All things MV-22 Osprey

[Flash]

So the issue here is training time. So fix that. If having other communities operate the weapons and sensors is the right answer, then do that--there are going to be a lot of unemployed WSOs sitting around in the near future.

Really?! If there is one thing that we seem to be short of nowadays it is 'training time'. That is my biggest problem with this proposal, it certainly can be done but is it really workable when all you need is a lot of time, money and training. You could say that about any problem set we face in the military but there is only so much time, training and most importantly, money, to go around. I am going to hazard a guess that this will come out of hide, from the VMM folks and their primary mission to the funding for other communities. Sure, folks can claim that it won't happen but I got a bridge in Brooklyn I would love to sell you if you actually buy that.

From what I saw of the latest Marine Air plan the Harrier and Hornet retirement timelines were swapped with the Hornets sticking around until 2030, and the D's sticking around until 2028 or so.

I think there's some parochialism going on here.

It does sound like a lot of people don't want competition for their rice bowls.

I have no dog in this fight and no 'parochial' concerns at stake, just a professional concern that this proposal hasn't really been well thought out, at all. Looking at it from any aspect, there will either have to significant increases in funding for more training and weapons or it will come out of hide. I am also not so sure some VMM folks who advocate this just realize how hard the attack job is, having seen VP struggle with it with them attempting to take on the SLAM strike role a few years ago.

We do a lot of low threat environments and will continue to do so. If the threat steps up to a true ANTTP medium-threat environment, then rotary CAS in general is questionable without fixed-wing SEAD. Even in that case, the Osprey is still going to be more survivable than helos, though the tactics would have to change considerably from the Hawk/AC-130 model.

No, no and hell no. No planner in their right mind would ever send a V-22 as a strike/attack platform into anything more than very benign air defense threat. Your assertion is part of the reason this proposal bothers me, give someone an extra capability and all the sudden they are the 'expert' on it. I have seen it several times myself from when I was flying to my job today. And the attack/strike/CAS mission is not easy, that is not to say that V-22 folks can't do it but I think there is very little realization on how much time it'll take to get decent enough at it to be a viable platform. It ain't black magic but it isn't as simple as throwing a few weapons on an aircraft, flying 4 flights to get a qual and then you are good.

It isn't about 'rice bowls', it is about trying to ensure that the job/mission gets done and done right and not killing folks needlessly in the process.

I think it could do more if we chose to and invested in more aircraft, but if all we get is the ability to have mini Harvest Hawks for every MAGTF, that's a robust capability for little money, relatively speaking. I don't know why everyone's panties are in a bunch....I think this, just like the tanker thing, is partially an effort to show the versatility of the platform and thus get more aircraft.

I wouldn't want all Ospreys to do strike, but if we got the parts and readiness under control, designating a certain subset of them for this capability adds a lot to the table that isn't currently there. Make one squadron on each coast a gun squadron and a community within a community to provide dets as needed. If we redid USMC commitments so we weren't supporting both MEUs and SPMAGTFs, that'd be doable.

Talk about parochialism, some folks apparently are so invested in the Osprey that they seem to be willing to tack on whatever mission they can to justify more aircraft and more funding. At least that is one impression I am getting from this. That is another thing that bothers me about this, the not so subtle message that 'if we only had more aircraft and more funding we could do so much more!' That is the same story with every aviation community out there but unless there is a an actual plus up in money that would be required to fully fund the training, platforms and weapons needed it'll come out of hide and I can hazard a few educated guesses where that will come from (VMA, VMFA, HMLA).

With the end of the V-22 production line in sight now with few orders on the horizon to extend it this kind of strikes me as a very blatant ploy to buy more birds.

I'm really interested in what problem this solution is trying to solve.

That remains my big question as well, after all roughly a third of the aircraft attached to a MEU now are attack/strike capable already.

 

[Randy Daytona]

Really?! If there is one thing that we seem to be short of nowadays it is 'training time'. That is my biggest problem with this proposal, it certainly can be done but is it really workable when all you need is a lot of time, money and training. You could say that about any problem set we face in the military but there is only so much time, training and most importantly, money, to go around. I am going to hazard a guess that this will come out of hide, from the VMM folks and their primary mission to the funding for other communities. Sure, folks can claim that it won't happen but I got a bridge in Brooklyn I would love to sell you if you actually buy that.

