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| Iraq |
| Osprey's debut in combat zone has rocky start |
| 2007-10-12 |
| The controversial V-22 Osprey has arrived in a combat zone for the first time. It was an epic trip for the innovative $20 billion tilt-rotor plane, which took more than 25 years to develop, a process that included several fatal crashes. Even the last short hop -- from an amphibious assault ship into Iraq -- went awry, U.S. military officials said Monday. A malfunction forced one of the 10 Ospreys deployed to Iraq to land in Jordan on Thursday. The Marines flew parts to it from Iraq and repaired it. After it took off again Saturday, the problem recurred, and it had to turn back and land in Jordan again, said Maj. Jeff Pool, a U.S. military spokesman in western Iraq. It finally arrived at al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq late Sunday afternoon. Maj. Eric Dent, an Osprey spokesman at Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington, declined to identify the problem. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #11 Iff the US Navy goes thru and successfully devs its SEA BASING/MOB ofshore floating base concepts, which appears highly likely, THE ARMY-MARINES + US AIR ASSETS > will ostensibly need/use some variant of VTOL tech. MOB > AIR > for a practical puirposes, can be ascribed as a FIXED/STATIC CARRIER FLIGHT DECK, wid = widout catapult launch and deck recovery systems e.g. STOBAR??? YTOL. etal. = COST ECONOMIES. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-10-12 19:50 |
| #10 WAFF.com/DEFENSE ENWS > US Army-DOD has reportedly narrowed the number of advanced [future]tilt-rotor transport designs from five to three. As said or inferred before, the primary utility of the OSPREY is to gener serve as a real-time testbed and learning curve for more capable follow-on designs. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-10-12 19:43 |
| #9 3.5 times the price of the CH-47 plus $20 billion in R&D. What's not to like if you are Bell and Boeing or a congressman bringing home the bacon? $20B will buy near 700 CH-47F at $30M a piece. |
| Posted by: ed 2007-10-12 17:20 |
| #8 One of the worrying aspects of the Osprey is that it leaks (and burns) oil. Apparently that is a feature, not a defect (a side effect of having the tilt rotors). I can't help but wonder what effect that has on reliability and safety under fire. Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2007-10-12 17:03 |
| #7 We're missing a 'Turkey' graphic. |
| Posted by: mcsegeek1 2007-10-12 11:56 |
| #6 piece of shit should have been scrapped 25 years ago |
| Posted by: sinse 2007-10-12 11:09 |
| #5 Good work MAJ Dent! Just remember, get it right... or YOU'LL be flying the next one of these damn things into al-Asad for the long course. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2007-10-12 07:08 |
| #4 They could be referring to the total cost of development for x number of planes, whilst still making it seem ridiculously expensive. Or it could be a typo. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-10-12 06:48 |
| #3 $20 billion tilt-rotor plane Ha? |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-10-12 05:54 |
| #2 A malfunction forced one of the 10 Ospreys deployed to Iraq to land in Jordan on Thursday. So the other nine are fine? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-10-12 03:27 |
| #1 Maj. Eric Dent, an Osprey spokesman at Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington, declined to identify the problem. "We'll leave that task to the New York Times." |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-10-12 00:30 |