Posted on 10/30/2007 9:37:41 AM PDT by Freeport
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFPN) -- A CV-22 Osprey assigned to the 58th Special Operations Wing at Kirtland AFB participated in the aircraft's first search and recovery mission, responding to the fatal crash of a medical aircraft in the mountains of southern Colorado.
Airport officials lost contact with the Arizona-based Beechcraft King Air airplane at 11:22 p.m. on Oct. 4 as the air ambulance headed toward San Luis Regional Medical Center while responding to a medical call.
At about 9:15 a.m. Oct. 5, the Air Force Rescue Center contacted Kirtland Air Force Base with a call to help at the request of civil authorities. Initially, the mission was considered search and rescue because the condition of those aboard the downed aircraft was unknown.
The response team quickly prepared to take off. Aircraft involved included the CV-22, a pair of HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters, and a MC-130P Combat Shadow to provide aerial refueling and serve as air mission control for the operation. Capt. Scott Gwin, aircraft commander on the Osprey, credited the maintenance crew for preparing the aircraft for the speedy search and rescue effort.
The Osprey took off between 11:35 and 11:40 a.m.
Finding the crash site
"We knew our piece of this was to get up there as quickly as we could and find the crash site," Captain Gwin said.
The captain pointed out that an advantage of the Osprey is that it can take off and land just about anywhere -- saving minutes and hopefully lives.
(Excerpt) Read more at aviation.com ...
The main criticism of the SAR version is it’s vulnerability to ground fire in the transition phase and lack of defensive armament.
That’s what the TIME cover article was flogging at any rate.
Several companies, BAE, ATK, etc. are rapidly working on retrofitable 360 degree under belly, remotely controlled, gun systems. The systems I know of are 20 - 30mm chain guns using various pointing mechanisms.
In the interim, I think ramp gunners, ala Chinook, will be showing up.
I had one of these fly around my workshop a couple of weeks ago. Impressive! I was working inside and heard a roar. I assumed it was the guys from Battle Creek, they have copters and A-10 s, but when I went outside it was a osprey with the blades up. Then they flew around several times ( pretty low 250 ft.) and then slowly put the blades in the forward position and took off.
I do not know if the CV-22 is currently provisioned with a ramp mounted gun.
However, the CV-22 is not slated to conduct regular SAR missions. That task will be assigned to the winner of the CSAR-X contract, which was Boeing's CH-47 Chinook until the GAO instructed the Air Force to rebid the contract.
The CV-22 is to replace the CH-53 Pavelow aircraft in the Special Ops insertion and extraction role, and as such is equipped with terrain following radar and turret mounted FLIR that the MV-22 does not have.
As the TIME article stated, the 20mm chin turret had to be dropped on the account of weight.
I saw an artist’s conception of the Chinook-based SAR craft. It depicted mini-guns a ‘blazin from all four corners and the tail door.
Sorry, right, my mistake: Marines, not Army...
You’re right: the CV-22 is an AFSOC Infil/Exfil aircraft primarily. But when you happen to have two standing by for test, it’s demonstrated that it can be to the objective area PDQ. At least, before the choppers and Hercs.
TC
A 20mm would have been a mistake, anyway.
That would edge it towards the gunship role, which wasn’t the intended purpose.
Maybe a Dillon Aerospace M134D Minigun (7.62mm NATO) would fit the bill. Plenty small for a high-chin/nose mount?
Absolutely. And from the story they were first on scene, but did not locate the wreckage until the C-130 was on station and located it.
I think the CV-22 did in general prove that it was faster than the HH-60s at getting on station.
The Time article isn’t worth the pulp it was printed on.
Osprey jumps from shipboard tests to aid in rescue
Friday Dec 15, 2006
Osprey jumps from shipboard tests to aid in rescue
By Paul C. Leibe
Staff Writer
Members of Patuxent River Naval Air Station’s V-22 Integrated Test Team onboard the USS San Antonio for sea tests ended up this month lending a hand in an at-sea rescue operation in the Atlantic Ocean.
The shipboard tests, which began in the last week of November and extended into December, said Maj. Scott Trail, included ‘‘establishing the acceptable wind envelope” within which the V-22 can safely deploy from and return to the San Antonio’s landing deck. Trail is a V-22 Marine Corps test pilot and has logged more than 330 flight hours in the Osprey in the past three years. His crew that week included Lt. Col. William Witzig and Staff Sgt. Brett Heuvelman.
