New price range paperwork for the three army branches that fly the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor plane present that none has plans to purchase any extra airframes, an indication that the Pentagon is not prioritizing rising the fleet.
Whereas the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Drive all say that they do not want any new plane and that the top of the purchase is solely the top of the contract for the providers, the information comes at a time when the Osprey is beneath intense scrutiny over main points with its gearbox which have brought about at the very least 15 incidents over the lifetime of the plane. Considerations over the Osprey led to groundings and now threaten to price thousands and thousands in repairs and upkeep.
The workplace that oversees the Osprey program confirmed to Army.com that there are not any plans for brand new purchases, saying that the workplace “will full the MV-22 and CMV-22 packages of report, with deliveries by 2025.”
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Liz Mildenstein, a spokeswoman for the workplace, went on so as to add in an electronic mail Friday that the army expects the Ospreys to proceed to serve “by the 2050s” and this system workplace will proceed to assist the plane “for many years to return.”
Moreover, Ann Stefanek, a spokeswoman for the Division of the Air Drive, informed Army.com the final buy was congressionally mandated in fiscal 2021 and that there are not any plans to buy extra.
“We aren’t shopping for extra CV-22s as a result of we’re at our program of report (54 plane) and are assembly necessities,” Stefanek informed Army.com.
The newest price range paperwork, launched in March by the Navy, say that the army providers in the end need 464 plane — 360 for the Marines, 48 for the Navy, and 56 for Particular Operations Command and the Air Drive.
Plans to fly the plane for one more few many years imply that the providers should resolve the “onerous clutch engagement” drawback — a scenario the place a failure by the plane’s sophisticated system of gearboxes and clutches to steadiness the facility produced by its twin engines causes dramatic and harmful points. To date, army officers have indicated the issue appears to be tied to flight hours and put on and tear.
The problem has impacted Marine Corps and Air Drive plane. The 2 providers formally began flying the Osprey in 2007 and 2009, respectively. The Navy received its first operational plane extra not too long ago, in 2021, in keeping with truth sheets from all of the providers.
In February, a protection official, who spoke with reporters on the situation of anonymity, revealed that the army now suspects the “enter quill meeting” — an element that connects the plane engines to its gearbox — wears out extra rapidly than beforehand thought, and the present answer is changing the half whereas a whole redesign is underway.
Extra worryingly, the identical official famous that this repair got here after “a progressive improve in onerous clutch engagement occasions.”
The army has not gone into how a lot cash the repairs or new fixes to the gearbox would price, however Army.com reported on a 2017 incident involving an Air Drive Osprey when the failure occurred mid-flight over Arizona and the plane needed to make an emergency touchdown in Flagstaff on one engine.
That incident, which broken each engines and 5 gearboxes, in addition to practically a dozen different parts, took a crew of six, working 12-hour days, 45 days to restore the plane and value greater than $5 million, in keeping with an incident report reviewed by Army.com.
So far, no crashes or fatalities have been attributed to the issue, though the reason for a lethal crash that claimed the lives of 5 Marines in June close to Glamis, California, continues to be beneath investigation.
Final August, the V-22 Joint Program Workplace introduced greater than 24 totally different initiatives the providers had been endeavor to treatment and determine the onerous clutch engagement points. These efforts included information mining, laboratory testing and {hardware} redesign, in keeping with a Division of Protection spokesperson.
Earlier this month, the Pentagon additionally introduced it had awarded Bell-Boeing a $53.6 million contract to give you a gearbox vibration monitoring security system that will assist in “offering earlier detection of degrading gearbox parts to permit proactive upkeep and potential mitigation of drive system failure modes throughout all V-22 Osprey variants.”
A spokesman for Bell didn’t return a request for touch upon the way forward for the V-22 program in time for publication.
Regardless of the security considerations a clutch points may cause, Navy and Particular Operations Command officers stated they’re nonetheless assured within the plane.
“USSOCOM is supporting and carefully monitoring the V-22 Joint Program Workplace efforts as they work to mitigate and develop an answer for the Laborious Clutch Engagement drawback,” Lt. Cassandra Thompson, a spokeswoman with Particular Operations Command, informed Army.com. “We’re assured that the danger mitigation controls and aircrew coaching packages will proceed to maintain our crews protected”
In the meantime, the Navy’s price range boss, Rear Adm. John Gumbleton, informed reporters earlier this month that “there isn’t any connection” between the top of the contract purchase and the gearbox points.
Jeremiah Gertler, a senior affiliate with the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research suppose tank in Washington, D.C., who makes a speciality of aviation, informed Army.com in an interview Friday that he believes the shortage of recent purchases for the V-22 program within the close to future just isn’t tied to the security situation however is a case the place the army seemingly believes it has all of the plane it desires and desires.
“Congress tends to maintain packages going longer than the division essentially asks for,” Gertler stated.
And whereas there are plans to take care of the fleet of V-22s by the 2050s, Gertler stated the providers are eyeing what developments in future expertise is likely to be across the nook.
“They don’t seem to be prioritizing V-22,” Gertler stated. “The Army is the chief on creating new rotorcraft, they usually’ve received this entire program of Future Vertical Elevate. The Navy and Marine Corps are principally saying, ‘We have sufficient of at present’s expertise, and we all know the way to maintain it working lengthy sufficient that we’ll see what the Army comes up with [and] what Future Vertical Elevate applied sciences would possibly provide us sooner or later to interchange these.'”
The Air Drive’s fleet of CV-22s is primarily used for particular operations missions and covers very totally different wants than the fashionable fighter jets and bombers the service is trying to carry on amid rising tensions with China.
Whereas the Division of the Air Drive stated it isn’t trying to find a alternative, Particular Operations Command informed Army.com in an emailed assertion it isn’t planning on shopping for any extra variants of the Osprey by 2028, but it surely’s open to bringing on new expertise.
“USSOCOM is actively assessing capabilities for next-generation mobility in assist of the Nationwide Protection Technique however just isn’t planning a direct alternative of the CV-22,” Thompson informed Army.com.
— Konstantin Toropin might be reached at konstantin.toropin@army.com. Comply with him on Twitter @ktoropin.
— Thomas Novelly might be reached at thomas.novelly@army.com. Comply with him on Twitter @TomNovelly.
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