From what I saw of the latest Marine Air plan the Harrier and Hornet retirement timelines were swapped with the Hornets sticking around until 2030, and the D's sticking around until 2028 or so.





I have no dog in this fight and no 'parochial' concerns at stake, just a professional concern that this proposal hasn't really been well thought out, at all. Looking at it from any aspect, there will either have to significant increases in funding for more training and weapons or it will come out of hide. I am also not so sure some VMM folks who advocate this just realize how hard the attack job is, having seen VP struggle with it with them attempting to take on the SLAM strike role a few years ago.



No, no and hell no. No planner in their right mind would ever send a V-22 as a strike/attack platform into anything more than very benign air defense threat. Your assertion is part of the reason this proposal bothers me, give someone an extra capability and all the sudden they are the 'expert' on it. I have seen it several times myself from when I was flying to my job today. And the attack/strike/CAS mission is not easy, that is not to say that V-22 folks can't do it but I think there is very little realization on how much time it'll take to get decent enough at it to be a viable platform. It ain't black magic but it isn't as simple as throwing a few weapons on an aircraft, flying 4 flights to get a qual and then you are good.

It isn't about 'rice bowls', it is about trying to ensure that the job/mission gets done and done right and not killing folks needlessly in the process.





Talk about parochialism, some folks apparently are so invested in the Osprey that they seem to be willing to tack on whatever mission they can to justify more aircraft and more funding. At least that is one impression I am getting from this. That is another thing that bothers me about this, the not so subtle message that 'if we only had more aircraft and more funding we could do so much more!' That is the same story with every aviation community out there but unless there is a an actual plus up in money that would be required to fully fund the training, platforms and weapons needed it'll come out of hide and I can hazard a few educated guesses where that will come from (VMA, VMFA, HMLA).

With the end of the V-22 production line in sight now with few orders on the horizon to extend it this kind of strikes me as a very blatant ploy to buy more birds.



That remains my big question as well, after all roughly a third of the aircraft attached to a MEU now are attack/strike capable already.

I am in no way advocating V-22's replace Cobras or even Hueys. However there is a significant range gap beyond the skids that conceivably could use fire support. At these distances, that only leaves Harriers and C-130's. C-130's seldom travel anywhere near the MEU. For a long range raid or over the horizon TRAP where some type of fire support is needed, an Osprey might be the only aircraft that can physically do the job if it requires more on-station presence than a Harrier can provide. I can see a squadron having a kit that is attachable to the V-22 and a couple of highly trained crews (probably WTI's) that could handle the mission. I am not suggesting making every V-22 squadron pilot an attack pilot nor standing up V-22 gun squadron. You could always use the flying gas station version of the V-22 to tank the Harriers but I believe in spreadloading risk and having as many options as possible. As for training, can a large portion of it be done in the simulator?

 

[zippy]

1 OCT 2014, LHD-8 - VMM-163, YP-13 about to go into the drink, "Aweigh the corrosion control team"
View attachment 15834

That was a real shit deal...

Everyone wants Tier 1 capability without investing the $ into training and maintence etc, and as long as all their admin, KO and dental readiness is completed.

The Marine Corps likes to have organic capability to make them less reliant on other services for support when the shit hits the fan.

For staff lackeys that get off on theoretical situations an Armed MV-22 is the perfect solution. And so is armed C-130s with ISR capabilities. They see the effectiveness of the DAPs etc from the 160th and AC-130s supporting the JSOC mission set and want to scale that to something the can use supporting the MEU etc. It makes for a good theoretical case.

Is it a waste of money? Maybe but look how far the Marine Corps was willing to go to cripple it's fixed wing aviaton for the F-35B, and now hard they pushed for a Tilt rotor asset that that quite doesn't fit to the grand scheme of things and had a crash record so bad in development that it became a political lightening rod.

If you noticed the Navy V-22 model had a camera and MWS gear so can bet someone somewhere is jacking off to idea of doing SEAL inserts and selling as such and an ISR platform...

This really seems to be another solution in search of a problem. If it were the SOCOM, the Royal Marines or the French I can see them utilizing this because of a lack of other attack/strike assets but when we already have those on hand almost everywhere we go (when is the last time we when somewhere we didn't have them?) it seems like a waste of money.

And again, the blatantly obvious issues of funding, training and currency.

I say this all as an 'outsider' to this, I wonder what the Marine VMA, VMFA and HMLA think of this?

