Sometimes there aren’t any easy answers and the actions you are forced to take can lead you to a slippery slope: You make a decision based on the environment you operate in and the best information available, and sometimes that decision leads irrevocably towards the next, and that to the next and suddenly you find yourself painted into a place you’d maybe rather not be.
There are times I feel that way about my brothers in US Marine Corps aviation.
There are few people wearing Navy blue that have more respect for the Corps than does your correspondent. I’ve seen their work close at hand, and greatly admire their valor and esprit, their traditions and storied history. The Corps gets things done and they mostly do it on a shoestring. Pound for pound, there is no more capable and willing ground combat force in the world. These are all virtues, but even the stoutest virtues, taken to an extreme, can become a kind of vice.
To give you one example, a Marine NCO or officer will, when talking about his people, inevitably say “My Marines” with a slight but unmistakable emphasis on the word “my.” That stress is designed to make the listener understand that they are not “his” in the way that word is used to describe people assigned to a manager. The possessive use indicates that this is personal for the speaker. The Marines under his command are not just “his,” they are “His.”
The only thing more important to a Marine than “his Marines” is the Corps. Country is up there somewhere too of course. This is right and good and just, but people of my acquaintance have observed that when it comes to a problem getting the mission done, a Marine may not be above throwing people – his people – at the problem if that’s what’s best for the Corps.
The Marines have a saying: “Every Marine a rifleman.” It’s a huge part of their warrior ethos, and a reason why the Corps doesn’t need any “elite” units. They do not have a need for Rangers, nor SEALs, nor ParaRescue – they only need Marines. Marines are good enough.
In application, this means that every effort is synchronized to support the rifleman. A Marine may cook or cut hair or fly an FA-18, but whatever he does, he is a component of the Marine Air/Ground Task Force and his raison d’etre is to support the efforts of the Marines on the ground. The MAGTF is one neat, tight bundle of independent capability. They might like to have a carrier air wing in support of their operations, and doctrinally they will for “forced entry” operations. But they carry their own air with them wherever they go and they don’t share it with anyone else.
This is an important distinction: On a Navy aircraft carrier, the air wing is the striking force of the battle group, the main battery. It’s the reason why the carrier exists, and why she is escorted by other ships – all of this investment is designed to get the mobile airfield in the range of enemy forces and infrastructure such that they may be precisely and persistently truck by the embarked air wing. On the other hand, the Air Combat Element attached to an amphibious ready group is not the focus of effort, they are support. The striking arm of the ARG is the Marine Expeditionary Unit, of which the ACE is only one part.
The MEU is embarked upon the amphibious ships of the ARG. They are large warships, but nothing like so huge as the Navy’s aircraft carriers. They have no arresting gear and no catapults on their flight decks. This necessarily constrains the design of the fixed wing aircraft which support the infantry component of the MEU, the Battalion Landing Team. For that reason, Marine Corps leadership were early and enthusiastic supporters of vertical take-off technologies such as those embodied in VSTOL aircraft such as the AV-8 Harrier and V-22 Osprey.
Now, I loved flying planes and never have flown a helicopter – it frankly seemed like too much work. On the topic of helicopters, this quote comes to mind:
The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by its nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying; immediately and disastrously.
But hovering, as well as a shambolic kind of forward flight once clear of ground effect, is what a helicopter is designed to do. A fixed wing aircraft that hovers like a helicopter must have all the hideous complexities of rotary wing flight without any of its salutary focus of design effort. If the rotary-wing design cast asides the form the Creator evolved for aerial flight over millions of years in favor of whirring mechanical complexity, then VSTOL fixed-wing designs have made an already hard thing that much harder.
Witness the horrible mishap record of the initial version of the AV-8 Harrier.
Over the last three decades, it has amassed the highest rate of major accidents of any Air Force, Navy, Army or Marine plane now in service. Forty-five Marines have died in 143 non-combat accidents since the corps bought the so-called jump jet from the British in 1971. More than a third of the fleet has been lost to accidents.
And now the Corps is all set to roll out the V-22 Osprey and introduce it to the fight. Like the Harrier before it, the airframe is truly “transformational,” although the tilt rotor adds an even greater degree of complexity to VSTOL flight than did the comparatively simpler vectored thrust of the Harrier or even the lift fan/reaction jet combination of the F-35B.
