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MV-22 Osprey

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
Marine MV-22 engaged in ASW exercise...dropping sonobuoys.

Is this a future thing?

EDIT: Tried posting this yesterday, but apparently it didn't land...

That seems to be a test/eval flight, given the several contractors onboard. They also seem to be dropping all manner of buoys, including a BT buoy, which no one would really have a way of recording the data other than on those laptops, and they would have to make sure they were ready to start.

It kind of seems like this was more about dropping/checking function versus any kind of localization/tracking.

In 2021, some Hueys out of Camp Pen had a bunch of DVIDs coverage of them dropping buoys as part of a Marine exercise, with no mention of anyone else playing. It seemed like a proof of concept without proving it would actually be useful to the people deploying the buoys.

What was more interesting was what was not said...why were they doing this? To assist with the Navy doing ASW while island hopping was the basic non-answer, but would it actually be effective? I don't know. To me it seems like a way to deploy a localized SOSUS for some entity nearby. The question I haven't seen answered is who is asking for this? The the Marines in the same vein as the H-60S torp truck that no one asked for, or Navy for future capability. I'm guessing the latter.

“Wait… was that channel 17 or 18? (shrugs in AO3)

It looks like they were pre-programmed, given the Sharpie channels on each buoy. Trying to get a junior AW to program what you planned was often an exercise in frustration...imagine having a Marine logistics crewman doing it!
 
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