Osprey helicopter nears overseas deployment

[barnstorm2]

Osprey helicopter nears overseas deployment


By Megan Scully, CongressDaily


The Marine Corps is expected to announce in early April the much-anticipated details of the V-22 Osprey's first overseas deployment, a move that will intensify the debate over whether the tilt-rotor aircraft with a tumultuous 25-year history is ready for battle.

Marine Corps officials have been mum on where they will deploy the Osprey, stating they could send it wherever Marines are deployed around the globe. But several lawmakers and defense analysts say they strongly suspect the Osprey will head to Iraq this summer or fall.


That would throw the Marine Corps' newest airframe into the heat of combat where insurgents are using increasingly sophisticated shoulder-fired weapons to shoot choppers out of the sky. But the Marine Corps argues that, after years of rigorous testing, the V-22 is ready for almost any combat scenario.


For Marine Corps officials, the Bell Helicopter-Boeing Co. contractor team and other supporters of the V-22 program, the Osprey is a transformational hybrid aircraft whose features -- including its speed and ability to fly at far higher altitudes than the aging CH-46 helicopters now used -- make it nearly impervious to a fatal ground attack.


"It's more survivable than anything we've got over there now," Col. Glenn Walters, Marine Corps director of aviation plans, programs and budgets, said in a recent interview.


On Capitol Hill, lawmakers appear to support the impending deployment, stating that the time has come for the Osprey to prove itself in combat.


House Armed Services Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor, D-Miss., said he personally has some "reservations" about deploying the Osprey. But, he added: "This is one of the times ... when you trust military leaders who are solidly behind it."


And Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., whose district includes Boeing's V-22 plant, said there is no other way to assess whether the Osprey is ready for battle until it actually is used operationally.


"I think this is the right thing to do," said Sestak, a retired vice admiral. "The plane was built for combat."

But the program's detractors argue that the V-22, whose price tag for acquisition costs alone tops $78 million per aircraft, has unresolved safety issues that could make it a target in the sky. Others without a firm opinion of the program still question whether the Marines should send the operationally untested Osprey straight into the toughest combat situation in the world.


"It would not help the program to have a number of losses early on," said Christopher Bolkcom, an aircraft analyst at CRS. "The young Mike Tyson was a superb boxer but they didn't throw him in his first bout against the heavyweight champion."


The debate over the Osprey's deployment is the latest round in a fight that began when the program was conceived during the Reagan administration. Thanks to congressional supporters of the Marine Corps and the contracting team, the Osprey has survived several attempts to kill it, including repeated efforts from 1989-1992 by then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to eliminate it from his annual budgets because of its high cost.


So far, Congress has poured more than $20 billion into the program, but its checkered history has been punctuated by four crashes, including one in Arizona in April 2000 that killed 19 Marines. The Osprey crashed again eight months later in North Carolina, killing four Marines.


Last month, the Marines briefly grounded the V-22s because of a computer chip problem.


Todd Bowers, a Marine Corps veteran who witnessed the Arizona crash, said he is skeptical about the V-22's impending deployment and is not convinced of the hybrid aircraft's survivability in combat.


"I think it would be smarter to have more rigorous testing and more thorough testing and more in-depth analysis of that testing," said Bowers, now a Marine Corps reservist and a defense investigator at the nonprofit watchdog group Project on Government Oversight.


Bowers is certainly not alone in his criticisms of the program. Earlier this year, the Center for Defense Information released a stinging report titled "V-22 Osprey: Wonder Weapon or Widow Maker?"


In particular, the report concluded that the Osprey's descent rate -- 800 feet per minute -- is too slow for a hot-fire zone. And moving faster than that, the author warned, would send the V-22 into a fatal dive.


Thomas Christie, the Pentagon's former director of operational test and evaluation, likewise noted that the slow descent rate and other problems with the aircraft could limit the V-22's use in a hostile environment. The Marine Corps, Christie said in an interview, has worked hard to correct problems, but is too "wedded" to the program.


"And so we're stuck with it, so we've got to make it work," Christie added.


The Marine Corps, however, disputes the CDI report's conclusions. Walters said the V-22 can land faster than 800 feet per minute, but service officials opted to put an audible warning on the aircraft when it exceeds that rate.


