"Future of Tilt-Rotor Aircraft Uncertain Despite V-22’s... " Topic

…Successes.

"Only hours after a devastating earthquake struck Nepal in April, four Marine Corps V-22 Ospreys based in Okinawa, Japan, were in the air and making their way to the disaster zone with crucial supplies.

A half a world away in Fort Worth, Texas, Bell Helicopter that same month announced a second round of layoffs totaling some 1,415 employees, citing a slowdown in orders for the Osprey along with a waning commercial helicopter market that was supposed to take up the slack.

Despite the good news stories emerging as the aircraft chalks up successes in real-world scenarios, foreign military sales for the Osprey have been lower than anticipated, analysts said, raising questions about how long Bell can keep its factory open. The future of vertical take off and landing aircraft is also murky…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Too expensive to keep flying compared to either a helicopter or fixed wing aircraft. Budgets are being cut with other things to spend the money on.

I would cautiously call the V-22's deployment a success.

Not saying it does not do the job, just that there could have been alternatives that did not take so durn much time and money getting it to the minimum safety standards to deploy. There is a reason for that.

I was in high school when the design was finalized in 1983, went my entire 21yrs in the service and was retired for three years before it was "introduced" to service in 2007. That is a loooong trail full of accidents and mishaps.

Development costs of $2.5 USDB skyrocketed to $27 USDB (for DEVELOPMENT – not even production!)

Murky future is appropriate…

I bet very few customers need the range/speed advantages of the V-22. Mil Mi-17's are perfectly adequate, especially given their lower cost and higher reliability.

Yea, I recall seeing tilt-rotor prototype designs in a 1960s era National Geographic magazine, so they were a very long time coming.

Military development seems to take forever when there isn't a war going on, where the tech is vital to winning it. Given several wars have been started and ended during that time, clearly it wasn't a high priority that required fast-tracking.

Complexity and high cost will no doubt keep it limited in use.

I hold out more hope for the Johnny Queste-esque VTOL jets, but again, cost and complexity of those will be a limiting factor as well.

They took a long time and lost a number of lives making the V-22 work … not to mention cost in $$$ …

Add in the new generation of helicopters that come close to the V-22's capabilities (for much lower cost, complexity and development time) and the Osprey becomes an orphan. It may well come to past that the Osprey's replacement will be a helicopter.

It's certainly possible that the Osprey's replacement will be a helo. Not too likely, IMO, but possible.

What I'm hoping happens is that the USN gets a modified Osprey for the COD mission. It has to be a modified Osprey because the current one can't hold an F35 engine without the back door hanging open, and that's a killer in range and speed.

Dunno that the Hawkeye's radar will be mountable on an Osprey, but it could certainly use a conformal radar instead.

After all, commonality of airframes helps reduce purchase price.

At the time of the V-22s developement, Helo tech was not as advanced as it is now. And it took a long time to get the V-22 to "work". So I think it is certainly possible that chopper tech could surpass the complicated and expensive Tilt-Rotor concept. Speed being one of the V-22's advantages over the Helo. But again, that may/probably change.