Posted on 12/17/2010 5:03:04 PM PST by Yo-Yo
Last I checked, Afghanistan was landlocked. Do the Taliban fly fighter jets equipped with French anti ship missiles? Maybe ever scarce resources should fit the threat, with conservation of those resources in mind.
BTW, the chalk lift from the departure was a grand total of 14 miles.
Cha-ching!
Sure....
Boondoggle by big business.......... It’s a conspiracy. All we need is updated ch53s and uh1s.
Chalk turn around times and speed, MANPADs, the threat from shore based anti ship missiles.......none of that matters; no, those are BS arguments by Boeing.
Imagine you’re the first chalk of an initial entry team waiting and hoping for more guys in green to arrive. Imagine your ship has to loiter close to shore in unsafe waters, imagine you can’t effectively overfly the
MANPADS threat......
The DoD is being cautious and prudent. You don’t want to rush into failure and have a F111 like scenario when they crashed because of a terrain following radar issue. The “capabilities” this platform brings are needed.
Hint, anything that takes off and lands vertically has issues, everything. Take a look at the maintenance on a normal helicopter, the crash statistics of a harrier........... It’s unstable, there is no glide ratio to speak of, you have vibration, everything is spinning in circles, the airframe is under constant torque on a helicopter and like all aircraft that try to do what they do a helicopter in general can’t compare in crash statistics to it’s fixed wing brethren. More things can go wrong, but does that mean we don’t need the capability to get into places like a helicopter can? You accept the risk.
75 knots seems way to fast to contact the ground on a non prepared surface. It almost makes you wonder if the pilots were trying to wave off their approach and contacted the ground in the process.
After reading the entire AIB report, I found the following:
I considered engine percent performance, which was last measured on 6 April 2010 (99.5% for the left engine and 95.3% for the right engine). The MA performed four austere landings, including one with a left engine air particle separator failure, after that 6 April 2010 measurement. (Tab D-4, Tab U-5 thru U-6, Tab V-59.3, Tab BB-64, Tab II-3, II-52) Degraded engines could have led to engine failure, surge/stall or insufficient power when a high power demand was required. I determined, by the greater weight of credible evidence, that one or both of the MA’s engines was degraded below acceptable standards.
And:
There was a new software update to the CV-22 systems just prior to active use on this deployment. (Tab V-2.8) One of the new features of this software was an increase in cruising speed while in airplane mode. A familiar TCL setting for a specific airspeed would now result in a higher air speed. (Tab V-2.8, Tab II-6, Tab JJ-51 thru JJ-52) The MA was at an excessive speed in the final phases of flight. (Tab L-4, Tab J-21 to J-22, Tab Z-27) There is no direct evidence, but it is possible that the MP reverted to learned behavior from numerous missions in the CV-22 prior to the software update, resulting in a higher speed during the approach to the LZ.
But what really caught my eye early in the report, and was never fully explained was this:
From 2008:58Z to 2009:08Z, the MA’s total fuel value decreased by 74 pounds, which equates to a rate of 26,640 pounds per hour. (Tab JJ-41 thru JJ-49) The engines are capable of commanding a maximum burn rate of 6,000 pounds per hour. (Tab JJ-49) The A-10 video of the last 20 seconds of the mishap flight showed a substance trailing the MA starting at approximately 2008:57Z. (Tab Z-27, Tab HH-25 thru HH-31) Two separate trails remained behind the MA for several seconds. This occurred several times up until approximately 2009:12Z, which was three seconds before ground impact. A very excited discussion occurred in the cockpit seconds prior to impact. (Tab V-60.28 thru V-60.29, V-60.36, V-72.1) A member of the MCR counted down “10, 9, 8, 7” rapidly and at “7” the aircraft impacted the ground. (Tab V-20.4) MTS heard several aircraft generated voice warnings upon impact. (Tab V-60.22)
What accounted for the fuel use rate 4 1/2 times higher than the maximum engine fuel burn rate? Could a fuel leak have caused reduced engine performance? Not a thing about this fuel rate issue appeared in the conclusions.
