Osprey's Weapons Not Ready to Shoot?

The Osprey tilt-rotor is in the news again, and not in a good way. This time it's the Government Accountability Office's report on the Expeditionary Fire Support System (EFSS) mortar that the Osprey is supposed to carry. Bottom line:

Since the original acquisition program cost and schedule estimate was approved in 2004, costs have increased by $15.5 million and the schedule has been extended by nearly 2 years.

Being able to transport a 120mm mortar swiftly into action is part of the Osprey's justification -- but it can't do that until the EFSS is ready. Unfortunately delays and cost overruns seems to strike everything around the Osprey, and the scale of the problem is quite breathtaking.

The latest budget documents show that for Financial Year 2006, 12 MV-22 Ospreys were purchased for $1.245 billion – that's $103 million apiece. In, in FY 07 it was 14 for $1.427 billion (or $102 million each), but the situation improves markedly with in FY08 with 21 being bought for just $1.847 billion, so the latest batch are down to $88 million each. Bell Boeing hope that the price will drop further in future.

But those substantial prices don't include the cost of researching and developing the Osprey. I could not locate an 'official' figure for this, but Lee Galliard's very thorough study V-22: Wonder Weapon Or Widow Maker comes up with a cool $18 billion in development costs. That was in 2005: I asked Lee for an update and he says: "By now those 'costs to date' are well over $20 billion and climbing." This includes the production to date.

For comparison, perhaps the nearest equivalent in term of capacity if the CH-47F Chinook. The Chinook can carry thirty-three troops or 25,000 pounds of cargo, compared to the Osprey's 24 passengers or 15,000 lbs. The army paid $157 million for six CH-47Fs in 2007 ($26 million a piece) and $462 million for 16 in 2008 ($32 million each).

So, if we ignore inflation, money-of-year and other factors, the V-22 program would arguably have paid for something over 500 Chinooks. This would have doubled the fleet - as of May '06 there were estimated to be 445 Chinooks still in service.

Each MV-22 costs the equivalent of two or three Chinooks. Supporters argue that with twice the speed of the Chinook (cruising at 270 mph cruise against 135 mph for the helicopter) it's worth the money;
critics dispute this.

The other factor which people tend to underestimate is just how long it has taken for the tilt-rotor to reach its present state. The V-22
program goes back 27 years, but was itself a direct offspring of the earlierXV-15 program. This is turn can be traced back to the first US attempts to build a tilt-rotor, the Bell XV-3, pictured. This actually flew over 50 years ago, but was not a success.

The first hover flight was made on August 11, 1955, by a Bell test pilot, but limited progress was made in flight testing during the next three years due to continuing problems with wing/pylon/rotor instabilities during flight. The first of these occurred after only one week and 1.2
hours of flight time, during an air taxi test. It resulted in a hard landing, and the XV-3 sustained rotor and airframe damage. While the damage was not extensive, the discovery of the instability raised major concerns.

In short, as soon as one problem was solved, more arose -- until eventually the program was abandoned because those funding it could not be persuaded that it would ever work as advertised. But the actual history goes back even further, as I recounted in my book Weapons Grade:

*The
Luftwaffe wanted an aircraft which could keep up with the speed of the
Blitzkrieg, and which would not have to rely on airfields, and they came up with the Focke-Achgelis FA-269. This had a large engine in its fuselage and a complicated transmission system to drive two huge propellers on the wings. In normal flight the propellers would face backwards, but they could be rotated through 85 degrees for takeoff and landing. *

Models were built and tested in wind-tunnels which seemed to validate the theory, but in June 1942 the Focke Achgelis factory was destroyed by bombing. Faced with starting from scratch, and with a number of engineering problems still to solve (the control system was particularly troublesome), the 269 was cancelled.

So what we are actually seeing is an aircraft with a very long pedigree, indeed. It has taken about 65 years for the concept to be turned into a workable aircraft -- and the Osprey has only made it this far (it has survived multiple attempts to cancel it) because of some stoutly partisan support and deft political footwork.

What's at stake with the Osprey's first deployment to Iraq is around six decades of research, twenty billion dollars of investment, and at least the same amount in future orders. (Which puts the EFSS's problems, at a fews tens of millions and a couple of years, into context). So we can expect that they are going to be very, very careful with those aircraft -- and the news releases are likely to be managed pretty carefully as well.