Push for the Bedeviled, Beloved Osprey

PATUXENT RIVER
NAVAL AIR STATION, Md.

IN the clear summer sky, the V-22 Osprey was showing its stuff. It went backward, zoomed at an angle, hovered close to the ground and then shot straight up into the air. Buck Rogers himself couldn't have created a more dramatic sight: a hybrid craft, half helicopter and half airplane, that danced in the sky and appeared to defy the laws of aerodynamics.

After two decades in development, the Marines, along with the Osprey's contractors, Boeing and the Bell Helicopter subsidiary of Textron, are making their final push to gain Pentagon approval for the Osprey, an aircraft as high in promise as in problems. The government has spent more than $12 billion so far on the Osprey, which has the notoriety of having suffered three fatal crashes in test flights, leading to the deaths of 30 people, 26 of them Marines.

Still, the Marines are determined, and they see the Osprey as crucial to their mission in the world. "It won't be long before everyone wants one of these," said Col. Daniel Schultz, the V-22 program manager. It's not hard to see why. The Osprey, which can take off like a helicopter and fly like a plane, can travel twice as fast and five times as far as the Marines' current helicopter fleet, from the Vietnam era. "It's the promise of the future," he added.

It is a future that some people hope never comes. Neither the Osprey's razzle-dazzle aerobatics nor the Marine Corps's doggedness has been able to silence critics, who remain convinced that the Osprey's design is too complicated and inherently flawed, that the craft is being pushed into production without adequate testing and that it is simply too dangerous and too expensive.

"The Marines have a tremendous can-do attitude," said Philip E. Coyle III, a senior adviser at the Center for Defense Information, a military research group in Washington. "But when they're overly committed to a program like this, they can end up looking foolish as well as killing people." Mr. Coyle is a former assistant defense secretary who ran the Pentagon's weapons testing program in the 1990's.

Just last May, the General Accounting Office offered its own criticisms. It said the Osprey program "plans to enter full-rate production without ensuring that the manufacturing processes are mature" and that Osprey production continues with inadequate assessments.

But critics fear that the passion of its supporters and the weight of history will keep moving the project along. "The Osprey is on the road to recovery, and the proponents are pushing really hard," said Chris Hellman, a director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a research group in Washington. "My problems with the Osprey remain. The V-22 has gotten to the point where so much money has gone into it, it will probably go ahead regardless."

OR maybe not. Despite this aura of inevitability, the Marines and Osprey contractors know that, given the craft's troubled history, they can afford no more missteps. Clouding their optimism is the fear that something — again — could go terribly wrong. Should the Osprey have another fatal accident, even as strong a supporter as Colonel Schultz acknowledges, "we'd be out of business."

For that reason, the Osprey's backers are pulling out all the stops. After being removed from the skies for more than a year and a half after two fatal crashes in 2000, the Osprey is undergoing a redesigned round of test flights the Marines say should silence critics and ensure that the craft is safe.

In addition, the Osprey is starring in a publicity campaign aimed at opinion makers, both inside government and out. Members of the news media, as well as members of Congress, are being brought to the naval base here to see the Osprey put through its paces.

By the end of 2005, the Pentagon will decide whether to ask Congress to finance a combat-ready fleet of 458 Ospreys — at a projected price of $48 billion. The bulk of the Ospreys would go to the Marines, with 98 for the Army Special Forces and the Navy. For the most part, the Osprey is designed for amphibious troop transport and assault.

The Osprey has also received backing from the Bush administration, which is calling for a "low rate" production of 11 test Ospreys annually in the fiscal 2004 Pentagon budget. A big boost came in May, when the Pentagon's departing weapons chief had an 11th-hour conversion and, on his last day on the job, switched from being a critic to a supporter.

