The Osprey: ‘A Flying Shame’ Goes To War, Thugs At Arms & Other Iraq News
A bad aircraft is finally about to take part in a bad war.
Ten V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor planes, which cost 30 lives and $20 billion over a quarter century of development, have been deployed to Iraq.
Repeated efforts to kill the Osprey at the highest levels of the Pentagon, including by Dick Cheney when he was defense secretary, were unsuccessful.
Cheney and others argued that the Osprey was too dangerous and too expensive, but it has been a darling of the influential congressfolk in whose districts the Bell-Boeing aircraft was developed, tested and is finally being manufactured.
The Osprey — which costs $110 million each, including development costs — takes off and lands like a helicopter but tilts its engines forward to fly like an airplane.
Time magazine featured the aircraft on its cover last week in a highly critical article that called it “A Flying Shame.”
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13 Responses to “The Osprey: ‘A Flying Shame’ Goes To War, Thugs At Arms & Other Iraq News”
Welcome to Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex. But jobs and votes will be lost if this albatross is thrown overboard…
[...] Clark The Osprey: ‘A Flying Shame’ Goes To War, Thugs At Arms & Other Iraq News » This Summary is from an article posted at The Moderate Voice » Domestic and international news [...]
A bad aircraft is finally about to take part in a bad war.
A bad aircraft only to those who don’t know much about it. Sounds as if the author takes what he/she reads in the MSM about the V-22 as gospel, particulary Thompson’s poorly researched and written Time piece, which is a serious error.
Ten V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor planes, which cost 30 lives
Nice touch of yellow journalism. Two of the three accidents involving fatalities in the Osprey had human error as either the direct cause or as a contributing factor in the crashes. I doubt that the author is aware of the large number of mishaps and fatalities the CH-46 suffered in it’s first five years of operation.
Repeated efforts to kill the Osprey at the highest levels of the Pentagon, including by Dick Cheney when he was defense secretary, were unsuccessful.
Cheney and others argued that the Osprey was too dangerous and too expensive, but it has been a darling of the influential congressfolk in whose districts the Bell-Boeing aircraft was developed, tested and is finally being manufactured.
Cheney made the decision to kill the V-22 in April of 1989, about a month after the first flight, based on the advice of an accountant, David Chu, not on any technical data he had at his disposal. Cheney also illegally diverted funds appropriated for the V-22 to other projects throughout his tenure as SecDef and stopped only when threatened with legal action by Congress. Cheney made several short sighted, boneheaded decisions while SecDef; including killing the F-14D, so using his behavior as justification to kill the V-22 is, at best, foolish and is indicative of a high level of ignorance on the part of the author. Had Cheney done what he was directed to do, the cost of an Osprey would be a lot less and the aircraft would have been in service a long time ago.
Well, if you drop incidents from enemy fire in Vietnam that number isn’t very large at all.
The Tomcat’s time had come. It was incredibly expensive to maintain and operate, took up far too much flight deck and hanger space, and other than it’s Phoenix weapons system didn’t offer anything the Hornet could provide with much less cost and precious real estate consumed.
Turns out we can maintain air superiority without gigantic fighters firing million dollar missiles.
The Osprey on the other hand is a complete boondoogle. It was a very long article but it seems you’d rather accuse people of ignorance or “yellow journalism” rather than bother refuting the points made in it.
It’s capabilities have been consistantly downgraded throughout it’s unbelievably long development cycle to the point that it’s become a sad joke.
Remember, it was supposed to cost $68.7 million 1983 dollars to design. 24 years later and we’ve now sunk over 17 BILLION
Oops, posted early.
Regardless, the Osprey is incredibly dangerous to operate in a peace time environment. We’ll see how it performs in battle assuming they ever even use them.
Here is another excellent article from 2005.
A heck of a lot of time, money and lives. For what? 80 knots or so?
And this
Is totally unsupported. What was Cheney directed to do and by whom?
The Osprey: the Pentagon’s Edsel! Now tell me how this weapons system contributes to a strong defense—isn’t it just an overblown plane to nowhere?
Remind me again why it makes sense to invest 20 billion in this turkey, but not 35 billion in children’s healthcare!