Now, “transformational” means one thing in a business context – it might mean that it’s time to polish up your resume, for example. But it means something else entirely when applied to an aircraft designed to carry 24 combat loaded Marines. The program was fraught during development, but influential rural congressmen loved the “transformational” effect that such military experimentation might have upon the civilian “hub and spoke” air transport scheme and for the Marines, whose heavy lift helicopters are rapidly reaching the end of their useful service lives, there wasn’t any “plan B.”
The Marine Corps has spent 25 years, $18 billion and 30 lives bringing forth the Osprey, a shockingly high cost in personnel for a plane even that hadn’t even completed operational test. In response to those fatal mishaps, the plane has been thoroughly re-engineered a number of times, and both the Corp and the Bell-Boeing consortium that builds it are convinced that it is not just safe, but ready for combat. The only thing that concerns me is that, unlike the single piloted, ejection seat equipped Harrier – which gained it’s own reputation as a “widow maker” – if the pilot of a V-22 goes down, he probably won’t be mourned alone.
There isn’t any wrong in here, no bad guys and no claim to greater wisdom. These are just the facts shaped by the operating environment of a superb fighting force that needs a new capability. That capability has now arrived.
I hope we do not have to pay too much for it.
And comes today more news of trouble in the V-22 Camp:
US Marines: V-22 Osprey Grounded By Faulty Chip
“All 46 of the Marine Corps’ MV-22 Ospreys have been temporarily grounded as a result of an engineering check that identified a fault caused by a computer chip in the Flight Control Computers of some Ospreys,” the Marines said in a press release.”
- SJS
I think that Chief(Retired) BillT over at The Donovan’s place has explained about the badness of the Osprey, ’specially about that bad vortex-ring-while-descending thing. I had a similar experience with my cheap R/C helo I bought at the Radio Shack. No collective, once you get too much of the downward on it there’s nothing you can do. Mine’s all busted up in pieces. Owhell, I got to scare the kitties with it, a bit.
Maybe not quite the same. No collective means stalling when going down too fast. Same results though.
Even if they can make that Osprey thing mostly work, we know that the Marines are historically starved for money, and that gizmo looks like a black hole of a maintenance money sink. Why can’t we just buy them some recently built helos to old designs, so they won’t be breaking all the time?
Vortex ring state–which we called power settling in my day– is a hazard for any helicopter. The safety center claims that the Osprey is less succeptible to it than conventional helicopters and recovers from it more easily. The mishap in Arizona that killed 19 Marines was pilot error. Period.
Well, yeah, you have to plan ahead when flying hubschraubers. You also have to react instantaneously, when doing that in dangerous situations. That’s why helo pilots tend to be kind of twitchy, and nervous, and cause their Guardian Angels to get medical retirement for PTSD.
A helicopter really is an unlikely kind of thing.
Shipmates,
Yes it is, and especially so if you put a “dipping” sonar under it and then actually “dip” it in the creat pond, all the while praying that the Gods of Lift keep it in a reasonable state of , well, state…
It’s also an interesting best when you have to sit in the door and step out into space, entering the water so that you can drag some besotted aviator over to the hoist and reel them back up, and yourself to boot, all the while fighting the rotor wash and the sea state…..
Ask me about my grey hair sometime…..
Personally, it’s is my great desire that those persons who so desired that the Osprey be built may be dragged from their safe beds and left to die in some forgotten snow drift, alone an unmourned.
One might think I am biased. I am. The Osprey is an unwanted, un-needed, and unsafe system that will kill Marines in ever increasing numbers, while sucking huge amounts of dwindling dollars into it’s ravenous maw.
The Marines need Blackhawks. Not Ospreys. Reopen the lines, or open new ones, or whatever, but for Heaven’s sake, stop this foolishness now.
Others mileage, may, of course, differ, and I respect that. However, I stand by my views. I don;t often get worked up over any particular issue, but this is one of them.
