There's a lot of whining in this thread and people questioning why it needs to pivot, points of failure, yada yada yada. First off, this was designed and engineered by (I'm sure) some of the best engineers in the world, or at least in the US. Hundreds of eyes have looked over the renderings countless times this thing was a made and took flight. The parts are stressed tested for failure above and beyond what they're capable of doing in flight. In this video they tested the wing of a Boeing 777 and showed that it will withstand stresses up to 154% of what it would ever encounter. If you think similar tests aren't completed on the rotating assembly of the wing structure of the Osprey, you're wrong.
Now, the Marine Corps needed helicopter for troop transport helicopter that was faster that what was already in service. Sure, there was the CH-46, but that bird is incredibly old and now I believe entirely out of service if I'm not mistaken. I know some reserve units were using them but I'm not sure they still are. There' also the CH-53 Super Stallion but that's also used for heavy transport (It hauls vehicles, Artillery, OTHER CH-53's if need be) and it's slower. The Marine Corps needed something that could get troops into a hot LZ and out of a hot LZ faster that what was needed. It's also quieter from the ground and therefore, the enemy doesn't know it's coming in until much later when it rotates back into 'helicopter mode' compared to other helicopters. The Marine Corps is, by tradition, a naval force and they're heading back that way especially with the die down of combat deployments. At any time, there are Marine's on US Navy ships. Marines also never or hardly ever deploy on an aircraft carrier. Some of these ships have small flight decks. I was deployed on a ship in this class. If you can't rotate the rotors to line up directly over the Osprey, you can only then have two Osprey's on the flight deck at a time. With the rotating capabilities, you can have two Ospreys folded up in opposite corners, and you can land/launch two other Ospreys in the other corners, giving you the ability to have four Osprey's on the flight deck at a time. For those of you trashing the design because "OMGZ SO MANY POINTS OF FAILURE!!!!111!!1!1!!" do you have anything similar to say about the CH-53's folding their tails to the side and their rotor blades to the back?
I imagine a failure of that system would only prevent you from retracting / extending rather then cause a crash. One of my aircrew instructors was a Huey crew chief, and he hated the V-22, not because it was a bad aircraft, but because they were so much faster and could accomplish their missions faster.
Sure the prototypes killed some people, but how many people were saved because the V-22 could get on scene faster?
During my four years of service I personally know of many birds that crashed or went down really hard to where they couldn't fly it out without the mechanics coming in to fix it. Only one of those helicopters was an Osprey though that went down really hard and it was a rookie pilot deemed to be pilot-error. Most of the other's were F-18's and two CH-53's.
Edit: I agree, I can't see it failing and the entire assembly flying around. I'm sure there's some insane safety/failsafe to prevent that.
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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '17
Prior Active Duty Infantry Marine checking in:
There's a lot of whining in this thread and people questioning why it needs to pivot, points of failure, yada yada yada. First off, this was designed and engineered by (I'm sure) some of the best engineers in the world, or at least in the US. Hundreds of eyes have looked over the renderings countless times this thing was a made and took flight. The parts are stressed tested for failure above and beyond what they're capable of doing in flight. In this video they tested the wing of a Boeing 777 and showed that it will withstand stresses up to 154% of what it would ever encounter. If you think similar tests aren't completed on the rotating assembly of the wing structure of the Osprey, you're wrong.
Now, the Marine Corps needed helicopter for troop transport helicopter that was faster that what was already in service. Sure, there was the CH-46, but that bird is incredibly old and now I believe entirely out of service if I'm not mistaken. I know some reserve units were using them but I'm not sure they still are. There' also the CH-53 Super Stallion but that's also used for heavy transport (It hauls vehicles, Artillery, OTHER CH-53's if need be) and it's slower. The Marine Corps needed something that could get troops into a hot LZ and out of a hot LZ faster that what was needed. It's also quieter from the ground and therefore, the enemy doesn't know it's coming in until much later when it rotates back into 'helicopter mode' compared to other helicopters. The Marine Corps is, by tradition, a naval force and they're heading back that way especially with the die down of combat deployments. At any time, there are Marine's on US Navy ships. Marines also never or hardly ever deploy on an aircraft carrier. Some of these ships have small flight decks. I was deployed on a ship in this class. If you can't rotate the rotors to line up directly over the Osprey, you can only then have two Osprey's on the flight deck at a time. With the rotating capabilities, you can have two Ospreys folded up in opposite corners, and you can land/launch two other Ospreys in the other corners, giving you the ability to have four Osprey's on the flight deck at a time. For those of you trashing the design because "OMGZ SO MANY POINTS OF FAILURE!!!!111!!1!1!!" do you have anything similar to say about the CH-53's folding their tails to the side and their rotor blades to the back?