Your Osprey link isn't working, Ace.

But I do have to laugh grimly. I recall having a heated conversation about the Osprey's suckiness years ago with someone who was saying it just needed the kinks worked out. Um, no, it's just a bad design. In cases where people continue to get killed, I hate being right.

Later,
bbeck

If only Terri Schiavo had had the Osprey's lawyers.

If she had Osprey lawyers, she'd still be effectively brain dead and vegetative.

Since it was 1st put out by the Powerline Blog, the notion that the Schindlers had the better case but were simply outlawyered has become the rallying cry of the Religious Right. Similar to how the superior German Army was bound to win WWI on their merits but were "stabbed in the back" by nefarious forces.

It forgets that independent people like the appointed Guardians Ad Litem looked at the situation independent of the Greer trail lawyering. Concluding that M Schiavo was providing good care, that T Schiavo was vegetative on the evidence, that the Schindlers were unfit to be guardians based on their remarks and actions.

Perhaps another week remains until the autopsy results show the complete extent of T Schiavo's brain damage and reveal the Schindlers video and claims of the "Talking and interacting Terri" to be desperate lies.

You could almost accept the Schindler/RTL lies as OK if it wasn't for them also being the In-Laws from Hell for the last 5 years, demonizing their son-in-law as an abuser, cheater, murderer.

Oh, for the love of everything holy, give it a fucking rest already.

Jesus! Do you ever shut the fuck up?

Cedarford, why do you keep bringing that shit up?

It was just a throwaway joke.

and what about that JAG where the osprey pilots wanted to keep the program active? wasn't that real?

Yeah, those three hydraulic line problems in thirteen years seem like a real issue...

By the standards you're holding the Osprey to, the F-14 was a relative deathtrap.

The F-14D fucking rules. I can't believe they're getting rid of it. Pissant little bitches.

I don't get the online thing. Is it like the SIMS?

Cirby,

Yeah, those three hydraulic line problems in thirteen years seem like a real issue...

But there are other issues, aren't there?

Is it part of our forces yet? Or will it perpetually be in R&D?

I don't know the answers to those questions. But I guess I'm assuming this little hangar queen is still in the "working out the kinks" phase, and I don't know if it will ever be out of that phase.

At what point do you just admit the basic design isn't working?

OK, OK, Hobgoblin, it was a throwaway joke by ACE.

But the original Powerline "the legal system stabbed us in the back!" is still being talked about by the Religious Right in a serious angry, holy dogma manner like the Democrats in Florida in 2000. Noble Algore won of course, but despite all the Merits of Noble Algore and his victory....he was simply outlawyered by the nefarious Republicans, who "stole the election".

As the Germans & Democrats demonstrated, any group that gets their ass kicked but comes to ferverently believe they won the struggle - but had victory snatched away at the last minute by sinister forces, are persistent in their belief. Despite all evidence to the contrary - Germans looking at the actual forces arrayed against them in post-WWI studies showing they were goners, the Miami Herald investigation of the 2000 Florida vote, soon the Schiavo autopsy - they tend to hold those grievances as iron conviction and self-destruct - until enough subsequent ass-kicking disabuses them of their notions.

As for the Osprey, I just don't see a mission for it that helos and C-17s can't do in lieu of the Osprey.

DARPA and the bionic arm is great despite all the vivisected monkeys they had to do in experiments. That is one area I think my tax dollars are well used. Pity DARPA's basic research funding is being cut by 20% this year because of the tax cuts and massive Federal budget deficits.

For illustrative purposes, y'know

that's good.

"At what point do you just admit the basic design isn't working?"

Well, since they're still flying the B-1, it appears to take quite a while!

Later,
bbeck

Ace--

You admit it isn't working when it is, in fact, not working.

The Osprey works fine. . . when it works.

Meaning, it's not a fundamentally unsound aircraft. The design *is* solid. The flight characteristics *are* good.

The two problems with the Osprey are serious, and may doom the program.

The "avoidable" problem is build quality. The Bell (Boeing) folks have been a bunch of fuck-ups. It's manufacturing quality issue, it's problems in subcomponent design. A bad hydraulic system (and gearbox structure) does not a bad design make, but obviously, if these guys can't build a hydraulic system that's reliable, you can't fly the plane.

And that brings us to the second, unavoidable problem with the Osprey: it has a low-tolerance for failure and/or error. Contrary to criticism, it is NOT a hard plane to fly (unless the pilots I've met are lying to me). The problem is, once things go south on the plane, things can go south in a hurry. If you're in helo mode, or worse, in transition, and you experience a shutdown in power or control to one of the engines, you're probably going to take a dive, and FAST. The emergency "outs" you have with a plane (glide) or a pure helicopter (autorotation) aren't available with the design.