Respects,
AW1 Tim,
The Osprey’s design doesn’t bother me. Unit cost and time wasted does. Personally, rather than Blackhawk’s I’d like to see the Corps equipped with brand new H-46s. They have advantages over tail rotor equipped helicopters– especially operating in high, hot, or confined areas. (LTE and LTA and tail rotor strikes are not an issue)But I’m not a Marine. So I’ll defer to the experts that have to fly them into combat. What to they think about the Osprey? I’d really like to know.
Helicopters,
Seven thousand spare parts flying in very close formation…..
Craig,
The way to judge how good a system is, is to hit up a liberty poty and locate the mechs and talk to them. The fellows who keep is up, they’re the ones you want to talk to.
My concern is not only the mony pit that this system already is, but that it’s asking the Marines to design, initiate, and maintain a whole new school of flying. It’s both a whirlybird and a pure turbo-prop. You take off and land with one set of dynamics, and fly it with a whole new set. The Marines depend upon the Navy for their flight training programs. Those are either fixed-wing or rotary-wing. One or t’other, and never the twain shall meet. Until now.
Now you have to train and experience a whole new aviator model, one who thinks one way for landing and take offs, and another, different way for level flight. That’s asking an awful lot of the system, and asking even more for the aviator who now has to think in two different worlds while operating a complex system under what will likely degenerate into a bag of dirt real quickly, given half a chance.
I’m not certain that the human can adapt that way, especially in the fog of war, nor am I convinced that the bassids who foisted this bag of hair onto our beloved Marine Corps understood the full costs of the system.
And yea… the CH-46 is a good idea. So might be the CH-47…..
Respects,
FWIW, the osprey is a replacement for the medium lift (H-46) helo, not the heavy lift (H-53). I assumed it was for heavy lift until a Marine aviator recalibrated me (kindly).
Don’t forget it screws up the center of gravity of the ships it rides on – or will once you’ve got a squadron of them onboard.
AW1 Tim,
You write: “The Marines depend upon the Navy for their flight training programs. Those are either fixed-wing or rotary-wing. One or t?
AW1 Tim,
You write: “The Marines depend upon the Navy for their flight training programs. Those are either fixed-wing or rotary-wing. One or t’other, and never the twain shall meet. Until now.” All Navy and Marine Corps helicopter pilots are also fixed wing trained. And trust me, flying is flying; its not that difficult to go from one to the other. You write: “Now you have to train and experience a whole new aviator model, one who thinks one way for landing and take offs, and another, different way for level flight.” Harrier pilots do it every day.
Where I think there might be an issue is in cockpit and flight control design and ergonomics in the Osprey. I’ve heard mutterings about that, but as I said I’d like to here what Marine helicopter test pilots think.
You’re right, I’m sure. I would agree that it’s been a rough path to acquisition, and that the machine is a very complex one that may or may not play out. They’re an odd solution to a tough problem, and I hope they’re safely effective if only so they don’t kill me one day if I go riding in one.
This is apropos of nothing…
I am not one who gets squishy over looking at airplanes. They don’t do much for me, really; I wasn’t born with the gene that looks at a fighter plane and says “I really love that”. (It isn’t even the denied-opportunity sour grapes you’d hear from some submarine guys–notice how many of those officers wore glasses at commissioning?) Save for an appreciation of the mathematical beauty of a given design and an appreciation of what an airframe can do, I’m unmoved by planes, pretty much. A couple of pilots dogfighting? Ehh, they ride on targets, and we sink those. They’re the prima donnas, unlike us prima donnas. Try a ten day slow motion dogfight for some real fighting stress, says the part of me that used to do that for a living.
But seeing that four-ship of Ospreys in formation all of a sudden on a cross country drive, and then seeing them on the ground in Norfolk? The big honkin’ rotors, the bumblebee-in-flight improbability of their existence in air, the sheer comparative size of the things they brought to a fight compared to those little things we had to use on the LHA? They were beautiful.
Maybe one of the most frightening aspects of the whole “situation” is that despite the loss of human life, money, and time, the Marine Corps hasn’t backed down from the Osprey program in favor of an alternative solution to its rapidly decaying rotary fleet. It seems somewhat stubborn to me the way this project has endured despite overwhelmingly bad vibes on pretty much every front since its inception.