Other supporters say that the Osprey can land much faster than other helicopters, including the CH-46 helicopter it will replace.


Meanwhile, Ospreys and their pilots have been through extensive testing, including four months of training at Nellis Air Force Base in the Nevada desert -- possibly the closest environment in the United States to the one troops face in Iraq, said Walters.


And the V-22's survivability features -- including its low infrared signature, redundant onboard systems and speed -- will protect it from hits that would be fatal to other aircraft, he said.


Walters, however, stressed that modifications will continue to be made to the aircraft. "I am never, ever satisfied," he said. "I am always striving to improve."


http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cf...dcn=todaysnews

[Hognose]

A couple of who's whos here --

1. Joe Sestak was only one of two "fighting Dems" in the 06 election to have actually been a combat officer, and the only one to win (the other was helo pilot Tammy Duckworth. The other "fighting Dems" were, as far as I can tell, military lawyers -- part of the problem, not the solution). Sestak isn't well thought of by officers who've worked with him, but he is a real combat leader, and that's worth something. But -- he also represents the district in which Bell's helicopter plant is located. (He defeated Curt Weldon, who had a corruption charge hanging over him -- which appears to have evaporated after the election). Anyway, the large-employer-in-the-district thing undoubtedly influences his policy.

2. The Center for Defense Information, despite the innocuous name, is an anti-military group that during the 1980s was a Soviet front under its then-leader, cashiered admiral Eugene Carroll. They play at being pro-defense but they actually have a perfect record of opposing *literally* *every* weapons system in the last thirty or so years. The CDI has literally never, ever said a weapon was good (unless it was an enemy one). They opposed all current fighters, all strat bombers, precision guided munitions, the Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, the Abrams, Bradley and Stryker combat vehicles, you name it. About the only weapon I carried or used in combat that they haven't attacked as non-working was the lowly demo knife. (Give 'em time). When a reporter has a deadline and wants an anti-military quote, he rings the CDI and they oblige.

if we listened to these clowns, we'd still be going to war with rocks and sticks.

I don't know who is funding them now that their Soviet patron is defunct... George Soros maybe? the Ford Foundation? Your guess is as good as mine. I do know that their agenda has never had the best interests of the US military, or the US, *period*, at heart.

3. Todd Bowers and POGO have a similar record to CDI. When they were trying to get the Stryker buy canceled, among other tactics they used was mailing the media pictures of dead guys in Strykers. He's really a class act -- not. By the way, their attack on the Stryker was supported (financially and otherwise) by FMC, and their proposal was that instead of Strykers the DOD buy a Vietnam-era APC made by .... need I draw you a picture... FMC.

4. There is a lot of information on Mr Christie out there if you Google him. He is one of the followers of Col. John Boyd who made a religion out of it. He was finally ousted from a long-time Pentagon gig by the last SECDEF... during that time he again had a perfect record of opposing weapons systems, however, he not only opposed all the working stuff (like CDI) but he also did very well in getting non-working or born-obsolete stuff knocked out. (Examples are the Crusader and Sgt. York artillery and antiaircraft weapons). So he's sometimes right and sometimes wrong -- rather like the rest of us.

Finally, on the Osprey:

1. It isn't a helicopter, it's a powered-lift aircraft. This reporter apparently is too busy hunting down quotes that fit her agenda to read the one-page fact sheet on the AC.
2. The Marines have no choice but to deploy the thing, because their 1960s H-46s are dropping like flies even when nobody shoots at 'em.
3. Every news story on this aircraft mentions the crashes, including the two in... 2000. Hold the phone... that was SEVEN YEARS of testing ago. Dozens of these a/c are flying. Ospreys are flying every day.
4. It is not unusual to have crashes in prototype programs. For instance P-51, B-17, B-29, B-47, XH-40 (Huey), all had prototype prangs. That's why test pilots earn their accolades, it's a RISKY BUSINESS.
5. Another mealy-mouthed tactic by this reporter is the reference to a grounding as a negative for the aircraft. A STAND DOWN for a maintenance issue, is NOT a rap on the aircraft or on the service, it indicates only that your maintenance program is working.

