Osprey Flies Into Spotlight

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Dallas Morning News | July 18, 2006

FARNBOROUGH AIRSHOW 2006 FARNBOROUGH, England - The V-22 Osprey is playing a starring role at the aerospace industry's biggest trade fair of the year, flying out from a black cloud that has haunted the tilt-rotor aircraft for six years.

At the Farnborough International Airshow 2006, Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. of Fort Worth and Boeing Co. wooed foreign buyers and coped with a flood of pleas to fly on the helicopter-airplane hybrid.

"I think the U.S. can be proud of this work of art," said Dutch aerospace journalist Klaas-Jan van Woerkom, watching one of two Ospreys at Farnborough hover over the airfield.

As the V-22s flew foreign officials and journalists over the countryside, two fatal crashes that nearly ended the program in 2000 were only alluded to in passing.

"I'm an infantryman, and I can tell you I am really quite excited about this aircraft coming into our inventory," Gen. Michael Hagee, Marine Corps commandant, said at a news conference.

Gen. Hagee said the Marines plan to deploy the first squadron of V-22s in the fall of 2007, sending them to Iraq as troop transports.

"The capability that it's going to bring is not evolutionary, in my opinion, it's revolutionary," he said. "I wish we had it now."

Tilting focus

Rather than explaining past problems, executives busied themselves with showing off the Osprey's unique ability to fly like either a helicopter or an airplane by tilting its two wingtip rotors upward or forward.

"We always wanted to get the airplane to Farnborough to demonstrate it to the world," said Boeing executive Mike Tkach. "We've finally done it today."

Though none of the reporters at the news conference asked, Mr. Tkach volunteered: "We've come a long way in improving the technological issues that we had with the V-22."

He added: "We're turning our focus to getting the cost of the airplane in the more affordable range for other potential customers throughout the world."

The V-22's current price is $69.9 million, but Mr. Tkach said that the Bell-Boeing joint venture and the Pentagon office that runs the program have pledged to get the cost down to $58 million over the next three years.

The Marine Corps plans to buy 360 Ospreys for troop transports.

The U.S. Air Force is buying 50 for special operations. And the Navy could buy 48 for search-and-rescue or other missions.

No foreign sales are on the immediate horizon.

But Bell Helicopter's chief executive, Michael Redenbaugh, said government and military leaders from several countries have expressed interest and engaged in serious discussions of potential purchases.

"This is a chance to get folks up close and personal with the aircraft," he said.

"There've been inquiries and information exchanged which clearly led the Marine Corps and the Bell-Boeing team to the conclusion that if there was a way to bring the aircraft here and share it here at this international venue, that would be wonderful."

Drive for volume

Mr. Redenbaugh declined to name the countries interested in the V-22, but those known to have inquired include Britain, whose navy uses short-deck aircraft carriers, as well as Australia and Japan.

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan straining their budgets, U.S. military services -- especially the Marines -- would welcome foreign sales that would drive down the cost of the Osprey.

"Volume is always going to help cost," Mr. Redenbaugh said. "That's one of the reasons why our U.S. customer is interested in that, too."

'More bang'

Marine Lt. Gen. John Castellaw, deputy commandant for aviation, said the Osprey already would give the Marines "more bang for our buck" than aging CH-46 helicopters.

Gen. Castellaw said 12 CH-46s are needed to transport a company of 180 Marines 70 miles, and they take two hours and 15 minutes to do it.

Eight Ospreys could do the job in 17 minutes, he said.

Dr. Dolores Etter, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said international interest was strong enough that she brought a team of officials to England who specialize in foreign military sales.

"There will be discussions that go on throughout the week," she said.

The only sour note so far during the V-22's appearance in England, which began last week with flight demonstrations at the far smaller Royal International Air Tattoo air show 75 miles away in Fairford, was a precautionary landing one Osprey made in Iceland on the way over.

That aircraft suffered compressor stalls in its right engines, leading its pilots to divert to Keflavik, where the suspect engine was replaced with a spare that had been stationed in England in advance.

The engine replacement took 36 hours, Gen. Castellaw said.

The compressor stalls appeared to be related to "weather conditions that we didn't anticipate," Gen. Castellaw said.

On its way

The Block A model V-22s flown to England lack anti-icing gear installed on the Block B Ospreys the Marines will deploy next year, he said.

But he offered that the diversion did nothing to dampen the Marines' pride in getting two V-22s to England by flying them from Goose Bay, Canada, with two aerial refueling tankers that refilled their tanks three times on the way -- the Osprey's first trans-Atlantic trip.

"We got two aircraft over here," he said. "When we fly them back, we're going to be a little bit more careful where we fly into weather.

"But there was nothing -- nothing -- that occurred during this event that would have prevented us from deploying this aircraft anywhere in the world."