In engineering the first principle you learn is KISS — Keep It Simple, Stupid. Simple is good. It makes things easier to operate, maintain, diagnose, fix, and cheaper to build. What we are seeing in the Osprey isn’t KISS. It’s complex, trying to be a bit of everything and hence doing nothing particularly well and with less reliability to boot.
I admit, if you start with the question, “How do you make an airplane take off vertically?” the Osprey is the logical conclusion. I’d submit that was the wrong question to ask in the first place. If instead you ask “How do we get Marines a long way from here, put them down and supply them with no runways, and do so as cheaply and reliably as possible?” then other solutions may have presented themselves. Given an $80 million price tag per, perhaps two or three other items could have been brought to bear on the problem for the same coin?
But then, I suspect the advance of the Osprey program has as much to do with Pentagon requirements as it does Congressional wishes, and that’s a can of worms best left unopened here.
I haven’t done any actual research myself, but it would be interesting to see where the parts for that thing come from – I’d be willing to bet a cold Sam Adams that the parts for that thing come from a multitude of states and that some congressman/woman has a reserved parking space at each of those facilities.
Brian
Over the years I’ve heard “Friends don’t let friends fly helos”, especially wrt Phrogs, but 47 years later these same birds that unrepped the last Essex are still flying. Somethin to be said for that.
Our best cousin Matt, an E-8 Marine Corps Phrog Mech says it all about the Osprey: “The last Osprey will be carried away to the boneyard by a Phrog or a 53.”
He may be right.
VR-
SJBill
As usual Lex. Great logic. Great writing. Great article. Should be syndicated.
For those who have sons, daughters, brothers/sisters husbands/wives or friends in Corps who will ride as passengers in this machine from ships and FOBs.
Operational risk can be measured, but a what cost?
IMO, the H-53K can’t get to the Fleet fast enough to provide an alternative.
Chap- re “big honking”. If you ever get the chance stand alongside a Chinook or an H-53, compare them against an Osprey. It’s relatively small and all rotor for obvious reasons. As you know when you engineer something to have unique capabiity you have to make tradeoffs.
b2
True, true.
Re #14
“How do we get Marines a long way from here, put them down and supply them with no runways, and do so as cheaply and reliably as possible?”
That is exactly the question that was asked. The problem is that helicopters can land everywhere, but they can’t go a long way. Airplanes can go a long way, but they can’t land everywhere. So you have to build a long-ranged helicopter or a land-everywhere airplane. The only single item that can answer that question is a hybrid – is the Osprey. Cheap went out the military procurement window a long time ago; reliability has been (and is, and will continue to be) the biggest challenge facing the Osprey.
If you want an alternative, build amphibious assault ships the size of modern aircraft carriers, develop a new heavy lift helicopter, and develop a new tanker aircraft that can operate from your new carrier-esque amphibious assault ship and fly slowly enough to refuel helicopters. If you thought the Osprey was expensive…h
Theodore,
re “…reliability has been (and is, and will continue to be) the biggest challenge facing the Osprey”
Yes. Unfortunetly it will be. But reliability in my mind means mission aborts, not mission capable, partially mission capable..things like that. Not the type of failures it has exhibited which = land as soon as possible.
This will be flown by the same can-do Marine Corps (thankG) that doggedly flew the Harrier all these years- think about it.
b2
I agree the hybrid product is the only thing that can do both missions with one platform. I’m simply opining that perhaps we don’t need to do both missions with one platform, that two or three platforms might be a better solution if the costs are equal.
I mean, we used to have PBY’s for flying folks around, as well as interdicting shipping and otherwise making a nuisance of themselves. Airdrop from a PBY for insertion, helo from a support ship for extraction, both for resupply, suddenly we’ve some options that both fit within the existing MAGTF infrastructure and have the reliability and low costs that lets us build four times as many as we can Osprey’s. I’m not saying the seaplane/helo combo is the solution, of course, just an example of an alternative.
The question here is if the cost and complexity, and hence the lesser reliability and safety, of the Osprey is worth the savings in manpower and equipment.