That official, Under Secretary of Defense Edward C. Aldridge Jr., who previously said he had "some real problems" with the Osprey, said he had changed his mind because recent tests gave him "sufficient confidence" in its safety and reliability. In a statement, he added that the craft would provide "much-needed capability to the war fighter" and even called for increasing Osprey production above the current 11 test planes a year, of which 7 are now in the skies. A spokesman for Mr. Aldridge said he was not available to comment on his change.

Aiding the Marines' push in Washington are two formidable lobbying powerhouses, Boeing and Textron. Each is a 50 percent partner in the Osprey and has platoons of lobbyists working Capitol Hill, along with those of the Osprey's many subcontractors.

An example of their efforts was on display last month as Boeing, Bell Helicopter and the Marines jointly sponsored a V-22 media expo at the naval base here to demonstrate the Osprey's prowess to those who could spread the word. Wearing identical sea-foam-green polo shirts with a V-22 logo, dozens of Boeing and Bell employees, along with similarly clad Osprey subcontractors, set up booths in the airfield's hangar to promote their wares and echo the positive spin of the Marines. "Forward with Confidence," was the theme.

The enthusiasm of Boeing and Bell is not surprising. Right now, each Osprey has a price tag of $68.7 million; by comparison, an F-16 fighter jet costs around $20 million. One of the challenges for the Osprey program is to bring the per-craft cost down to around $58 million, a number critics say is still staggeringly expensive for a craft that is essentially a replacement helicopter.

With numbers this large, the Osprey is expected to give each company up to $20 billion over the life of the 12-year project. For Boeing, which had revenue of $54 billion last year, this is a nice additional source of cash. For Bell Helicopter, it is more important than that. Even today, the project accounts for 38 percent of the annual revenue of Bell Helicopter, which also wants to use the Osprey's tilt-rotor technology to make a commercial version of the craft. The Osprey also accounts for 6 percent of Textron's $10.7 billion revenue.

"While Boeing has a lot in development, Textron does not have any new military helicopters," said Paul H. Nisbet, an aerospace analyst at JSA Research in Newport, R.I. "This is a major program for them." Luckily for Textron, it has the Marines. "In Washington, the Marines usually get what they want," Mr. Nisbet said.

IN a presentation before the aerial demonstration here, Colonel Schultz defended the revised testing program that began when the Osprey returned to the skies in May 2002. In the new program, many of Osprey's initial developmental tests were eliminated — to the dismay of many critics — and replaced with ones that Colonel Schultz said were better designed to simulate battlefield conditions and address the problems underlying the crashes. The main problems involved the Osprey's aerodynamics and hydraulics.

"This has not been a fluffy flight-test program," said Colonel Schultz, with a model V-22 in his hand to demonstrate his points. "It's time to take another look at this plane. We have made incredible strides. We have confidence in this plane, and we are ready to give it to the fleet."

Not only do the Osprey's backers feel that it's good enough for the military, they also feel it is good enough for the president. They are angling to have a V-22 Osprey selected in the current competition to replace Marine One, the presidential helicopter. "It would be perfect for the president," said Bob Leder, a spokesman for Bell Helicopter.

Among the unconvinced are retired military aviators, some members of Congress and other military industry analysts. They say the problems behind the multiple crashes have not been resolved and that the complicated design is only setting up the Osprey for more tragic problems — the current optimism notwithstanding. For years, a group of retired military aviators, calling itself the "red ribbon panel," has issued one critical warning after another.

"While there are some very good design tricks, it's got the same basic problems," said Harry P. Dunn, a retired Air Force colonel who heads the group. "It's not a question of if someone gets killed, but when."

Most critics say the Osprey lacks enough maneuverability at low altitudes, and they question whether the manufacturers have solved an aerodynamic problem, called vortex ring state, that caused an April 2000 crash in Arizona in which 19 Marines died. In that condition, the craft becomes caught in its own turbulence and loses lift.

