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Slow down on Osprey purchase

North County Times
Editorial
Our View: If the Pentagon's own testing program reveals serious shortcomings in a military vehicle, but the vehicle is ordered as is anyway, why have a testing program at all?
The United States is at peace today, and there is no need to rush new military weapons systems into production. This is especially true in the case of weapons systems that have serious, documented problems that may put the lives of servicemen and servicewomen at risk.

Such is the case with the MV-22 Osprey, the tilt-rotor aircraft the Navy and Marines are intent upon buying at a cost of more than $38 billion. Top Pentagon officials met Tuesday to decide whether to buy 458 Ospreys, at $83 million apiece. Top-ranking Navy and Marine officials are gung-ho about the impending purchase, which must be approved by Congress. (Some Pentagon officials say the aircraft will cost $40 million to $70 million apiece, discounting the cost of research and development.)

It's a good sign that Pentagon officials on Tuesday requested more information about the Osprey, and have scheduled another meeting on the issue for later this month. For the Defense Department's top testing official issued a report last week that concluded the Osprey will be less reliable, will abort more often during missions and will require more maintenance than the CH-46 helicopters it is intended to replace.

The report by Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation, also states that the manufacturers, the Boeing Co. and Bell Helicopter Textron, have not solved the problem that caused an Osprey to crash in Marana, Ariz., on April 8, killing all 19 Marines aboard, including 14 based at Camp Pendleton.

The Osprey was designed as a troop transport plane to replace the Vietnam-era CH-46 choppers. The Osprey lifts off and lands like a helicopter but flies like an airplane. The Marines plan to use it as their primary aircraft to insert troops into battle, rescue hostages, evacuate embassies and perform peacekeeping missions. The Marine Corps, in strongly backing the Osprey last week, issued a statement that said the MV-22 has twice the air speed, triple the payload capacity and five times the range of the CH-46.

But the Pentagon itself has a mountain of evidence that the $38 billion procurement program is premature. "The demonstrated results for V-22 mission reliability, maintainability and availability were less favorable than the same measures from the CH-46 fleet," Coyle wrote in the Pentagon report. Test data during 800 hours of simulated combat situations "suggests the V-22 would be available to conduct fewer missions, would abort during a mission more often and would pose a significantly increased maintenance burden ---- perhaps exceeding the existing maintenance manning of CH-46 squadrons," Coyle wrote. "Unless corrected, the issues will impose an unacceptable burden ---- cost, manpower, mission reliability and operational ability ---- on the fleet."

Coyle's report added that so-called improvements to the MV-22 "failed to confirm" that the accident that took 19 Marines' lives in Marana would not be repeated.

Despite this damning report from the Pentagon's top testing officer, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Jones said last week, "I'm confident it should be approved, and I've seen nothing to lead me to believe that it won't." Jones told the Associated Press he would like to order more Ospreys than the 458 whose purchase the Pentagon will consider today.

What's the hurry?

The Osprey may be a fine troop transport plane, after its kinks are ironed out. But one of those kinks already has cost the lives of 19 Marines.

If the Pentagon's own testing program reveals serious shortcomings in a military vehicle, but the vehicle is ordered as is anyway, why have a testing program at all?

There is no need for the Pentagon or the Congress to rush into this. The Pentagon should slow down its Osprey procurement program until the plane's manufacturers correct the serious deficiencies spelled out in the Pentagon report, and Congress or a congressional committee can verify that these improvements have been made.

12/7/00

Slow down on Osprey purchase - NCTimes.net

http://www.nctimes.com/news/120700/j.html

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Top Marines In Osprey Cover-Up?

Email Shows Commanders Misrepresented Aircraft Safety Data

General Blames Discrepancy In Numbers On Software System

Twenty-Three Marines Have Died In Osprey Crashes

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2001

CBS

CBS News has obtained an email from Amos to McCorkle.

(CBS) CBS News 60 Minutes Correspondent Mike Wallace reports there has apparently been a systematic effort by the Marine Corps to mislead the American public about the integrity of maintenance and safety data on the MV-22 Osprey — the aircraft in which 23 marines have died in crashes in the past ten months.

The commanding officer of the Osprey Unit, Lt. Col. Fred Leberman, was relieved of his command earlier this month for his acknowledged role in the falsification of records.

At the time of last week's report, it was unclear if Marine Corps officers above Col. Leberman knew what was going on. CBS News has now learned that two of the Marine's highest ranking officers apparently knew full well that data they were reporting about the Osprey were not accurate.

60 Minutes has obtained an email sent from Brigadier General James Amos to Lt. General Fred McCorkle, Deputy Commandant of Marine aviation.

Read the Email

Click here to read a copy of the email sent from Brigadier General James Amos to Lt. General Fred McCorkle, Deputy Commandant of Marine aviation, last Nov. 21.

In that email, dated last November 21st, Gen. Amos alerted Gen. McCorkle to the Osprey's failing "mission capable" rate — that's the number of aircraft able to fly on any given day. Those numbers Gen. Amos describes as a "bad story" and he says the information should be "close-held."

In the email, Gen. Amos reports the Osprey's mission capable rate during the first part of November was 26.7 percent. That means only one in four aircraft were then able to fly. But just nine days later, Gen. Amos used different and much more favorable numbers at a Pentagon press conference.

"I pulled the first 13 days of November, mission-capable rate on those airplanes, and the average is 73.2 percent," Gen. Amos said then.

That would be an astonishing improvement and, according to our sources inside the Osprey squadron, impossible to believe.

Speaking with CBS News, Gen. Amos acknowledged writing the email. He said he stands by all the numbers he reported and attributed any discrepancy in the numbers to a new software system the Marines are using.

Why would the Marine Corps leadership distort the Osprey's performance numbers? Perhaps because the Marines need to show that at least 75 percent of the entire Osprey squadron is "mission capable" before the Pentagon will approve full production of 360 of the aircraft at a cost of nearly $30 billion.

Gen. Amos said that any attack on the integrity of the Marine Corps "stings me like a hot poker to my heart."

©MMI, Viacom Internet Services Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The Marines need to show that at least 75 percent of the entire Osprey squadron is "mission capable" before the Pentagon will approve full production of 360 of the aircraft at a cost of nearly $30 billion.

CBS News 60 Minutes Correspondent Mike Wallace on questions about the Osprey program.

Osprey Officer Backs Out

Pentagon: Osprey Aircraft Safe To Fly

Military Aviation In A 'Death Spiral'?

Asymmetric VR

Special Report 08 Feb 2001