This is the classic logistics/transportation problem. If you want to move freight, it’s hard to beat a Kenworth at $140K capable of hauling 40 tons. It’s a lot more efficient than the seven Ford F250’s you could get for the same money, and takes only one driver. On the other hand, that Kenworth is a big-ticket item and losing it shuts down the whole operation. Losing an F250 only drops your capacity by 15%. Which one is better depends a lot upon if you need efficiency or flexibility and redundancy.
Not being a Marine, let alone one in a command role where I know logistical requirements, I cannot opine that the Osprey is the wrong solution. I can only opine that it becomes a single point of failure in moving 12 Marines and their gear to where they are needed, and the more complex it is the more likely that we’ll see that single point of failure. I’d merely love to hear how the decision was reached.
– Max
Cap’n
Now we’re getting on one of my few, remaining, un-touched nerves.
For what it’s worth, I had quite a bit of exposure to the V-22 during its initial development. Indeed, it was my pleasure to work with both the avionics and flight control groups as we struggled to understand the extremely complex task of flying the bird. When I worked the program, there were three (3) newly designed, flight control computers working electo-hydraulic actuators for the control surfaces and swashplates. The avionics computer, an old AN/AYK-14 monster, drove a glass cockpit using the same, now obsolete MIL-STD data bus that overloaded the F/A-18 displays. The engines were gas-hogs (I still don’t think they can HIFR) and the VSLED computer did gather tons of flight data.
Those days are 20 years in the past. The engineers and computer developers did their best work to make her fly. Literally millions of lines of code were written, re-written, tested and tested again and again. Needless to say, the project was complex in so many different ways that, even today, I don’t think the envelope is completely understood.
We believed in the aircraft then and still do today.
Brian,
To the best of my recollection, here are just some of the states involved:
Pennsylvania
Texas
New Hampsire
New York
New Jersey
California
Kansas
Colorado
Florida
Japan
And that’s just the electronics.
Cap’n,
Re-reading my post, I see I neglected to mention there were two (2) avionics computers driving four (4) multi-function displays. There was considerable argument for using the cyclic/collector or stick and power/thrust control models. Fixed wingers wanted stick/power-thrust, rotary wingers wanted cyclic/collective. Fixed wing won.
One point about complexity to back up Seniord’s observations, while a more complex system runs a greater risk of failure, that failure need not be catastrophic if redundancy is provided. Also, complexity in one area may allow for simplicity in another that makes for a safer design. It wasn’t that long ago we were bemoaning fly-by-wire as an overly-complex system sure to lead to disaster, and though electronic controls fill our automobiles I don’t think there’s any argument that they’ve become more and more reliable over the past 30 years. While the Osprey is a complex beast in many respects, that complexity doesn’t have to make it less safe or reliable than a more simple design, the trade-off being expense.
Marine Aviation is there to support Marines and does what the Air Force and Navy can’t or won’t do. No offense intended to either service, it’s just a fact of life. V/STOL, payload, range and speed are all trade offs that the V-22 handles pretty well. The Marines are also the only service that has any significant experience with the hazards of VTOL fixed wing aircraft, and they seem to manage the risk pretty well. The nature of the mission is going to require some element of risk, just like Army aviation spends more time in the bad part of the Height/Velocity curve than I care to. You train, you minimize risk, and you do the mission. The frequent congressional calls for cancellation of new military programs is more likely driven by “Give me their money instead” than anything else. Any one remember a major weapon system that wasn’t called junk by opponents during the development and fielding stages?
Okay, now the Marines will have the Osprey, which was one component of the “over the horizon” assault and one of the primary reasons that the Marines kept going with the program.
When do we get the 20knot AAV’s as well?
Another potential thought… it seems that the Osprey might be capable of one other thing that Helos are traditionally very poor at: gliding.
Pogue wrote: “Any one remember a major weapon system that wasn?
Pogue wrote: “Any one remember a major weapon system that wasn’t called junk by opponents during the development and fielding stages?”
One of the guilty pleasures associated with getting old without getting senile(or at least completely so) is remembering the silly crap that’s been said or written. Like the M1 Abrams tank will never work in the desert because the turbine engines will be fod’ed out by sand. I knew some submarine fire control technicians involved in the testing program for the Tomahawk that swore it’d never fly. And as a nugget helo pilot I got to go retreive one that went about a hundred miles off course during a test and crashed in a cow pasture somewhere in NW Florida. Just about any engineering problem can be solved if you’re willing to spend the time and money to do it. That last part was, I think, the point of Lex’s post, echoed by B2 and others, and is the crux of the biscuit. How much and how long. I’m willing to defer to the Marines on that point– they get stuff right a hell of a lot more often than they get it wrong.