Representative Jim Gibbons, a Nevada Republican who flew F-4's in Vietnam and in the Persian Gulf war as an Air Force combat pilot, is a doubter, too. "This has all the earmarks of becoming the Edsel of the aviation industry," he said. "The Osprey is a nice tool, but is it the right tool in the circumstances?" asked Mr. Gibbons, a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

He questions Osprey's effectiveness at high altitudes, like the mountains of Afghanistan. He also says the downdraft that comes from the Osprey's powerful rotors as it hovers is so great as to make Marine rescue missions impossible, especially over water.

Yet with Boeing, Bell and Osprey subcontractors spreading V-22 work in over 40 states and 200 Congressional districts, Mr. Gibbons is one of the few critics in Congress. "The industry has a very heavy hand when it comes to making the program work in Washington," he said. "All they have to do is go to Congress with those employees."

The history of Osprey crashes casts a long shadow over the sales effort. The April 2000 crash that killed 19 Marines occurred just as the Pentagon was to decide whether to approve the Osprey. The following December, an Osprey crashed in a forest outside Jacksonville, N.C., killing four more Marines. After that crash, which was attributed to a leak in hydraulic lines, the Osprey was grounded and testing suspended.

Nearly a decade earlier, in July 1992, a test Osprey crashed into the Potomac River, killing four Boeing employees and three Marines. Even at that early date, the Osprey was catching flak. Vice President Dick Cheney, who was defense secretary at the time, repeatedly tried to halt the program, arguing that it was too costly. But every time he tried to starve the Osprey for financing, he was overruled by a Congress that kept the money flowing.

AT the Osprey demonstration here, Colonel Schultz and his team of test pilots put the Osprey through aerial paces intended to counter specific complaints. In a mere 12 seconds, the craft can tilt its rotor, switching from helicopter to airplane mode. As the Osprey hovered like a helicopter 25 feet off the ground, doing a tap dance of gyrations, Colonel Schultz said: "Can't maneuver? I believe this shows maneuvers."

The craft then rocked back and forth in the air, did a nose dive toward the ground, hovered, and finally put its nose in the air and headed upward. It even demonstrated that it could land with only one engine. (The other was idling.) When the Osprey finished its 15-minute show, it dropped out of the sky and put its rotors into the air. Then, one by one, each blade of the rotor collapsed downward, like fading flower petals. Once collapsed, the blades then bundled themselves together. With its blades compactly tucked away in this fashion, the Osprey showed that it would not take up a lot of space on an aircraft deck — addressing another complaint.

As he stepped out of the Osprey, Boeing's top V-22 test pilot, Thomas L. MacDonald, said the air show here explained why the Marines are so gung-ho for the Osprey. "As a former Navy airplane and helicopter pilot, I'm acutely aware of the limitations of both," Mr. MacDonald said. "With the Osprey, the Marines will be able to get to the fight without dying on the way and get out without being killed on the way back."

Thanks. I guess you weren't a rated pilot then.

There's some Evil Kneival-type daredevil in all military pilots so you can always tell them, but you can't tell them much. No matter what the rules are or what the flight manual says, they will push the limits to "find out" what they really are. If they didn't have that characteristic, they'd be smart enough to stay on the ground.

I agree on the cross training. You really learn your first serious aircraft's characteristics well because of the pucker factor. After you get comfortable with it, the neural patterns take over in emergencies, and they're based on THAT particular aircraft. If you then transition to a new aircraft with different flight characteristics, you're liable to resort to inappropriate "remembered" solutions to emergencies. Besides military pilots don't retain combat level skills for that long anyway. If they're good, they get promoted out of the cockpit, and if they're not, they get transferred or separated. If those things don't get them, they'll start failing flight physicals as they age.

It doesn't make economic sense either. It costs $X to get proficient in a C-130. It costs $Y to get proficient in another AC. Great, we've spend $X + $Y on a pilot who's dull to and set in his ways in the new AC, and won't be much good in either. Most of the cross trained pilots I gave standardization training to in Vietnam were "good" and "adequate" but they weren't the "best" pilots in the unit.

