Panel Urges Fixing Osprey, Not Scrapping It

A blue-ribbon study group on Wednesday urged continuation of the Marines’ troubled V-22 Osprey aircraft program, arguing that it has no “fundamental flaw” that would justify cancellation.

In what may prove a pivotal expression of support, the Pentagon-commissioned panel said the Osprey remains the best choice for future amphibious assault and rescue missions, despite a record of four crashes and 30 deaths since 1992.

Although the Osprey is “not ready--not close to it,” it nonetheless is “probably the best answer available,” said Norman R. Augustine, a panel member and aerospace executive, at a final meeting of the group.

The group said it would recommend that the Osprey program limit initial production while its managers seek to correct problems ranging from hydraulic and software defects to poor operating manuals and bad communication within the organization.

The panel called for an additional infusion of money to see that the plane is fully tested and safe before it begins ferrying Marines and commandos to battle.

The program needs to “go out to test, test, test, test,” said Augustine, who is former chief executive of Lockheed Martin Corp.

The Osprey is an innovative aircraft with rotors that tilt between horizontal and vertical positions, enabling the plane to take off and land like a helicopter but to cruise at the speed of an airplane. The Osprey has been grounded, and the program’s fate is up in the air, since a crash Dec. 11 in North Carolina that killed four Marines.

Still outstanding is a report from the Pentagon inspector general addressing allegations that program officials urged subordinates to falsify Osprey maintenance reports to help the program win approval to begin production. A finding of official misconduct could badly hurt the Osprey’s cause.

And top administration officials have not yet offered their current judgment of the program; Vice President Dick Cheney, as Defense secretary, tried three times to kill it during the first Bush administration.

Nevertheless, many observers--including some involved in the program--have predicted that the Osprey would survive if the blue-ribbon panel urged continuation.

The Osprey has had consistent strong support in Congress and from Marine Corps leadership. Participants in a major study of defense needs now underway at the Pentagon have talked about the V-22 as a key part of the mix of new military technologies.

The panel that outlined its findings Wednesday is scheduled to present its final report on the Osprey to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld by Tuesday.

Critics have charged that the design of the plane’s twin rotors makes the Osprey especially vulnerable to dangerous rolls. In a crash last April, 19 Marines died when an Osprey descended too quickly and fell victim to a phenomenon called “vortex ring state,” in which turbulence created by the rotors causes the plane to tip over.

The panel, which was appointed in December, agreed that the Osprey is unusually vulnerable to vortex ring state and found that the pilot’s manual that was supposed to warn of this vulnerability had only “limited and misleading” instructions. It recommended a rewrite of the manual and perhaps the installation of warning indicators to tell pilots of the approaching threat.

Members said the program should have avoided using troops as passengers in some of the V-22’s recent operational tests. Instead, they could have used sandbags or dummies to provide the weight without risking lives, members said.

The group also agreed with criticism that the Osprey’s rotors kick up dirt and debris in some landing zones in a way that makes maneuvers difficult and risky, especially when fliers are using night vision goggles. The V-22 “has greater downwash than most helicopters,” the group said in one written conclusion.

Critics have faulted the Osprey for its limited ability to rely on revolving rotors to drop slowly to safety in the event of a power loss.

The panel acknowledged that the plane is not built to “auto-rotate” as effectively as helicopters can. It urged changes to improve this capability.

But they said the Osprey has other capabilities that can offset this weakness. The plane is built in a way that makes a loss of power in both engines “improbable,” they said.

And the plane can glide to safety, as an airplane can, in the event of power loss and can survive crashes better than other aircraft, they said.

The panel defended the basic tilt-rotor concept, noting that it was not to blame in any of the plane’s major mishaps.

The panel said that the tilt-rotor design presents some “unique risks,” including the possibility the plane will roll in some circumstances. Yet it concluded that those risks “appear to be manageable through design modifications.”

The panel also accepted criticism that the Osprey, with its complex machinery, is tough to maintain and has too often been out of service during the test effort.

It said maintenance is a particular problem in the plane’s nacelles, the compartments that house the engines. These should be redesigned, panel members said.

Looking broadly, the panel said it saw considerable advantages to the Osprey over other choices.

It said the Osprey’s ability to fly farther, faster and with greater payloads than helicopters gave it advantages both for the Marines and the Special Operations troops who are also to use it.

They said that it is the only aircraft that can meet military requirements--developed during the 1979 Iranian hostage operation--for a long-range aircraft that can fly hundreds of miles behind enemy lines and withdraw a group “within one period of darkness.”

One defense analyst, Loren Thompson of Lexington Institute, a Virginia research organization, said there has been a general expectation that the panel would call for additional testing but recommend continuation of the program. Such study groups “never recommend cancellation,” he said.

The Marine commandant, Gen. James L. Jones Jr., praised the panel’s work and said he shares its concerns about the Osprey’s “maintainability, reliability and funding.”

Other members of the study panel include Eugene Covert, professor emeritus of aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; retired Marine Corps Gen. John Dailey; and former Air Force Gen. J.B. Davis. Dailey heads the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.