The V-22, also known as the Osprey, continues to feast at the federal trough despite a cost record that could bankrupt Warren Buffett and a safety record that would make Evel Knievel think twice. By the end of this year, the Pentagon will have built about four dozen copies of the exotic tilt-rotor aircraft at a cost of $16 billion. Out of those aircraft, four V-22s and one prototype have crashed. In fact, the V-22's safety record is so bad, Pentagon spokesmen refuse to provide comprehensive accident statistics on the flying machine. Four of the first 15 versions of the V-22 ended up in smoldering ruins. Over the past few years, V-22 crashes have killed 26 Marines and four civilians. On paper, the V-22 looks like a great idea: Marry the vertical takeoff and landing capability of a helicopter with the speed of an airplane, by building a craft whose rotors could operate horizontally -- like a helicopter's -- and then tilt to operate vertically, like a plane's. But after nearly 50 years of development work and billions of dollars of investment, the smartest engineers on earth still haven't been able to come up with a reliable, affordable tilt-rotor aircraft. Despite the deaths, the Marine Corps insists that it needs the V-22. In April 2003, Marine Lt. Gen. Emil R. Bedard told a subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the V-22's "range, speed, payload, and survivability will generate truly transformational tactical and operational capabilities." While that might be true if the Osprey could ever be made safe, it's clear that the Marines have embarrassed themselves in their single-minded pursuit of the aircraft. In 2001, three Marine officers were implicated in a scheme to falsify maintenance records on a squadron of V-22s that were being tested in North Carolina in an effort to make the aircraft look more capable. The Marines want the V-22 even though it cannot carry as many soldiers as a comparable-sized modern helicopter, costs up to five times more than a comparable standard helicopter, and, thanks to its unusual design, it's inherently less safe. Some of the smartest people at the Pentagon believe that the aircraft can never be made safe. When its supporters say the V-22 is extraordinary, they're right: It has cost more and killed more personnel than any other rotor aircraft now being developed by the U.S. military. Such horrific flaws should have blown the V-22 out of the sky long ago. Instead, this year, the Pentagon will spend $1.1 billion to build 11 more copies, bringing the aircraft's total projected price tag to a pork-barrel-proud $43 billion. The Osprey thrives because of savvy lobbying by its primary producers: Bell Helicopter and Boeing. It thrives because the Pentagon has been given a no-limit credit card when it comes to fighting the war on terrorism. But perhaps more importantly, the V-22 thrives because it is put together at plants in Fort Worth and Amarillo. And the Texas delegation on Capitol Hill has made certain that those defense jobs will not be not lost.
Larry Bell was an innovator. By the mid-1950s, the daring designer from Indiana had revolutionized the aerospace business in both airplanes and helicopters. He had built the P-29 Airacomet, the American military's very first jet-powered airplane, which was tested with great secrecy during World War II. He had designed the rocket-propelled X-1, which broke the sound barrier while being flown by noted test pilot Chuck Yeager in 1947. He had also designed the Bell 47-B, the first commercially licensed helicopter. Shortly after getting the 47-B into the market, Bell lent one -- free of charge, along with a pilot and mechanic -- to Lyndon Johnson for his 1948 Senate campaign against Coke Stevenson. In the early 1950s, Bell moved his company, Bell Helicopter, to the outskirts of Fort Worth and began pursuing contracts with the Pentagon. In 1958, Bell Helicopter got its first major contract from the U.S. Army for the aircraft that was destined to become an icon of the Vietnam War, the UH-1, better known as the Huey. That same year, the company had the first successful flight of an experimental aircraft known as the XV-3. Officials told the Dallas Morning News that they had "achieved a major breakthrough in aviation engineering" by flying the world's first "tilting-rotor fixed-wing aircraft." In theory, tilt-rotor aircraft offer an advantage that is always critical in warfare: speed. Helicopters are tremendously useful machines, but compared to airplanes they are quite slow. That's due to the drag created by the helicopter's blades. When a helicopter hovers in one place, the rotor blades push air straight down and therefore create lift in all areas of the blades' diameter. To make the aircraft go forward, the pilot pushes the cyclic control forward, which causes the rotor system to tilt forward, thus allowing the aircraft to begin accelerating. However, as the helicopter picks up speed, the air flowing over the rotor blades gets imbalanced. The resulting air disturbance limits the craft's forward speed. Even the fastest helicopters have trouble reaching speeds of 200 miles per hour. The Osprey solves the airflow problem by tilting the rotors -- after the craft has lifted off -- from the horizontal position to vertical, where they act like propellers, turning the blades' power into forward thrust that allows the V-22 to fly at speeds topping 300 miles per hour. The V-22 also claims to have a range of some 2,500 miles, several times the range of a standard helicopter. However, that figure has been grossly exaggerated. Bell and the Marines have repeatedly said the aircraft's "self-deployment range" is 2,500 miles. But when pushed, Bell's PR people admit that "self-deployment" includes hooking up to a flying tanker for an aerial refueling. Without refueling, the V-22's range is about 590 miles, little better than a standard helicopter. Several modern helicopters now have ranges of 500 miles or more. And the V-22 refueling issue has not been fully resolved. The V-22 has not yet been cleared by Pentagon safety officials for aerial refueling, a fact that the GAO noted in its 2001 report on the airplane. The Marines have always wanted to move as fast -- and flexibly --as possible. That's why they love the Harrier, the dangerous fighter jet (also known as the "widow-maker") that can also take off and land vertically, like a helicopter. The Marines see the V-22, like the Harrier, as an aircraft that will give them greater range of operations and less need for standard airports. The Marine Corps has staked its reputation on the V-22, making the craft its top aviation priority and planning to use it to replace the CH-46 helicopter, a troop carrier that has been in use since the Vietnam War. In 1991, one active-duty Marine wrote a report that said the aircraft was "crucial to the Marine Corps' over-the-horizon, amphibious assault mission," allowing Marines to launch surprise attacks from greater distances and provide better defense to ships. The Pentagon's push for the V-22 began in 1981 at the Paris Air Show, when then-Secretary of the Navy John Lehman saw Bell's tilt-rotor aircraft and became intrigued. Air Force Secretary Hans Mark, who had helped Bell develop the V-22 prototype while he was director of a research center for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, sold Lehman on the aircraft. Within a few months of Mark's pitch, the Army, the Navy, and the Marines were all pursuing the V-22.
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