It is not unreasonable to speculate they entered VRS on approach (can be exacerbated by tailwind), which results in a very high rate of descent. The pilot may then feel his only option is to attempt a high-speed run-on approach, which the aircraft is poor at, especially given rough terrain.
That VRS is not even mentioned is highly suspicious, given the history, unless one posits that the brass is comfortable to blame 'pilot error' rather than place blame on aircraft design. The military has placed a big pile of apples in this basket, they certainly don't want to admit it is a pig in a poke.
Unfortunately, those who make the decisions always arrive at the accident site AFTER the smoke has cleared.
Unnecessary loss of warriors.
How well does a helicopter perform at higher altitudes?
Just because it flew a short trip on that mission doesn’t preclude it from flying longer legs when necessary. In fact, what is happening now (and you’re making my point with your statement) is very bad because we are essentially equipping and dumbing down the force to deal with a very limited type of threat when we buy a lot of the equipment we do of late.
This is a bs argument. You’re not honest.....sure it’s a conspiracy! The v22 is junk and a product of bribes etc. Call 60 minutes!
I talked today to a former Marine pilot who’s son is a Marine pilot in Afghanistan and is flying the Osprey. He has full confidence in the aircraft. That may not be surprising, but I know this man well enough that if he thought there was a problem..he would have mentioned it. There were a few other aviators in the group discussion..two former test pilots.
Any complex system like this will have some issues and bugs that need worked out, albeit I think there are a lot who want to armchair the osprey to death although this platform is already well on it’s way.
What we are asking for is a small wonder of engeneering. Things that take off vertically, all of them, from harrier, yak36, to the common bell jet ranger at your local airport engage in something that “statistically” is a bit more risky that a fixed winged aircraft. The inherit instability, lack of glide ratios, vibration, more moving parts and points of failure, torque on an airframe that wants to spin the airframe in circles makes for something
that has more issues and requires more maintenance. Just compare a simple helicopter like a bell jet ranger to say a single turbo prop like a pilatus and look at the difference in maintenance between them.
and
That VRS is not even mentioned is highly suspicious, given the history,...
Vortex Ring State is ancient history.
Dispelling the Myth of the MV-22The MV-22 Osprey is a very capable medium-lift military transport aircraft the Marine Corps has needed for a long time. It is twice as fast, can carry three times as much, and goes six times farther than the CH-46E, the aircraft it is replacing. It is no reach to say that if the MV-22 continues its current run of success in testing and is fielded as planned, it will change everything about how maneuver warfare is conducted.
The Osprey, however, also is an airplane with an image problem, primarily resulting from two highly publicized mishaps that killed 23 Marines four years ago [2004 article.] The investigation into these accidents resulted in the discovery and subsequent resolution of an aerodynamic condition affecting all rotorcraft but unduly linked with the MV-22: vortex ring state (VRS).
[Snip]
So what have we found in our 14-months of low-airspeed, high-rate-of-descent testing in search of VRS?If you're really interested in learning facts, instead of just guessing, I suggest you read the entire AIB report, and read the entire article above.* Above 40 KCAS, VRS will not occur, regardless of sink-rate magnitude.* The lower the disk loading (the ratio between an aircraft’s weight and rotor size), the smaller the sink rate where VRS might occur. Conversely, in the case of the MV-22 with higher disk loading, VRS may occur at a much larger sink rate.
* VRS requires a nearly steady-state condition. Any maneuvering tends to delay or prevent a roll off.
* As both sink rate increases and airspeed decreases, periodic rotor thrust fluctuations increase.
* As the VRS boundary is approached, handling qualities degrade because of unsteady flows at the rotor(s).
* Entry into fully developed VRS may be characterized by a sudden, sharp reduction of net thrust at the rotor.
* Recovery from VRS is immediate and effective using two seconds of forward nacelle tilt.
* There is a large margin of safety between rate of descent limit and VRS boundary below 40 KCAS.
At no point was the aircraft operating in a potential VRS regime.
True...but it’s a Navy/USMC program.
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