I was still a student pilot the first time I taxied a plane back for maintenance without taking off. I daresay everybody on this list has squawked or downed an a/c for maintenance. Apparently this bimbo thinks that real men would just go fly... or that aircraft are born mature and never need ADs or generate SDRs. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

cheers

-=K=-

[automan1223]

With all of the helicopters getting shot down over there one would beg the question "what makes the v22 so special"?

There is no doubt that the resistance has gotten tech and help from Iran, Russia, and Syria in order to take our helis down. If you notice all details from the last shoot down have gone under the rug. I know that there are many brilliant minds trying to get to the bottom of all these downings as if they are not supposed to happen, but its war and stuff hits the fan.....

The tech on the V22 might be newer but the laws of chaos still rule in my murphy book. I just hope there are not too many on board when one of these gets its ticket punched.

J

[Sir Real]

The Osprey is an example of a massive boondoggle that has (hopefully) been resolved. It was a nightmare in it's early development, but, as Kevin pointed out, the great majority of those problems were years ago. It would appear that, just this once, throwing good money after bad might just have paid off. On the other hand, I am forced to wonder if we could have come up with something better had we scrapped the Osprey project when it was nothing more than a tax-swallowing black hole, and maybe looked at other solutions to the very real need that the Osprey fills.

Either way, my Corps has made it's decision, and I'll stand by it.

[automan1223]

It is never the money but the lives the project will save and deliver on its operational promise.

I got an opportunity to get an inside look at a CH 46 dual rotor that went down in an emergency landing outside of town.

For all intents and purposes it was a flyin tin can. At first I was taken back....It looked crude the pilot told me it was built that way. lots of hollow space so if it took fire, chances are the projectiles would pass thru the aircraft and not hit anything important. They are rugged craft that have a proven record.

I am not against progress but if you have ever seen the inside of the V22 it looks like anything but a hollow tin can. There are wires, plumbing galore....all the result of having a novel 21st century toy.....

What are the chances of some critical system taking fire when stuff is so tightly packed together ? What will be the cost to do surgery on an aircraft that took fire. ?

We witnessed first hand the entire fleet get grounded of Apache's in the opening round of the iraq war. Part of that was the fact that those aircraft were used beyond their intended war game role and were put in harms way took fire and were grounded. All this tech is great but if it is my arse in the seat I like KISS principle over anything else. Esp when someone on the ground is trying to put a bullet in my backside.

I happen to know that the last 2 that went down outside of Jacksonville was a "software" or "user" error. I am sure that has been fixed.

So exactly what did we get for our money. ?

We will soon find out.

Jonathan

[Harry_S.]

I wish the Osprey all the success in the world...especially in the combat zones.

I didn't like the looks of it from the start and still don't...but that's just my opinion. Our combat troops need and should have the BEST AVAILABLE equipment.

I don't like it and I will not knowingly ride in one...like I would ever have the opportunity.


Cheers

[WHY]

I suspicion that the Osprey is going to suffer from the Humvee syndrome, it looks good in flight ,sounds good on paper, and will fair no better that the Humvee in application and the "experts" will have a 100 page line of BS as to what the problem is. If a $100 surplus RPG will put the hurt on a multi-million helicopter then it will do the same on the Osprey and our troops will be the ones to suffer because of the beauracratic idiots calling the shots.

Tony

[RayPierce]

Originally Posted by WHY

I suspicion that the Osprey is going to suffer from the Humvee syndrome, it looks good in flight ,sounds good on paper, and will fair no better that the Humvee in application and the "experts" will have a 100 page line of BS as to what the problem is. If a $100 surplus RPG will put the hurt on a multi-million helicopter then it will do the same on the Osprey and our troops will be the ones to suffer because of the beauracratic idiots calling the shots.

Tony

I think a lot of people don't understand the intended roll of the humvee.
Prior to the Iraq war who ever heard of the term "Up armored humvee'?
Anyone? Someone? Me neither.

I'm 58 years old and spent time in the military and drove jeeps and deuce and a halfs. Never heard of an up armored jeep or deuce and a half.