Bona fide "Test Pilots" are a different breed altogether. Their skill and air sense transcends any aircraft. They can fly anything, and they're rare. They're guys like Chuch Yeager. I don't know what the odds really are, but I'd guess that fewer than 1 in a 1,000 excellent military pilots has the innate talent to be a test pilot worthy of the genre.

There's some Evil Kneival-type daredevil in all military pilots so you can always tell them, but you can't tell them much.

I've ridden with THREE. After one almost smacked me into cumulo-granite out at Bridgeport, I had a long and rather profanity-laden conversation with the OPSO. (I came in cussing a blue streak, told OPSO what just happened, and the OPSO began cussing a blue streak--if someone had set up a beat track and gotten us to rhyme the cussing, we could've cut a gangsta rap album on the spot! :o)

That hotdog was FNAEB'd, and spent the rest of his time as the Clubs Officer at COMCABWEST.

No matter what the rules are or what the flight manual says, they will push the limits to "find out" what they really are.

And if they wax a couple dozen grunts in the process, hey, stuff happens, eh?

On the maintenance side of the house: helicopters have a LOT of kinetic energy whirling around in variously-opposed directions. Get sloppy on maintenance, and the forces can tear the airframe apart.

And it's that way for ANY helicopter. Lose either main rotor on a Phrog or a S***-Hook, and you're dogmeat...

And if they wax a couple dozen grunts in the process, hey, stuff happens, eh?

I never dealt with transport pilots on a professional basis, but I suppose they're the same as any others, and they may even be a bit envious of high performance pilots who can play tag with the clouds.

Flying passengers is a lot like being a glorified bus driver, and I'm sure the temptation to "wring it out" is there. When it takes over, that people will die is almost guaranteed.

A pilot's mind must always be faster than the airplane, and how easy is that when outside of the envelope...?

I always thought of choppers as thousands of parts dancing furiously with the need to stay in tight formation. It was a useful attitude to say goodbye to everything before getting in one....

The Article tells us that the unit cost of the V-22 is now $68.7 million. I thought I knew a little bit about military costing.

Unit program cost is total cost divided by the units to be procured. $60 billion divided by 458 airframes = $131/copy

Ignore $12 billion sunk in R&D The unit cost becomes (Note the word program is missing) The calculation now is
$48 billion divided by 458 airframes= $105 milliion/copy

Both of these numbers is a long way from the advertised $68.7 price tag. What have I missed?

Godspeed, The Dilg

Smed,

I have met two people who have worked as engineers on the Osprey and they were happy to get of the program as soon as they could. The Osprey is an unqualified piece of crap. When the designers want to leave the program because it is destined to become an umitigated disaster, it is doubtful things will get better.

Regards,
Boiler Plate

Weren't the numbers based on 900+ projected units?

I have followed fairly closely for about the last 2 years. The quantity of 458 has been relatively static. Just recently the cost quietly jumped $2 Billion. I expect that the cost will continue to rise.

If the original program cost was $58 billion for 900 airframes, the original program unit cost was $64 million a copy vs todays $131 million a copy. So far this is just a doubling of the cost estimate. I always figure on a Phi factor increase. (3.1416) It hasn't happened yet because of the difficulties. Once they get production release from the DSARC principals look for the cost to about double again. My prediction. Hold me too it.

Godfspeed, The Dilg

I lost friends to aircraft mishaps. Never a child, or a spouse, just beer drinking friends of mine.

I always appreciated the sacrifices that the pioneers of flight and the pilots after them have made. They made great strides that others would expand on, and we all owe them a great thanks.

God bless the men and women who volunteer for these duties and missions, and God bless the families who brought up these people of such conviction.

It was an honor to work with these people then and I enjoy the honor of working with the very same caliber of people in the fire service.

I hope the work done in this Osprey program is not in vain, and I hope it yields much fruit.

