Re: V-22 Osprey: $20 billion; 25 year; 30 lives....
- From: David Starr <dstarrboston@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 14:00:38 -0400
Weatherlawyer wrote:
On Sep 30, 4:18 am, "Dave" <davewe...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A lifetime ago, when the ability of propeller aircraft to fly out of
danger zones began to come to an end, the top brass got it into their
heads that faster aircraft could be used in their stead. And so it was
that the jet fighter bomber became the military's best weapon.
But in the first Iraq war it was realised that speed alone was not
enough, fast jets need altitude and speed and also they need
sacrificial decoys. The whole shebang is a real expense.
And the Marines thought they could do front line work with a
slowplane? How?
What sort of thinking allows war planners to imagine they can get slow
and ungainly aircraft with speeds and abilities akin to WW 2 aircraft
into airspace that rice farmers and camel mongers control?
Mark Thompson's Time article shows how little he understands of aircraft. Mark gives us no numbers, just a series of anecdotes. The quality of an aircraft is a matter of performance; speed, payload, range, and cost. A competant reporter would have given us those numbers for the V22 and for competing aircraft. Thompson, like most American newsies, isn't really competant.
The V22 Osprey is a VTOL aircraft for aerial assault, battlefield resupply, search/rescue and medevac. Helicopters currently perform all these missions. The Marine Corps thinks the V22 will do them better than the current helicopters can. Maybe they have that right, maybe they don't.
Here is a list of the important numbers Thompson fails to give us.
1. Payload. How much cargo/how many troops can the machine get off the ground with? More is better.
2. Speed. Better speed shortens the trip, meaning the aircraft can make more trips in a day. No VTOL aircraft is going to have enough speed to outrun fighters or ground fire. but getting three round trips from ship to shore in a day instead of two increases your airlift by 50%. The longer the trip, the more speed helps. On real short trips, the turn around time, time to refuel and reload, may exceed the flight time. We used to be able to turn a jet fighter around in 15 minutes (refuel, service LOX and LN2, and load 5 missiles). Never done a chopper, but let us assume it isn't gonna turn any faster than a fighter.
3. Range. How far can the maximum payload be flown before we are out of fuel? Long range and high speed allow aerial assault launched from ships far out to sea, beyond Silkworm missile range, which is obviously desirable. We want to know the range when loaded, any aircraft will fly much farther empty, or with the cargo bay filled with auxilary fuel tanks.
4. Cost. If the aircraft is cheaper, we can afford more of them. Combat aircraft are gonna take losses. We don't want to run out of aircraft halfway thru the war.
David Starr
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