It was never designed to be an armored vehicle. An APC was and so are the tanks of today.
The humvee was designed to replace the jeep.
The jeep was designed to replace the army mule...... neither of them armored.
As far as I know the army has only one mule left. It is usually trotted out at football games. I don't believe the Army has any jeeps left.

But! Leave it to the ingenuity of the American G.I. to make anything better and safer.

I will not disagree of the idiocy of bureaucrats and politicians.
It looks to me the A10 warthog was one fine vehicle and did an amazing job.
I hear that the pentagon wants to retire it. Figures.

[Mark Sanders]

Just send In the steaths not the rotor blades a single stealth with the right package will do more then a thousand Helo's. And not a scratch on the paint.

POGO "Strykes" Back

Recently, Congress Daily reporter Megan Scully wrote the article “Osprey Helicopter Nears Overseas Deployment.” In the article, the Project On Government Oversight’s (POGO) Defense Investigator Todd Bowers was quoted as saying “I think it would be smarter to have more rigorous testing and more thorough testing and more in-depth analysis of that testing.” This comment has apparently ruffled some feathers with defense blogger Kevin “Hognose” O’Brien.

The Congress Daily article was posted on the Rotary Wing Forum yesterday, and Mr. O’Brien responded with an onslaught of erroneous comments aimed at POGO and Mr. Bowers:

Todd Bowers and POGO have a similar record to CDI. When they were trying to get the Stryker buy canceled, among other tactics they used was mailing the media pictures of dead guys in Strykers. He's really a class act -- not. By the way, their attack on the Stryker was supported (financially and otherwise) by FMC, and their proposal was that instead of Strykers the DOD buy a Vietnam-era APC made by .... need I draw you a picture... FMC.

If Mr. O’Brien had taken the time to fact-check his assumptions regarding Mr. Bowers and POGO’s stance on the Stryker, there would not be an issue. But we here at POGO would like to point out that since Mr. Bowers joined our staff in April 2006, we have done minimal reporting on the Stryker program, if any at all. In the past, POGO has raised concerns regarding the Stryker program, basing our views on official Army documentation. Specifically, we focused on a Center for Army Lessons Learned report , which stated that the Stryker Slat Armor solution was only defending the Vehicle from 50% of the rocket propelled grenade (RPG) threats. At no point did POGO ever ask that the program be cancelled. We were, however, concerned about the safety of the men and women inside the vehicle.

We were appalled and feel slandered by the accusation that POGO sent pictures to the media of Strykers with dead soldiers inside. At no point has POGO or anyone on our staff (past, present, or future) sent photos of dead soldiers to any media outlet of any kind. His statements are simply and horrifyingly wrong. This is unacceptable.

The comment made by Mr. O’Brien that POGO’s “attack” on the Stryker was “financially and otherwise” supported by Food Machinery Corporation (FMC) is false in its entirety. In its 25 years of existence, POGO has never accepted funding from corporate entities. POGO has had no contact with FMC and has never accepted funding of any kind from FMC. By operating in this manner, POGO is able to investigate, report, and recommend corrective measures without any outside influences threatening the integrity of our institution.

Finally, POGO would like to state that we disagree with Mr. O’Brien’s statement that “He's really a class act -- not.” Mr. Bowers served two tours in Iraq and was decorated for valor and awarded the Purple Heart. His efforts here at POGO mirror his efforts in Iraq: he has worked unstintingly to ensure that members of the Armed Services are protected with the best equipment our government can provide. Since Mr. O’Brien is also a member of the Armed Forces, he should not only understand these efforts, but support them.

-POGO

[barnstorm2]

Wow, the POGO oversite group blogged our fourm!

Maybe if they care that much they will get on the FAA's case about clearly FUBAR'ed USER FEES and self-funding proposals!!

Info here: http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11609

Looking forward to your BLOG on that topic....


.

[Hognose]

I need to make the point that I haven't been employed by Aero-News in any capacity since mid-2006, so Aero-News isn't ruffled. My comments here are mine alone and you'd have to be really mistaken or dishonest to take them as anything else. I leave it to Mr Bowers to explain which of the two is a better fit, and absent an explanation, I'll assume a mistake.


