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2007-04-16 Home Front: WoT

Osprey finally ready to soar in Iraq this fall

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Posted by Steve White 2007-04-16 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The damn thing should have been cancelled 10 years ago but too many people had their careers tied up in it. Waste of time, money, and lives.

Posted by Jonathan">Jonathan 2007-04-16 00:06|| 2007-04-16 00:06|| Front Page Top

#2 I got to see one up close at the Wright Centennial. The Marines were giving inside and out tours, and the line to see the plane was longer than the lines for all other planes combined.

My take, and remember, I'm neither mil/ex-mil nor an aircraft designer -- it's small inside. I can see that stuffing 24 Marines in there with their gear would be a really tight fit.

Is it the proper replacement for the CH-46 and CH-53? Beats me. It'd better work, and I'm not convinced, given the past problems, that all the bugs have been squashed.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2007-04-16 00:23|| 2007-04-16 00:23|| Front Page Top

#3 The damn thing should have been cancelled 10 years ago but too many people had their careers tied up in it. Waste of time, money, and lives.

This continues to be my own personal perception. The damn thing smacks of too much Rube Goldberg. A wingtip-to-wingtip inter-motor axle is insanely vulnerable to damage. Especially when you add how stress-prone the rotational engine mounts are to begin with. Albeit, the Chinook series helicopters these craft are intended to supplant aren't much more reliable, but they are far less costly. Contrary opinions welcomed.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-04-16 01:08|| 2007-04-16 01:08|| Front Page Top

#4 Fuck all! I just realized that if the cross-wing transaxle is supposed to compensate for a single engine loss, then each plant is obliged to be TWICE OR MORE overpowered (+5%-10%) [NOT + 5%-10%], in order to provide combined plant capacity! Individual engine armor, output overcompensation and general over-engineering cannot possibly account for this. Am I wrong?

The imposed overloading stress compensation factors required by each ROTATIONAL engine mount becomes ridiculous! A 4X, if not 16X strain coefficient is involved.

Frank, a little help? Doesn't the short-period frequency of MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure), with respect to combat damage demand immense overcompensation in terms of transaxle design and individual engine power?

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-04-16 02:03|| 2007-04-16 02:03|| Front Page Top

#5 The Osprey was already a joke in the early 80's. The program should have been strangled in its crib because it has sucked up all the money that might have been spent developing something that could do the job. Hell at this point, the Marines might be better off scrapping these things and buying cheap heavy lift troop transport helicopters from the Russians.

Posted by RWV 2007-04-16 02:53|| 2007-04-16 02:53|| Front Page Top

#6 The Army-USDOD is proceeding wid "Air Mech" and futuristic above-ground = low orbit armed floating battle stations wid links to globally integrated GMD-SPAWAR. The Navy has OFFSHORE/SEA BASING, the ARmy-USMC has LOW ORBITAL/AIR BASING precepts - BOTH REQUIRE VTOL/VSTOL-CAPABLE ASSETS.
The OSPREY's role in the ME right now is to serve as a TEST-BED FOR FOLLOW-ON, FUTURIST DESIGNS. Love to live long enuff to see 'em.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-04-16 05:11|| 2007-04-16 05:11|| Front Page Top

#7 Not even safe to be around if your on the ground. Unless they've shifted it elsewhere, upon landing, the exhaust will start fires on dry grass or pasture. The Army is flying short take off and landing twin engine Sherpas all over theater. They haul more and are much easier to maintain. Cost? Less than $3,000,000. per copy, and need no special training to fly. This is an outrage.

Posted by Besoeker 2007-04-16 06:06|| 2007-04-16 06:06|| Front Page Top

#8 If it is to be as capable with one engine as two, your concerns are valid, Zenster. If I remember correctly, a B-17 could fly with three of its' four engines out. It just couldn't fly very well...

Posted by Bobby 2007-04-16 07:13|| 2007-04-16 07:13|| Front Page Top

#9 can't help you there Zen. Ima civil engineer...now if you want a whack at the Flyash Liberation Army....

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2007-04-16 07:39|| 2007-04-16 07:39|| Front Page Top

#10 Bobby:
I suspect the V-22 would do fine in level flight if it lost an engine. I have to wonder what would happen if it lost one in take-off (vertical mode). Then you really would need a very large margin of power to work on just one engine.

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2007-04-16 08:31|| http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2007-04-16 08:31|| Front Page Top

#11 They will replace the Vietnam-era CH-46E and CH-53D helicopters that have been ferrying Marines to combat in volatile Anbar Province.

What happens to CH-46Es and CH-53-Ds when they lose engines?

Posted by mrp 2007-04-16 10:08|| 2007-04-16 10:08|| Front Page Top

#12 Hell at this point, the Marines might be better off scrapping these things and buying cheap heavy lift troop transport helicopters from the Russians.

The Army is flying short take off and landing twin engine Sherpas all over theater. They haul more and are much easier to maintain. Cost? Less than $3,000,000. per copy, and need no special training to fly.

You folks are confusing missions. This ain't cargo-hauling or mere troop transport. Are the Sherpas used for rapid insertion? Are they flown into combat zones? Can heavy lift Russian helos and survive in an assault situation (does 'Afghanistan' mean anything)? Can the Sherpas do the same?

I'm not saying Osprey is the answer. But they're Marines, not the f**king Army. Different mission, different experience, different ethos.

Posted by Pappy 2007-04-16 10:18|| 2007-04-16 10:18|| Front Page Top

#13 Well, one thing's for sure. It will be difficult to hide the design flaws now. This is fish or cut bait time.

Posted by wxjames 2007-04-16 13:15|| 2007-04-16 13:15|| Front Page Top

#14 Having causally followed the birthing process of this hermaphrodidic aircraft as well as being a rotorhead, i will chime in with those that say this a/c is a waste. the Bell/Agusta 309 civilian version is good for ints inteded role, but it has much fewer moving parts (parts that can go wrong). Being all computer controlled, my biggest hangup is keeping them worknig in a maritime environment: you have the props that fold, the engines that rotate, the wing swivels all in the name of saving deck space. Let one of the electrons wander and you are pretty well hosed.
in answer to the question about a lost engine on a 46 or 53d: it all depends on where in the flight regime you are when it happens. during a high load evolution ( take off / landing / hovering, you can anticipate some anxious moments, especially if it is high, hot and you are at max gross. in forward flight, you could most likely continue or execute a safe landing. i do not think there are any more 53D's out ther, having all been replaced by 53E's ( 3 engines, 7 blades and about 50% more gross t.o. weight). biggest problem i have seen with the 46's is airframe fatigue and fuselage breakup by the aft ramp area ( frame station 410 to you navy airframers out there).

Posted by USN, Ret. 2007-04-16 14:22|| 2007-04-16 14:22|| Front Page Top

#15 What happens to CH-46Es and CH-53-Ds when they lose engines?

Usually, they crash. A few lucky pilots are good enough to get to the ground in one piece, the rest go up in flames. We barely missed having a Chinook come down on our barracks in Vietnam. He made the helipad by less than ten feet. He landed hard, cracked up, and had to be carted off in pieces. The crew was injured, but not seriously.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2007-04-16 14:52|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2007-04-16 14:52|| Front Page Top

#16 OP: the Chinook and 46, while similiar are 2 different animals and if memory serves, share the same powerplant; so with the 46 being smaller it automatically has a bigger margin of safety than the 47. i think they are up to the T58-16 version; please correct if wrong.

Posted by USN, Ret. 2007-04-16 16:36|| 2007-04-16 16:36|| Front Page Top

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