Reporters take a ride on the Osprey
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Reporters take V-22 test flights
Pentagon lets troubled aircraft testify on its own behalf
07:35 AM CDT on Thursday, July 14, 2005
By RICHARD WHITTLE / The Dallas Morning News
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. – I thought I might be retired before this happened.
Wednesday, after more than two decades of design and testing and fatal crashes and redesign and retesting, the Marine Corps let the news media ride on the exotic tilt-rotor aircraft known as the V-22 Osprey for the first time.
And after nearly two decades of writing about the helicopter-airplane hybrid, I was in the first group of reporters and photographers who climbed aboard.
Friends and relatives raised eyebrows. After all, 23 Marines perished in two fatal V-22 crashes in 2000 – disasters that nearly led the Pentagon to cancel the $50.5 billion project to develop the futuristic troop transport.
And in the years since, enough critics have declared the Osprey simply too daring in concept and complex in design to fly safely. In the public mind, the V-22 has come to be regarded as risky at best and, at worst, a death trap.
I was never nervous. I figured the Marines wouldn't have invited us if they weren't sure the Osprey was ready for prime time.
It was quite a ride.
V-22 program officials scheduled the Media Day at New River as part of a push to publicize what they regard as stunningly good results in operational tests earlier this year.
Air Force Col. Craig Olson, of Dripping Springs, Texas, hopes to win Pentagon approval in September to begin "full-rate production" of the Osprey, which is partly built in Fort Worth and Amarillo by Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. in a 50-50 partnership with the Pennsylvania-based helicopter division of Boeing Co.
The Marines plan to build 360 Ospreys. The Air Force has plans to buy 50 for special operations and other missions, while the Navy has a long-range plan to take 48. Ospreys currently cost about $71 million each, but the goal is to get the price down to $58 million a plane by 2010.
If all goes according to plan, the first squadron could be operational in 2007. But first, Col. Olson admits, the Marines need to dispel some popular distrust.
The goal, said Lt. Gen. Michael Hough, Marine deputy commandant for aviation, is "to prove to American parents that their sons and daughters are safe flying this airplane."
The day's events began with a quick demonstration in which two V-22s dropped two squads of Marines in a grassy area near the tarmac. Then we got a two-hour briefing in the pilots' ready room at VMX-22, the test squadron that has tested eight redesigned V-22s.
Those tests followed more than 2,000 previous hours flown by test pilots from Bell and Boeing, and the Naval Air Systems Command after the Osprey had been grounded, investigated and redesigned.
In the ready room, Marine Col. Glenn "Bluto" Walters, commander of VMX-22, and Col. Olson gave us facts and figures on how well the V-22 has done flying 4,400 hours of mock combat missions in conditions from snow to sand-swirling deserts.
Col. Walters said the Osprey has done it all – including some things some critics still insist this exotic aircraft can't.
The Osprey has two huge rotors on its wingtips mounted on "nacelles" that swivel. By tilting its rotors vertically, the V-22 can take off and land like a helicopter. By tilting them forward, it can fly like a turboprop airplane – at about twice the speed of troop transport helicopters the Marines now use.
Skeptics have argued that the transition from forward flight to helicopter mode and back was too slow to get into and out of landing zones under fire.
They've said the downwash from the aircraft's powerful rotors is so strong that troops would be unable to "fast-rope" down from a hovering Osprey the way they can from helicopters.
The video showed the Ospreys of VMX-22 doing all that and more. In one scene, Marines fast-roped out the back ramp of an Osprey, just as they do out the sides of helicopters. In another, a V-22 set down in a desert, where it disappeared in a cloud of dust but – Col. Walters assured us – landed and took off without mishap.
"What he's really saying is, they passed everything with flying colors," Gen. Hough translated.
A first
Why the V-22 matters
to Bell-Boeing
The partners expect to sell 458 Ospreys to the U.S. military for at least $58 million each.
It will mean jobs for Texas, since assembly will take place in Amarillo and Fort Worth.
Proven reliability of the military version is likely to result in sales of a commercial tilt-rotor aircraft, which is still in development.
After the briefing, those of us in the first "stick" – military lingo for a group flying together – were given a safety briefing: what to do in case of a fire or other emergency. Then we were handed waivers to sign absolving the Marine Corps of any liability.