I do stand corrected on Mr Bowers's personal involvement in POGO's Stryker lobbying activities. In using the Stryker example, I should have targeted my irritatation against POGO as an organisation, not Bowers personally. I have been receiving tons of POGO stuff on the Stryker since before the machine was bought -- mostly in my capacity as a combat veteran, not as a writer for Aero-News, which is an aviation publication. It doesn't write about Strykers. Strykers don't fly (unless something has gone completely wrong or they are tucked in a C-17 or, with more exertion than anyone will ever really do in the field, a C-130).

I have no idea how POGO is funded, but I stand by my statement that it has never spoken in support of any modern weapons system. (I notice that the POGO press release doesn't cite a counterexample). And POGO did -- apparently before Mr Bowers joined -- routinely push the forty-years-obsolete M113, hundreds of which were being expended as targets when I joined the Army in the 1970s. I blew holes in them myself, with anti-armor weapons we were blowing off as obsolete.

Maybe POGO wasn't being paid to do it.. after all, they're Washington lobbyists, a race that we know are motivated solely by the milk of human kindness and warm feelings of brotherhood towards all men.

These days, everybody knows how the DC-area "non-partisan" "non-profit" game is played. POGO itself may never have taken a dime from FMC... but if we look closely, we'll probably find a skein of interlocking lobbyists' offices. These beltway non-profits (even the ones that don't solely exist to cut a fat check to an executive director who's some congressman's nephew or mistress) are all a scam. Just because something's "non-profit" one shouldn't assume it's trustworthy. Indeed, you should be alert... when you enter Wal-Mart, you know what Wal-Mart wants from you. Beltway "non-profits" seldom fly their true flag. If any.

The idea that Mr Bowers and I should agree on things because we both served in the military is interesting. I am sure there are thousands of things we do agree on. But then, there are people who served in the military with whom I have few points of agreement -- Rep. Jack Murtha is one; Stan Goff is another. We all have credible service but we also have widely variant opinions. There's nothing wrong with that.

It's a free country. I think that there are people who can make the call on whether the Osprey is ready for combat, and that they're the people that our system of government trusts with the decision (people like the Commandant of the Marine Corps). I don't think that those guys never make mistakes, and I'm under no illusions about the pressures they're under, but I'm willing to trust them with the decision.

Mr Bowers isn't. I'm not sure who he thinks should make the decision -- the ankle-biters at POGO, or the armchair Napoleons of Congress, or some other party entirely. I do consider the call for "more testing" dishonest, because after each round of more testing the knee-jerk defence opponents move the goalposts again.

Meanwhile, one thing's a fact: good people are dying in CH-46s. Most of which are the same age as the M113s we used to shoot LAWs into on the ranges. And when the Osprey deploys, some good people will die in an Osprey -- sooner or later. The enemy has all kinds of tinker toys to shoot at aircraft (and vehicles) and you can't make a moving machine weaponproof -- centuries of history weigh in on that. And you can't make a flying machine perfectly safe (we've all lost friends that way, even without evil and cunning people shooting at them); military aviation is hazardous even in peacetime. It just is.

But when those people die in CH-46s, none of the lobbyists at POGO says anything. When somebody dies in an Osprey, they will wave the bloody shirt. I get the impression that Mr Bowers thinks that he is helping the guys in the field by doing this.

I'll talk about POGO funding sources in a separate posting, and let you draw your own conclusions about what they're buying with that money.

cheers

-=K=-

[Hognose]

POGO Funding

The IRS reports on the POGO website do not reveal sources of funding; the donors're blanked out. Secrecy, apparently, is bad for government, but good for POGO. While POGO has operated since 1981 (it was born out of opposition to the Reagan defence build-up), only the last three [redacted] IRS forms are on the website.

The POGO annual report, which is of course produced by POGO and not something they submit to the beady eyes of the IRS, does indeed list donors, none of whom are corporations. (Of course, you don't have to be a corporation to have an agenda. Money doesn't even need to change hands. For example, I'm against POGO on this, and nobody's paying me to be).

