Será o Complexo Militar-Político-Industrial Americano a razão da queda desse grande país?
Portugal perdeu o Império pela sua incapacidade de inovar. Os Americanos vão perder o deles pela sua excesiva necessidade de inventar (ou dizer que o fazem)...
FCS
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,62931,00.htmlV22
"Defense News, January 26, 2004
Osprey or Albatross?
Dangerous Problems Still Haunt Complex V-22
By Everest E. “Rich” Riccioni
For three decades, the U.S. Marine Corps, Air Force, Navy and NASA have been struggling to develop and tame the interesting concept of a winged aircraft that tilts its engines and prop-rotors to liftoff like a helicopter, and tilts them forward to fly like an airplane — the V-22 Osprey.
The hope was to takeoff and land vertically anywhere from “unprepared surfaces,” like helicopters, and to gain the speed and range of normal winged airplanes.
The Marines intend to purchase 350 Ospreys; the Air Force and Navy desire 50 each. The Osprey’s missions for the Air Force are to remove Special Forces personnel from enemy areas, and to search and recover downed pilots. The Marines want to carry troops and materiel from ship to shore in littoral warfare.
The Osprey’s promise, constantly articulated by its advocates, can be summarized in two carefully orchestrated incantations:
It lifts three times as much, flies twice as fast and goes five times as far.
It is more survivable, more maintainable and more deployable.
For disingenuous reasons, the unstated comparison is with the obsolete Vietnam-era helicopter, the CH-46D twin-rotor Sea Knight, that still serves. In truth, modern military helicopters, such as the EH101, are the proper comparisons.
The Osprey can, indeed, lift three times more dead weight than can the Sea Knight. But the Osprey is three times heavier and five times more expensive. Progress? Unstated is that the cabin of the CH-46 helicopter is a third larger than that of the Osprey.
In operational tests, the Osprey carried only about 17 combat-equipped Marines; the CH-46 carries 24. The Osprey, at an altitude of 25,000 feet, has twice the speed of helicopters. But the fundamental Marine mission is a short flight of 25 to 70 miles from ship to shore, flown at 30 to 300 feet. Most of the time spent on a supply trip is for loading, unloading, doing maintenance and hovering. The two-fold advantage is reduced to about 25 percent. The maximum unrefueled range of the Osprey is about twice that of old helicopters. Modern helicopters match the Osprey’s range. So, the first mantra is a set of three distortions.
The second mantra, about the Osprey being more survivable, maintainable and deployable quantifies nothing, because “more” is vague. Because tilt-rotors have widely separated propulsion units laterally displaced from the line of symmetry, the Osprey is a comparatively dangerous aircraft. When one of its side-by-side rotors stalls, the vortex ring state (VRS) phenomenon occurs, and the aircraft goes into a sudden, uncontrolled roll.
With VRS onset, the aircraft and its Marines are lost. Twin-rotor helicopters suffer VRS, but without associated rolling. Another danger inherent in the V-22 is that it cannot perform the standard survivability maneuver of auto-rotating to a safe landing. All helicopters can.
Further, the Osprey is very vulnerable to hits in its hydraulic system. Rupture of any of the many hydraulic lines at its exceptionally high 5,000-pound-per-square-inch pressure fills the cabin with noxious atomized fluid harmful to humans.
An Osprey in the helicopter mode is relatively unmaneuverable, making it vulnerable to enemy missiles and guns. According to a study I prepared for the Air Force, “CV-22: Impacts of Performance on Cost Effectiveness,” the Osprey is less survivable, in combat and normal operations, by a factor greater than three.
Additional proof is that the Osprey was reviewed as a candidate to transport the president, and despite its speed, was rejected for its dangers.
Major operational limitations result from the Osprey’s relatively small rotor disk area, creating wind plumes about twice as strong as those of helicopters, with a hot jet at its core. The plumes blow desert sand, vegetation, debris and snow beneath the aircraft making visual landings difficult in daylight, and impossible at night.
Personnel being picked up or lowered to the surface are severely buffeted; men in the sea are at risk of drowning. The repercussions from the plumes are so great that the Air Force gave up using the V-22 to rescue downed pilots.
The complex Osprey is very difficult to maintain. In 2001, the Marine Corps accused eight officers of falsifying maintenance records, and reprimanded two. The fact is that because of bad engineering and a flawed tilt-rotor concept, the ready rate of Ospreys will always be about half that of the simpler helicopters.
This means more than twice the number of Ospreys are required to maintain the same mission reliability rate.
But the crucial issue revolves around the fundamental Marine mission of transporting troops and materiel from ship to shore. This mission justifies the existence of the Corps.
Comparing equal numbered fleets of helicopters, modern and old, with fleets of Ospreys, the small cabin and the low readiness rate of the Osprey make it less than half as capable as modern helicopters. When equal-cost fleets are compared, helicopter fleets are three to four times more cost-effective.
This review is too short to list all the major failings of the V-22. The Osprey is faster but less effective. It is more dangerous in peace and in war. It will always be less maintainable. Its range is matched by modern helicopters.
Ironically, the Marines bought the AV-8 Harrier jet fighter and the V-22 Osprey believing they could land and takeoff vertically virtually anywhere. The truth is they can operate only from prepared surfaces. Marines will be needlessly lost. The Osprey will outdo the Harrier’ s reputation as the “Widow Maker.” The V-22 will be an albatross around the Marine Corps’ neck, and a more than a $40 billion load for the taxpayer.
Retired U.S. Air Force Col. Everest E. “Rich” Riccioni, a member of the Military Advisory Board of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, New York., consults on the engineering and design of military fighter aircraft."
E entretanto, enquantos os russos lideram em mísseis, carros de combate, munições guiadas, helicópteros e pensam em aviões de combate de 5ª geração, os americanos perdem tempo, dinheiro, credibilidade e poder em programas caríssimos condenados ao cancelamento.
Dados os problemas orçamentais americanos, aposto que algo de grave se poderá passar num futuro não muito distante.
Lembram-se de 1941 e os primeiros meses de 42?