The JSOC guys do NOT seem to like the Osprey, and they seem to be a big fan of throwing as much money as they want at something to customize it to fit their needs. I highly doubt that you'll ever see that change when their helos have in flight refueling and get the job done just fine.

 

[Uncle Fester]

I get the impression from the articles I've read that this is a capability demonstrator more than anything. As mentioned, the Osprey is a political lightning rod, and lack of forward firing armament is one (albeit bullshit) argument that keeps getting raised. So you use some T&D money to work up the capability. "Okay, we can arm the Plopter. If you want us to use it, Senator, we need this much more money for training and flight hours to actually field it. No? Then shut up about how it's a useless death trap because it's not covered in rockets and armor like a Hind."

I work in an analytics shop, and there are literally dozens of people in the Pentagon alone (never mind NAVAIR and Test Wing) whose jobs are nothing but figuring out down to the dollar the cost vs benefit of all these points being raised here. This comes out of the pot of money that's for "ask expensive questions and test for the answers."

 

[Hotdogs]

the pot of money

.....aaaaaahhhhhh

There it is....that phrase...

 

[Flash]

On a lighter note, if you want some laughs about 'monster' V-22 harassing northern Virginia residents you can read this column. Typical for this columnist unfortunately.

 

[zippy]

On a lighter note, if you want some laughs about 'monster' V-22 harassing northern Virginia residents you can read this column. Typical for this columnist unfortunately.

"Northern Virginia; it's not the Green Zone"... Someone obviously has never been to Potomac Mills.

 

[nukon]

Just selected tilt today. There continue to be steady rumblings of modifying the Osprey syllabus to include more time in the T6 and presumably less-to-none in the C-12.

 

[SynixMan]

"Northern Virginia; it's not the Green Zone"... Someone obviously has never been to Potomac Mills.

Have you tried to get into that IKEA on a weekend? Maybe you do need a Harvest Hawk Osprey!

 

[JonTay]

Just selected tilt today. There continue to be steady rumblings of modifying the Osprey syllabus to include more time in the T6 and presumably less-to-none in the C-12.

Yeah I selected a few weeks ago and I've heard the same thing. I think FY16 guys will stay with the current pipeline and after October they'll make the switch. Or at least that's what the 2ndLt underground is alluding to.

Sounds like a really short pipeline for them, but at least we'll get some multiengine time?

 

[Treetop Flyer]

Yeah I selected a few weeks ago and I've heard the same thing. I think FY16 guys will stay with the current pipeline and after October they'll make the switch. Or at least that's what the 2ndLt underground is alluding to.

Sounds like a really short pipeline for them, but at least we'll get some multiengine time?

Osprey dudes will be missing that multi engine time eight years down the road

 

[ChuckMK23]

Osprey dudes will be missing that multi engine time eight years down the road

I am sure it didnt take long for the bean counters to realize that MEL training in a C-12/T-44 was a non valu adder (other than the exposure to more systems, etc) - More T-6 seems right. After all, no "dead foot, dead engine" in a V-22

 

[Treetop Flyer]

I am sure it didnt take long for the bean counters to realize that MEL training in a C-12/T-44 was a non valu adder (other than the exposure to more systems, etc) - More T-6 seems right. After all, no "dead foot, dead engine" in a V-22

I agree completely with it making sense. When primary was still T-34's, flying C-12's at least gave them exposure to a glass cockpit (I think)

It will suck for osprey dudes to be stuck with nothing but powered lift and SEL.

 

[JonTay]

The 44's are glass. Osprey selects will be flying the TC-12s which are still steam gauges.

The only reason we'll do multi engine is for CRM anyways. As nice as it is to get a free multi engine rating, I agree it doesn't seem like the most efficient way to get that training.

 

[djj34]

The 44's are glass. Osprey selects will be flying the TC-12s which are still steam gauges.

The only reason we'll do multi engine is for CRM anyways. As nice as it is to get a free multi engine rating, I agree it doesn't seem like the most efficient way to get that training.

Something else that was helpful in the C-12 was the amount of planning and longer X's compared to flying in the T-6. It's still negligible compared to what you'll do in the fleet, but I felt like VT-35/VT-31 were flight planning powerhouses from a student perspective. My cross country in the T-6 was only something like 5 hours over 3 legs and I was ready to be done. My C-12 cross country maxed out crew day over 2 legs, and I could've gone more if it was required. Though, I suspect having a semi functional autopilot helped a lot