The leading donor on the list in last year's annual report is... Anonymous. Ah, wait... they're not in donation-size order (although it seems from the IRS reports that a relatively few donors provide most of the money. A;; the real money comes from these donors. "Memberships" are not a serious source of funds, they don't pay half of one employee's salary).

There is also a list here on the website that seems to differ here and there from the annual report, perhaps reflecting how donors change over time. But you get the impression that the same payers fund POGO year in and year out.

Apart from Anonymous, the remainder are mostly Foundations with liberal to radical records.

For instance, have you ever heard of the Omidyar Network? No? Read this.
It's a pretty balanced report (I think) on the eBay founder's charity (he's a citizen of France, apparently).

The (alphabetically, at least) leading donor who isn't ashamed to be named appears to be the highly political Arca Foundation, which is described here.
The Arca Foundation seems to have some ties to the Carter Administration, which makes me wonder if its ties to POGO go all the way back to POGO's early days when its focus was exclusively anti-military (and it was full of freshly-ousted Carterites).

Here's another POGO financier, the Ploughshares Fund. Dedicated -- as is POGO in its own way -- to unilateral US disarmament. According to Discover the Networks (which admittedly has its own agenda, in this case a right-wing one), the ED of Ploughshares is a Californian war-protesteer whose agenda is to redirect "excessive" military spending (all of it?), to " unmet human and environmental needs." That lady thinks POGO is a good vehicle for her agenda.

And so it goes. I mean, I could go through the whole list... I've just been picking the ones that caught my eye, and haven't had to throw one back ("gee, these guys aren't a bunch of anti-military creeps, they actually are looking to support the troops") yet.

Let's pick a big one, which probably gave a big grant: the Ford Foundation, which gives a half a billion dollars away every year. Now, Henry Ford made the money, and he was personally a creep, notorious for his vicious anti-Semitism; but he was dead before the Foundation got underway, and the best joke on him may be that his Foundation has gone so far to the left that some of its supported causes (not POGO!) have arrived all the way back round at the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (It seems whichever way you go off the edge, you wind up in the same place). The Old Man would be so proud.

POGO, on the other hand, is probably funded under the Foundation's current "Peace and Social Justice Program". And if those words don't make an Orwellian echo in your mind, you never read 1984. Discover the Networks (them again!) says that "The Peace and Social Justice program is founded on the premise that '[a]rmed conflict destroys not only human lives but also livelihoods, governments, civil institutions, trust— in short, everything in its wake'; and that '[s]ocial justice is the aspiration of all healthy societies and the only long-term guarantee for sustaining peace.'"

It's worth noting that the Ford Foundation not only gives to POGO, it gives to other foundations that gave to POGO. There's a lot of this money-laundering going on in the non-profit world. If you're in with the right circle of check-signers (or is that, in this case, the left circle?), then your funding woes are pretty much over. The rest of us work for a living.

And I don't work for Aero-News... so I wish the crowd at POGO would stop humping Jim Campbell's leg (apparently they called him trying to get me fired... maybe now they'll take credit for me leaving nine months ago).

Finally, personal to Todd Bowers -- if you're comfortable with the crowd you're running with, that's OK by me. It's a free country, and diversity of ideas is the normal state of things. I respect you for your service, and I hope you're fully recovered from your injuries and have no lasting effects. I apologize for conflating your work on POGO's opposition to the Osprey with POGO's opposition to the Stryker (I believe the lead on that is Eric Miller or Muller). I should have stuck to the Osprey case, perhaps, and not let my disrespect for POGO's previous positions and generally anti-military stance colour my responce as much as I did.

To the gang at the Forum, sorry 'bout the long digression.

cheers

-=K=-

[Hognose]

Aha!

I know now how Todd Bowers and POGO may have gotten the idea I worked for ANN -- my profile page on this site included "Writer for Aero-News" among my credits. Of course, I was when I registered on the forum.

I have added a correction dated today so that this error doesn't happen again (it seemed a better thing than to just delete a line, like POGO does with its donor names in its IRS filings). Sorry about my contribution to this misunderstanding.


cheers

-=K=-

[barnstorm2]

Very well written Kevin.

You are an excellent writer and a 'rotorcraft national treasure' !


.