It's got to work, or else it doesn't work.

The bottom line, however, is that the Marines not only want it to work, they need it to work-- the capability delivered by a (working) V-22 is truly revolutionary. And no, that capability can't be provided by current helos (too slow) or C-17s (no VTOL).

FYI, the Osprey is in what's known as the Operational Test & Evaluation phase. This is the "final exam" DoD gives its weapons systems before approving full-rate production. If this summer goes well, that decision could come by the end of the year (IIRC). However, Congress has demanded a say in the decision, so we'll see what happens.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Yeah, uh, what Dave said. Osprey sucks ass. More Tomcats! More Tomcats!

Megan--

Uh. . . no more Tomcats. Please?

The thing is a PIG. Always has been. It was designed to fly fast and carry a big missile (Phoenix) to fly out far beyond the fleet and shoot down cruise-missile carrying Soviet bombers.

Aside from how the Phoenix never really worked all that great, all was right with the play, Mrs. Lincoln.

As for its ability to perform air combat manuevers, the F-14 has been saddled with a reputation as a dogfighter because of Top Gun. This is what some call "fiction." It's good enough, but it's never been great enough. Compared to an F/A-18 or an F-16, the F-14 dogfights like a '73 Buick.

Oh, and I won't bring up the engine reliability issues, because they've finally been solved. . . after a few decades. Thank goodness the plane has two engines.

Don't get me wrong: I am not arguing that the F-14 is a lemon. It's not-- it's a very good airplane. It's just not this awesome, invincible plane that shows up in JAG stock footage.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

For my money, planes just dont get any better than the Fokker Tri-plane or the Sopwith Camel.

Dave (or anyone who might know):

A few questions on the Osprey--
1) Why isn't autorotation an option in helo mode? Is it because of the drive configuration, or is that just inherent to the tilt-wing design?

2) Last time I looked, this program was so deep into cost overruns it was costing nearly as much as the whole Apollo program. Are there any credible projections for what it would cost to: a) finally make this little prima donna production-ready; and b) build an adequate number of the things?

Not being snarky here, I just want to know more about the subject.

Dave from gr - On the F-14. As you know, superior dogfighting ability is a component of air superiority, but not an essential to Fleet CAP.

My problem is the F-14 is an awesome, great plane, for it's generation..back in the 70's and 80s. It was good enough to keep after then, but we should be making new planes that don't cost 220 million a solid gold copy (F-22) We just don't have the money and ability to compete economically we used to...

Still, in it's day....In the early 90's there was an interview with a Russian AF Colonel...he said that he gave a 1970s briefing to subordinates on how to attack an American Aircraft Carrier Battle group explaining Soviet forces would prevail but the Americans had pwerful defenses. He listed them. After his brief, he heard what he expected from fighter and bomber pilots:

"So we go in and those Tomcat planes that can track 8 targets at once launch missiles that can hit us from 200 miles out and our ECM is useless. Oh, fuck us!"

CAP = Combat Air Patrol. Its purpose is to protect the fleet from enemy air attack and to a lesser extent the enemy's surface elements. Air-to-Air combat (Dogfighting) capability is critical to successfully carry out this mission.

OK, so the Tomcat's a bit long in the tooth and the Hornet's too spendy.

is there a stopgap fighter (new) for carrier CAP work?

Cool WarPorn here :)

Hey guys, sorry I'm late. Sounds like I'm missing a party.

A few comments:

Utron-- 1. Hard to do when you've got two parallel rotors that have to move at the same time. One cuts out, the other one can't keep the helo in a hover. If the aircraft has enough altitude, it can transition to plane mode and compensate, but if it doesn't, very bad things happen.

Also, one of the concerns bedevilling the program has been a condition called Vortex Ring State. If the Osprey drops fast but slows forward movement at the same time, the aircraft had a tendency to have a rotor (ONE rotor) stall. Again, you need both rotors working for this thing to hover.

The Marines & Boeing say they've solved this problem through better training and better flight software, but OT&E will let us know for sure. Hopefully.

2. I'm not sure about the projected costs for the Osprey (it's never been one of my programs). The last figures I had (in 2003) had the total program cost at $41 billion, which included R&D and a certain number of aircraft (~500, IIRC). That's not the biggest bill in the house, but it's a lot of money in anybody's book, especially when compared to the cost to replace a helicopter fleet in kind.