Then we walked down through a hangar, jammed on tight helmets with ear-protectors and goggles called cranials and filed across the steamy tarmac to two waiting Ospreys whose rotors were whirling loudly in the vertical position.
My stick included a CNN crew of three; three other print reporters who, like me, have been covering the V-22 for years; and representatives from the Naval Air Systems Command and Bell-Boeing.
"You're the first non-government people to fly on this," Col. Walters told us. "I'll be real interested to see what you think."
Jamie McIntyre, CNN's good-natured senior Pentagon correspondent, quipped: "Before or after we stop throwing up?"
Lt. Col. Christopher Seymour, 40, of Houston, was our pilot, backed by a co-pilot and two crewmen.
V-22s, like all military helicopters, are loud. But unlike a helicopter, the V-22's rotors don't make that "whump-whump" sound. We taxied out to the runway without the shudder and rattle of a chopper.
We had been on the runway only seconds when the Osprey started rolling faster, lifted slowly off the ground, then rocketed upward as Lt. Col. Seymour tilted the rotors forward. It felt like flooring it in a Corvette.
Quickly we were up to 500 feet, heading down the New River toward the North Carolina coast 20 miles away. We whisked over boats and a bridge, then banked hard left, leveled off and cruised north above Onslow Beach, where the Marines practice amphibious landings.
Fly guy
Richard Whittle is a Washington-based reporter who has covered the defense industry and military affairs for The Dallas Morning News for 21 years.
He was among the first journalists Wednesday to ride the V-22 Osprey, the controversial tilt-rotor aircraft. After more than two decades in design and development, the V-22 may get funding this fall to begin production.
We flew north a few minutes, then Lt. Col. Seymour put the Osprey into a 2G turn that pressed me back against the bulkhead, circling us around to head back south.
Out the rear ramp, we could see coastal marshlands as we headed back inland. Then the Osprey began to decelerate almost as quickly as it had gained speed and settled toward the ground.
Lt. Col. Seymour set the Osprey down quickly but gently in the grass and let the wheels touch the ground for a few seconds. Then we lifted off again, rotors roaring, and hovered over the landing zone.
Now the Osprey began turning slowly in a circle as it hovered at 50 or 60 feet. Still hovering, Lt. Col. Seymour put the aircraft into a slow drift to the right, then to the left.
Then without warning, the fuselage began to tilt upward, the engines whined and we shot into a steep climb, gaining speed and enough altitude to make my ears pop.
I looked over at Jamie McIntyre, a longtime colleague and friend who suffers from motion sickness. He was looking green around the gills. One of the crew chiefs noticed too and worked his way over to hand him an airsick bag.
None too soon. As we circled the airfield in preparation for landing, Jamie began using the airsick bag for its intended purpose, and in some distress.
With the nacelles pointed up and slightly forward, we came down steadily, landing like a conventional airplane – but with the rotors tilted upward at an angle – and taxiing quickly back to the hangar.
As we sat down inside to a lunch of barbecue sandwiches and hot dogs, I asked Jamie, who wasn't eating, how he'd enjoyed the flight.
"I'm proud to be the first civilian to throw up in the V-22," he joked.
And I was there.
E-mail
rwhittle@dallasnews.com
THE V-22'S LENGTHY TAKEOFF
1983: Navy awards a $550 million design contract to Bell Helicopter and Boeing.
March 19, 1989: The V-22 tilt-rotor (nicknamed the Osprey) makes its maiden flight, hovering 30 feet in the air for 15 minutes.
April 1989: Then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney begins a four-year campaign to kill the program.
June 1991: A V-22 crashes in Delaware, injuring 2 pilots.
July 1992: A V-22 plunges into the Potomac River, killing three Marines and four civilians.
August 1992: Presidential candidate Bill Clinton throws his support behind the V-22. Mr. Cheney and the George H.W. Bush administration drop their opposition.
April 2000: A V-22 crashes in Arizona, killing 19 Marines.
December 2000: A V-22 crashes in North Carolina, killing four Marines. The program is grounded for 17 months.
June 2001: A Pentagon investigation says Marine Corps officers falsified V-22 maintenance records.
June 2005: A V-22 supplier is indicted for falsely certifying tubing for the aircraft.
June 2005: The V-22 passes operational tests and appears to be headed for full production.
SOURCE: Dallas Morning News research