I’m not a spokeman for Bell, but most of the newspaper stories about the Osprey I’ve read are just absurd. Just like most of the newspaper stories about anything I know something about. If we’d disregard all press reports about everything, always, we’d be better off. Even the good press is wrong.
Seniord wrote: “Fixed wingers wanted stick/power-thrust, rotary wingers wanted cyclic/collective. Fixed wing won.” As, an admittedly lapsed, helo pilot, I wonder about the wisdom of that.
re- “..V/STOL, payload, range and speed are all trade offs that the V-22 handles pretty well.”
&
“they seem to manage the risk pretty well.”
That ain’t good enough if my kid was a Marine infantryman and riding in the friggin thing…Professional aviators taking risks flying (AV-8Bs) are one thing..being delivered to assault something is another.
IMO, the Marines will use this craft to perform the missions they did before in the -46. That ain’t good. Round peg in a square hole and all. V-22 is no way, a one-for-one replacement for the H-46. SOF, on the other hand will look at the aircrafts attributes and adapt a mission around the aircraft.
re- “..it seems that the Osprey might be capable of one other thing that Helos are traditionally very poor at: gliding.”
Check that aspect ratio, better ain’t much better…There’s no wing beyond that huge prop arc. In fact you could say the engine nacelle is the wing.
re- “even today, I don?
re- “..V/STOL, payload, range and speed are all trade offs that the V-22 handles pretty well.”
&
“they seem to manage the risk pretty well.”
That ain’t good enough if my kid was a Marine infantryman and riding in the friggin thing…Professional aviators taking risks flying (AV-8Bs) are one thing..being delivered to assault something is another.
IMO, the Marines will use this craft to perform the missions they did before in the -46. That ain’t good. Round peg in a square hole and all. V-22 is no way, a one-for-one replacement for the H-46. SOF, on the other hand will look at the aircrafts attributes and adapt a mission around the aircraft.
re- “..it seems that the Osprey might be capable of one other thing that Helos are traditionally very poor at: gliding.”
Check that aspect ratio, better ain’t much better…There’s no wing beyond that huge prop arc. In fact you could say the engine nacelle is the wing.
re- “even today, I don’t think the envelope is completely understood.”
Proves my point.
b2
Badbob, et al,
There is two, tremendous differences between the V-22 and other military transport air frames.
1. She’s new, unproven in combat and replaces a venerable (read old, aging) workhorse.
2. The engineering test and flight test programs killed many people, including many who were not test pilots.
Please look to the examples of the MH-53D/E and the CH-47. Even those birds fall from the sky with some regularity and they’ve been in service for how long?
Don’t get me wrong, no one regrets the loss of life more than I. But the Osprey is unique in the world of military aircraft and I hate to see her get a bum rap.
Oh, and to Craig – when the Tomahawk’s fire control computer was first installed, we had to put it in upside down. We expected the bird to fly the same way.
Seniord,
First off. I truly hope you are right and I am wrong.
I only operate in the realm of the risk hazard matrix when I approach the Osprey. No gut feels. No anecdotes, just strict hazard severity vs. frequency based on number of flight hours. While it’s not my bidness to conduct analysis on that platform I know where it would plot out.
Put in the values and do your own: MIL-STD-882D System Safety methodology
Acceptable risk? Somone up high has signed off…that’s called leadership.
B2
B2,
We are in agreement. The Osprey does need more eval time, but I guess the leadership has signed off on ‘acceptable risk’. As we used to say during the first a/c build, ‘There comes a point when its time to shoot the engineers.’
Would I fly on an Osprey? Certainly. Would I blame someone if it sort of fluttered out of the sky? Maybe only Newton for inventing gravity.
8-;
Seniord, you’ve pinpointed my main objection to hellafloppers. They’re just a poor approximation to, and inferior substitute for, real genuine anti-gravity gizmos.
Sucks, having to live in the real world.