The CATO Institute report referred to in #42 by Drago mentioned 913, but that was many years ago. It's basically 50 year old technology that they've been trying to get to work on the V-22 for 15 years. Bear in mind that we landed on the moon (repeatedly) 34 years ago, and even with all the advances since then, the Osprey is still plagued with seemingly insurmountable shortcomings.

Even if the technical problems were overcome )and it could land power-off), its horrendous price tag puts it in the company of the F-111 and Harrier as an expensive (potential) solution in search of a problem.

When the Military-Industrial Complex Eisenhower warned of wasn't looking, the excellent A-10 was developed and deployed. Relatively cheap, very effective, and irreplacable in the current inventory as the USAF geniuses found out when they tried to mothball it before Desert Storm. There's was just nothing like that flying gun to zap tanks!

Presuming that there is a real need for a fast VTOL transport, tell me again why Harrier technology won't work....

Presuming that there is a real need for a fast VTOL transport, tell me again why Harrier technology won't work....

It was not my intent to badmouth the Harrier. But I will anyway. The Harrier is the Marines CAS (Close Air Support aircraft. It cost about $30 million a copy vs the A-10s $3 million a copy. The Harrier has short legs and short loiter time. About 1/3rd that of A-10. It is not a robust aircraft. It has fuel over, under and around the intake. It is full of high temperature tubing to provide Vstol control. It does not have a the mighty 30-mm armored killer. It has maybe 4 munitions passes per sortie. The A-10 has maybe 20 if you count the cannon which I do.

Even though investment cost of the Harrier is 10 fold greater than the A-10 it generates about .5 sorties per day. The A-10 generates 1.5 sorties per day. You get the equivalent of 3 fleets of fighters per airframe.

It can not take off loaded in VSTOL. When loaded out it needs a runway albeit a shorter one. It has the worst accident record of any jet fighter by far.

There is a technology called Short take off and land.(STOAL) It consists of bush pilot type technology. Lots of low speed wing, low wing loading, lots of flaps and a big engine putting air across the wing. It would cost about 10% of the the Harrier approach. It would be extremely robust easy to maintain and we could get many times more for the same investment.

The Harrier approach for a troop carrier /transport is a non sequeter. Once loaded it is no longer VSTOL. It does fine empty.

Godspeed, The Dilg

And you told me again! That's why I include the Harrier on my "solution in search of a problem" list. A complex AC like the Harrier cannot "live" in forward areas despite it being "designed" to.

The fallacy in the whole V-22 concept is that VTOL is needed or has ever been practical.

Hueys were theoretically capable of hovering out of ground effect at a significant altitude on a standard day. In Vietnam's Central Highlands where they had to operate tactically, the typical ground level density altitude precluded hovering out of ground effect at all. The routine was to fly them like STOL aircraft -- fly into the LZ on a final approach, enter ground effect, flare, touch down. Taking off was coming to a hover in ground effect, accelerating while staying in it until enough airspeed was obtained to climb and fly out. What made it all work was that improved surfaces and complex landing gear weren't necessary.

The Army had a twin transport built by DeHavilland designated a C7 Caribou, which was taken over by the USAF in the late '60s. I once saw about 30 ARVN soldiers board one along with a jeep and other equipment to take off from An Khe one summer. I was convinced it had to be overloaded, but it was at about a thousand feet above the runway end as it passed overhead.

STOL works, it's well proven, and it's cheap. One of the best examples I'm familiar with is the Helio Courier, a turboprop tail dragger that basically only needs a short area without too many tree stumps or large rocks.

A significant percentage of the world has a brushy ground cover and terrain that's unsuitable for any aircraft. It's also nearly impossible for a human to traverse without the use of a machete. Once troops are inserted, two problems remain: they have to be supported, and they have to be extracted. There are simply a bunch of acres of briar patches and mountain sides where that's not going to be possible via aircraft. There will always be some degree of humping that troops will need to do.

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