Marines and the Osprey

Leatherneck ^ | May 2005 | Margaret Bone

[ChadGore]

Deploy These birds ! We need them !

[Tacis]

Each Osprey requires a standard maintenence crew plus a staff of 3 Ph.D.s. And, each aircraft is still required to have a large sign on the undercarriage that can be read from the ground that says, "Beware - Falling Scrap Metal!"

These things will never work! The strains on the structure when the engines tranistion in and out of level flight are just too extreme. Under ideal conditions, they can be manageed, but under operational (not even "combat") conditions, they'll begin to fall out of the sky.

Right after the entire fleet is grounded, the federal commission set up to determine what happened will find that the records have been fudged BIG TIME!! I never did understand who is pushing this unlikely machine.

[Dick Vomer]

I'd like Congress, the JCS, the CEO, CFO and all the retired military "consultants" that helped in the procurement of the Osprey use it to and from work every day for 1 year. Then I'd put my son on one...... of course it's safe, I beleive the safety record for this bird is pretty good when compared to .....

[MosesKnows]

I never did understand who is pushing this unlikely machine.

I am surprised; you sound conspiratorial and suspicious enough to have figured that out. Perhaps I can offer a clue. Think commerical.

[Rockingham]

Maybe. The military though has a record of producing initially flawed aircraft, vessels, vehicles, and weapons but eventually getting them right -- usually after staggering cost overruns and schedule slippages. The Osprey has been through so much cash, time, and scrutiny that it might finally be serviceable.

[CHICAGOFARMER]

This piece of junk needs to be deep sixth. When one rotor fails, one engine fails, one engine is shot out, when one bullet takes out one engine, 30 marines die. 30 marines.

with fixed wing and rotor helicopters, the riders have a chance to get out with glide ins, autorotor down escape ability.

This duck doess not fly, the dog don't hunt, the plane is two bricks short of a full plane. yata yata yata.

[JoeGar]

How does it crash-land if it loses both engines? It doesn't look as if it can autorotate down like a chopper. (I see them flying overhead a lot here in Eastern N.C.)

[leadpenny]

I agree, it's a piece of junk and a deathtrap but I thought the main problem was that the Osprey is a flying (sometimes flying) design flaw.

Rotor Tip Vortices, or something like that, is what it's called. As I understand it, that is a fancy name for "Settling with Power," as we used to call it in Hueys. If one side of that puppy settles at, say 100', on final approach to landing in the hover mode - it's over!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

This thing doesn't look like it wants to fly.

[demlosers]

[Liberty Valance]

The Marines deserve better.

[longtermmemmory]

Serious question: Is it safe? I remember the stories of it being plauged with crash problems.

Did not the marines try and end the program only to be forced to keep it?

[BBell]

One of my former neighbors is a CH 46 pilot. A Navy Academy Grad no less. He said you would never get him in one of those things. He said they won't work as designed, can't auto rotate and drop like a rock from any failure. Last I heard he was flying 46s around Iraq.

[SamAdams76]

Why is everybody so down on the V-22 Osprey? Let's give it a fair chance. It's new technology. A new way of flying. A new way of doing battle. The first few airplanes crashed but did we give up trying to fly? The first few rockets exploded but did we abandon space travel? The first submarines drowned a bunch of sailers but did we abandon undersea travel?

We can make the technology better and constantly improve it. The VC-22 is the platform of the future. Let's dare to do what it takes to make it right. Nobody but volunteers will be flying them. Like the astronauts and pilots of yesteryear, they know the risks. Let them take them.

[cynicom]

That turkey will never fly. Marines want a new aircraft??? Start over again.

[Francis McClobber]

"Rotor Tip Vortices, or something like that, is what it's called. As I understand it, that is a fancy name for "Settling with Power," as we used to call it in Hueys. If one side of that puppy settles at, say 100', on final approach to landing in the hover mode - it's over!"

The phenomenon that you are referring to has nothing to do with the twin rotor characteristics of the aircraft.

"Settling with power" is a term used to describe when power available exceeds power required. This condition usually is encountered when transitioning to a hover, the pilot hits max power available and continues settling.

Power settling, is the wing tip vortex state where the aircraft settles through its own rotor wash. This occurs when under 40 KIAS and at an 800-1200 foot per minute rate of descent and is common to all rotary winged aircraft. If one side settles in its own rotor wash, so will the other side- just like the H-46 or H-47.

The V-22 rotors are connected by a synchronization shaft, so that when one engine fails, the other can pick up the load and power the failed motor rotors. This system is very similar to the one in H-46 and H-47.

The Osprey's design flaws have been pretty well worked out. The crash that occurred about 10 years ago in the DC area was a result of a fire in one of the engine naceles (sp) where fluids built up and could not drain properly. When they transitioned to the hover mode, the fluid settled into the exhaust area and caught on fire.

The training exercise crash that killed all those marines about five years ago was a result of pilot error- power settling. I believe the pilot at the controls was a C-130 retred guy and may not have been fully schooled in the power settling phenomenon that all Navy trained helicopter pilots are.

[Francis McClobber]

My former CO is the CO of VMX-22. If he gets in it and flies every day, its safe.

[leadpenny]

We used to practice settling with power at altitude in the UH-1.

If one side settles in its own rotor wash, so will the other side

I don't see how it's an absolute that if one side settles for the Osprey, the other side will too? Wind conditions and rotor wash from another aircraft conjures up all kinds of possibilities in my mind . . . . especially under combat conditions.

Is there an emergency procedure if there is a severe asymmetry of lift condition?

[Francis McClobber]

Nothing is an absolute. But you can be pretty sure that if one rotor system is experincing an atmoshperic condition, the other one 50 feet away on the same aircraft is experiencing the same thing. In the trusty '46 the forward rotors react the same way as the aft rotors in vortex ring state.