Cedarford--

I understand that, which is why I always take the time to poke holes in anybody who raves about the F-14 today, like Megan. It was good in its particular niche, but outside of that niche, i.e. in dogfighting, the F-14 was outclassed. Given that the F-14 mission was counter-bomber, good ACM capabilities were deemed unnecessary. Hell, on paper, the Phoenix missile had a *hundred mile* range, making the F-14 merely a missile truck. IF the Phoenix worked as advertised, that is (and, if the rules of engagement permitted a hundred-mile fight. Maybe in WWIII, but not in the Gulf of Sidra, that's for sure).

As for the F/A-22, I can correct a misconception: the plane doesn't cost $220M a copy. In fact, the marginal, "flyaway" cost of a brand new F/A-22 is now less than $100 million a copy.

Yes, if you took all the billions spent on R&D over the many years in the program and divided it up by the number of planes you built, you'd get a much larger number like that $220M number. But what critics don't understand is that money is sunk cost. It's gone, never to come back. Cancelling the F/A-22 tomorrow isn't going to save $220M a copy, but $100M a copy.

Oh, and BTW, the cost of a brand-new F-15E (the nearest equivalent to the F/A-22) is upwards of $75M. So, the argument that you can just go ahead and buy "existing" technology ignores how the existing technology isn't much cheaper, if at all, once you break out the costs like I did.

Plus, the F/A-22 is far superior to the F-15E, F-16C/D, and F/A-18E/F generation of aircraft. So, why not buy more?

Money. It's all about the benjamins. . .

Brewfan: ACM is only important if you're actually going to be dogfighting. Throughout the Cold War, American carriers faced no threat of enemy aircraft attacking it directly (long range cruise missiles don't dogfight). Thus, the F-14 didn't need to be shit-hot. Interestingly enough, one of the reasons the Navy purchased the F/A-18 was to provide it with a dogfighter over enemy territory, i.e., to support John Lehman's forward deployment strategy that envisioned sailing carrier battle groups into the Norwegian Sea to attack Russian airfields and submarine bases on the Kola Peninsula.

Or, as I like to call it, a new and novel way of providing artificial reefs for North Atlantic salmon.

Hobgoblin: I'm assuming your reference to the F/A-18 as "spendy" refers to its fuel consumption. This was certainly the plane's Achilles heel in the A/B/C/D generation of aircraft, but the F/A-18E/F models are radically different in capabilities. Hell, if you've never compared an E/F with an earlier Hornet, you'll be shocked at how different they are (the Super Hornet is *huge* compared to the earlier Hornet-- carrying a lot more fuel).

As the F-14's get phased out (not sure where they are on that-- they were keeping some around in the "Bombcat" configuration as a smart-bomb truck), the F/A-18E/F's will take on the interceptor mission, with the older 18s performing the bomb truck mission.

Eventually, in the post-2010 timeframe, the F/A-35 (i.e. Joint Strike Fighter) is intended to supplant the older models of F/A-18s (as well as F-16s, and A-10s).

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

BTW, if any of you want to do the whole "read more" thing, I can not recommend enough Robert Coram's biography of Col. John Boyd.

Among his many significant accomplishments, Boyd created the energy-maneuverability theory, which for the very first time scientifically quantified how to build a superior dogfighting aircraft. Unfortunately, no one ever followed the theory 100%, but the aircraft that came closest-- the F-15, and even better, the F-16-- are among the finest airplanes ever built.

Oh, and Boyd was a world-class prick to the brass ;-). It's a highly entertaining read, and even though Boyd's Pentagon predated mine by over twenty years, I still recognize the same problems and personalities he encountered there.

The more things change. . .

I'm sorry Dave, but the Tomcat is just plain cool, the Tomcat kicks ass, and no matter how hard you try to deny it, Falcons and Hornets simply can't compare. You know the truth as well as I do. Stop fighting it.

Link, because I can't be bothered to back up my argument myself. Not this early in the morning.

The way I've always seen it, the reason for making the Osprey was not to have something faster than a helicopter, but to have something less vulnerable to enemy fire than a helicopter. The Achilles hell of all military helicopter designs is that they have two weak points that can't be armored, the connection of the rotor to the gear box, and the tail rotor. This means they are vulnerable to things such as RPGs when flying slowly enought to be aimed at. By comparison, the way that Stryker APC deal with the danger of RPGs is to put a mesh a few feet all around the vehicle. The RPG hits he fence, explodes, and it does no significant damge to the vehicle.

Attack helicopters have some of the same problems, so while Apaches may excel at tank killing, any ground troops are a serious threat. For this reason the A-10 was much more effective in tank-hunting than the AH-64.