Comments on: Osprey: Capabilty versus Cost – Is it really worth it?

By: Richard Stockley

Richard Stockley — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:01:49 +0000

Possible export customer for MV-22?

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/03/15/354155/israeli-air-force-to-take-second-look-at-v-22-osprey.html

By: jed

jed — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:40:48 +0000

Finally, it does what their requirements documents asked for, finally…..

Was it worth the blood and gold – not really ! More CH53′s, more AH1′s and more Vertol 360′s probably would have been good enough – I am sure NASA could have put men on Mars by now with a similar budget as the V22 program !

By: DominicJ

DominicJ — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:06:48 +0000

I think I’m going to retreat to my stock answer again.

The tasks the USMC is told to prepare to carry out are different than the tasks the USMC is actualy asked to carry out.

The Marines are set up to be the first wave of a US invasion, they storm beaches, sieze ports and airfields, that kinda stuff.
Looked at from that perspective, the Osprey makes a lot of sense, it allows fast, long range transport with no facilities to recieve it at the end.

In reality, they will spend most of their time working as armed policemen.
But never been a moment when a decision was made that they should stop buying warfighting equipment and start buying peacekeeping equipment.

That applies to amphibious landing craft as well, the marines, both theirs and ours, are told to expect to storm a defended beach, so buy amphibious APC’s, but are then told to patrol a desert.

By: Phil Darley

Phil Darley — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:28:56 +0000

Is it worth it, simply NO. It is a fantastic idea,but its hovering capabilities are very the weak when compared to a conventional helicopter. the downwash from those two massive rotorblades puts a chinook to shame. As Dominic said to expect this to be the USMC standard helicopter is crazy. What they should do now is buy a shed load of US101s to replace most of the CH46 and use the Osprey for the exceptional tasks where its range and speed is required. For normal utility roles its just wrong.

However as we know the US wants to make cuts in defence what does it do, yes cut the only two major non-US programmes i.e. VH71 presidential helicopter) and the KC-X tanker replacement, not to mention how the fcuk they chose the Chinook hh47 over the hh71 is mind boggling. All I would say is they have got what they deserve!!!

By: DominicJ

DominicJ — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:59:42 +0000

Hmmm, interesting stuff.

I’d always thought the Ospey was a niche platform for its, lets be honest, astounding capabilities.
I’d not realised it was going to be the USMC’s standard helicopter, thats insane, really really insane.

Knowing how much it would cost to develop, no one would have gone ahead with it, but, theres no use crying over spilt milk

I think going forward, the Tilt Rotator concept will be very useful, as people have mentioned, AWACS could be nice and easy with this platform, from either an Assault Ship or Medium Carrier, could you mount a 40-70mm cannon and use it as a heavy gunship, or just use it for what I thought it was designed for, extreme long range helicoptor insertion and extraction.

By: Euan

Euan — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 17:45:57 +0000

The MV-22 Osprey was it worth it? In my opinion no. It was a leap too far more development and research should have been done to massively improve the knowledge and understanding of tilt-rotor design and technology. I agree with the suggestion that the CH-46 should have been replaced by something in the 1980’s what that should have been is open to debate; a revamped CH-46 would have been good. The problem however is that the Tilt-rotor might then never have appeared after the end of the cold war as there would have been no money to properly fund a tilt-rotor program.

The capability the MV-22 brings is in my opinion not worth the massive development cost or the time taken or the support costs going forward. It’s nice to have but I question whether it is actually a needed capability but the USMC does like complex and expensive equipment.