Ummm, spend money on a project approved by congress? He cancelled the project and was overruled and the saga continued. !! of those deaths were pilot error and bad design, routing hydraulic lines so chaffing could damage them, having no real connection to the question of whether this will be a good aircraft. The main incident where 19 died had to do with a particular type of stall that is possible in this kind of aircraft. Since this was new tech they didn’t have any info about this effect and now they do. The V-22 Osprey now has a warning device to alert the pilot to this just like every plane made
ok that was not what I wanted. Must of hit bquote instead of close tag. Sorry
The bridge to nowhere was also approved by Congress. Defense contractors hire lobbyists who do whatever it takes to buy votes. Those representing the contractors’ district fight for the appropriations because it benefits their district economicaly, and they can point to it at election time. I’m not blaming Cheney- but he could have gone public if he was that alarmed about it.
To me this just indicates the overwhelming influence of the defense industry and how f-d up our priorities have become. Where’s Malkin and her ilk to proclaim their outrage over this fraudulent use of their tax dollars? All of that fuss over Graeme Frost- but not a peep over this.
The simple fact is that the Marine’s helicopter fleet is old and needs replacing. They could have been replaced with newer helicopters, which would have been cheaper, but the Marines wanted an aircraft that had greater speed and range, etc. They got what they wanted. Whining about it now really serves no purpose.
Well, if you drop incidents from enemy fire in Vietnam that number isn’t very large at all.
Incorrect. Most of the 44 mishaps the CH-46 suffered during its first five years of service had nothing at all to do with enemy fire. Certainly those aircraft that broke up in flight due to Station 410 failures weren’t the result of hostile fire.
The Tomcat’s time had come.
The Tomact still had a lot of life left in it in 1991 when Cheney killed it. His decision was short sighted and another example of the petty games he played, particularly with the Navy and NAVAIR, during his tenure as SecDef.
and other than it’s Phoenix weapons system didn’t offer anything the Hornet could provide with much less cost and precious real estate consumed.
The Hornet could not and still cannot, even with the addition of the Super Hornet, match the performance of the F-14. The reduced maintenance is the benefit of 15 years in design and manufacturing improvements, in the case of the Hornet, and nearly 30 years, in the case of the Super Hornet, over the Tomcat. In many ways the Super Hornet can’t even match the performance of the Hornet. Your false assertion shows you lack comprehension of how the carrier’s sphere of influence has been reduced by the retirement of the Tomcat.
The Osprey on the other hand is a complete boondoogle.
Now you’re engaging in yellow journalism.
It was a very long article but it seems you’d rather accuse people of ignorance or “yellow journalism†rather than bother refuting the points made in it.
Thompson wasn’t constrained by space so there is no excuse for his failing to include information that refutes much of his piece. I addressed many of his errors, omissions and lies in my letter to him which he has failed to respond to. That’s a fact that you aren’t aware of and said ignorance on your part makes you no better than Thompson. It appears that your lack of integrity equals that of the Time employee.
It’s capabilities have been consistantly downgraded throughout it’s unbelievably long development cycle to the point that it’s become a sad joke.
Downgraded by people who are either ignorant of its capabilities or choose to lie about them. Which camp are you a member of?
Regardless, the Osprey is incredibly dangerous to operate in a peace time environment.
All tactical aviation platforms are dangerous to operatein peace time environments. A brief culling of Class A mishap reports would confirm that. The aircrews and mechanics who fly and maintain the aircraft strongly disagree with your claim. I’ll rely on their firsthand knowledge rather than disingenuous emoters spouting third and fourth hand scuttlebutt from people like yourself and Thompson.
Here is another excellent article from 2005.
Berler’s piece is “excellent” only to the ignorant. Although better researched than Thompson’s piece it still fails to disclose the facts in many areas. As one example, his failure to fully explain the pilot error that caused the April 2000 crash and the aircrew error that contributed to the December 2000 crash is inexcusable. He also fails to disclose the criminal indictment of the firm supplying defective titanium hydraulic lines to the program. His claim “And the flight manual hadn’t explained what the light meant either.” is a lie. NATOPS specifically mentioned what a FCS reset meant and what steps were to be taken if FCS reset was successful and what steps were to be taken if FCS reser failed and that didn’t include pushing the FCS reset eight to ten times which exacerbated the software anomaly and made the aircraft impossible to control. You can’t possibly defend those errors and omissions by calling his work “excellent” and expect to be taken seriously.
Is totally unsupported. What was Cheney directed to do and by whom?
Baloney. I suggest you read the following explaining Cheney and Chu’s illegal and petty behavior and then return here and admit your error.
http://www.ndu.edu/library/n3/93-E-040.pdf
A heck of a lot of time, money and lives. For what? 80 knots or so?,/em>
That comment in a nutshell speaks volumes about your lack of knowledge, aka ignorance, on the topic at hand.
One more rebuttal of Thompson’s hit piece, which tears him a well deserved you know what.
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/10/marine_osprey_071014/