the v-22 osprey revisited.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

Despite a virtual faux-based lack of coverage on Iraqnam, we still manage to find out certain things.

a) US troops are being sent out in small groups, but without the best personal armor, and without the best vehicles. Targets, really.

b) we now suffer from a huge shortage of choppers. there are several reasons:
i. a desert is a harsh place, and it wears down choppers very quickly
ii. we've more than a few because of enemy fire
iii. our national guards are way under-equiped, especially with medium tech stuff like choppers.
iv. with the surge, there are many more uses, needs and requests, even though there are not enough in the theatre.
c) this expensive POS known as the Osprey was to solve these problems. BUT. It is an awkward bird, way too expensive and way too limited in its abilities. THey promised one level of performance, and after 500,000,000 in development costs, because they could not reach it, they downgraded the performance requirements.

Hell, if we did this in WWII, my german would be a hell of a lot more fluent.

Has anyone else noticed that they don't bother to use these POS in any dangerous area? In fact, after sending a squad of these lame ducks to Iraqnam, you NEVER see them in flight, and NEVER hear of their abilities or uses. That is because taxpayers paid for a flying pail of shit with two props.

Oh, yeah support the military. WIth a budget twice as large (and growing) as the next 6 countries. with a budget increase that would fund medicare, SSN AND education, instead, we build bombs, guns, and attack aircraft that cannot attack.

aren't we proud.

[karlrschneider]

1. I have flown over 250 types of aircraft. I would not RIDE in one of these abortions.

Not kidding. At all.
:puke:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. check out their "GREAT" explanations at Wikipedia

they spent a LOT of time and effort to control the data there. makes for fun reading.

[MADem]

7. Yep, they're deathtraps. Ask that bunch of kids who died in that beaut of a crash. NT

[Solo_in_MD]

10. I've flown the simulator

it was *different*

[Redstone]

2. A deadly weapon pointed right at our own soldiers.

Redstone

[Mandate My Ass]

3. ah yes, the flying anvil

a parting gift from my ex-Congress thief, Curt Weldon

[Warpy]

5. If the Osprey doesn't scare them to death

it won't need to drop bombs. It will rattle everything below it to pieces.

They've been doing test flights over my neighborhood and those things are LOUD, loud enough that all the pictures on my walls are cockeyed. I won't straighten them until the Ospreys depart for elsewhere.

[Captain Hilts]

6. Be careful how you use the acronym 'SSN' in an article about defense spending....nt

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. ooops. yup. nt

[Major Hogwash]

8. Best example of something on their wish list that still doesn't work, but they keep wishing it did.

20 plus years in the making, and they still insist it will do what they want it to do - despite the facts. A good example of how they won't let the facts get in the way of them making their argument.

The Osprey has turned out to be one of the best examples of how the Marine Corps simply won't recognize the reality of how big of a failure this bird is, so they simply asked Congress to just throw more money at the project.
This bird should have been shitcanned a long time ago, especially after they tried to cover up the facts about how many Marines were killed trying to fly it - over peaceful skies in California!

Like one of my friends from North Carolina always says whenever someone says "I wish this worked." - "Shit in one hand and wish in the other, and see which one weighs more."

This is so true nowadays because shit carries a lot of weight in the Corps today.

[ChrisF66]

12. Osprey is such a ...

Didn't the Navy reject it for fleet service because it blows hot exhaust straight down on the flight deck on takeoff - not good.

And since it's too narrow to load a standard HMMWV, the Corps decided to buy the somewhat skinnier Mercedes Benz version of an unarmored wheeled light transport to stuff inside it.

Can't effectively sling load with it (it's a poor helo) and can't fast rope out of it (the down wash reportedly is brutal.

It may be of use for a civil transport, where descent rates can be lass aggressive, but trying to assault a hot LZ would leave a lot of very expensive pyres.


sad

CF

[gravity]

11. Give the craft a chance before criticizing it

It has only been deployed in Iraq for two months for crying out loud, and you are claiming it's a failure already.

The Marine Corp, the folks actually using the craft, are confident in it's abilities, so I'll trust them over the armchair generals for right now.

[ChrisF66]

13. It's had many chances

At least three have crashed in testing. Invariably, the aircraft has a problem, the computers either under or overcorrect, it flips on its back, crashes and burns. One of them took 23 Marines with it. All operated by experienced test pilots.

Compare to the C17, which started development around the same time.

C17 has hundreds of thousands of hours in squadron service with no losses.