On the afternoon of Dec. 1 the San Antonio was operating in the Atlantic Ocean about 50 miles off the North Carolina-Virginia shoreline. The sea was choppy that afternoon with swells reaching 12 feet. Winds were kicking up, occasionally as high as 40 and 45 miles per hour.
About one-third of the San Antonio’s deck is designed to accommodate aircraft. Up to four aircraft can be kept on the deck, which is large enough for two V-22s to land or take off simultaneously.
Trail and his team had just completed one wind test. The V-22 and its crew were sitting on the San Antonio’s deck, preparing for their next test, when ‘‘we realized that the ship had picked up speed and changed direction,” Trail said.
‘‘We learned that [the San Antonio] had received a ‘vessel in distress’ call,” Trail said. ‘‘A fishing boat was taking on water, and we were told the crew would have to abandon ship within the next 30 minutes.”
When the San Antonio received the call for help, it was about 17 miles from the fishing boat’s location. ‘‘In a situation like that,” Trail said, ‘‘you just do what you can.
‘‘We didn’t have any [search and rescue personnel] on our crew,” he said, ‘‘and there weren’t any on [the San Antonio] either, so we offered to render assistance by flying over the site” to give an on-scene assessment of the situation.
The V-22 is a hybrid tilt-rotor aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like an airplane.
In airplane configuration, explained V-22 spokesman James Darcy, the Osprey is capable of attaining speeds twice as fast as any helicopter.
Trail and his crew were quickly airborne and heading for the distressed vessel, a 100-foot fishing boat named Miss Melissa, which had a crew of four on board.
In Miss Melissa’s hold was about 7,000 pounds of tuna, mackerel and swordfish.
Within ‘‘six or seven minutes” after leaving the San Antonio, Trail said, his plane had covered the 17-mile distance and quickly found the ailing fishing boat.
When the Osprey becomes fully operational next year it will be equipped for both over-water and land-based search-and-rescue operations. But, because Trail’s plane was being used for testing unrelated to rescue work that week, his V-22 was not flying with rescue gear onboard.
Had the V-22 crew discovered an immediate life-or-death situation, Trail said, they planned to go into helicopter mode, hover low over the boat and deploy the Osprey’s inflatable raft for the fishing boat’s crew until other rescuers could get there.
When the V-22 crew located Miss Melissa, they tuned their radios to preset maritime channels and ‘‘established communications with another fishing vessel that had also arrived” on the scene, Trail said. ‘‘And we knew one more [boat] was on its way. We saw that [Miss Melissa’s crew] didn’t require our raft, so we marked their location ... and then established an orbit,” flying at a reduced speed around the fishing boat until additional help arrived.
A Coast Guard rescue helicopter had also been dispatched to the scene from Elizabeth City, N.C., nearly 90 miles away. The Coast Guard crew used signals from the V-22 as a navigational aid when flying to the scene.
In the meantime, the V-22 crew made use of some of their plane’s state-of-the-art electronics gear to pull up a digital map to determine the closest landing field.
They also calculated how long it would take to get there, how much fuel would be needed, and how much longer they could stay on station before needing to find a place to land.
In other types of aircraft, Trail said, that information would require a crewmember’s full attention for several minutes while doing the math needed to find answers to their questions.
But in the Osprey, said Trail, ‘‘All it was, it was a couple of button pushes, and the information was there, on the screen” in front of him.
All together, Trail said, his crew was on site for about 40 minutes. When the Coast Guard helicopter got to the scene the V-22 team returned to the San Antonio, which had also arrived.
Because of the winds and choppy seas that afternoon, Miss Melissa’s crew could not safely transfer to either of the other fishing boats on the scene.
A rigid-hull inflatable boat from the San Antonio was sent to make the rescue. It made several circles around the fishing boat, rescuing one crewmember at a time.
The four fishermen, who were reluctant to abandon their sinking boat, were eventually carried to the Navy ship, where they were fed, given medical exams and dry clothes, and provided with a place to rest and access to telephones. They spent the night on the San Antonio before transferring to a Coast Guard ship the following morning.
According to military.com, San Antonio’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Brad Lee, later reported Miss Melissa’s crew was ‘‘in great shape” despite their ordeal.
While the V-22 crew served in more of a liaison and communications capacity during the rescue operation, Darcy said this incident demonstrates the airplane’s versatility and said the action was a good indication of how important a contribution the Osprey will make when the first V-22 squadrons deploy next year.
Incorrect. A ramp gun on the Osprey has been around for quite some time.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.