Osprey collection (merged thread)

[Ken White]

I still wish the Air Farce would have given the A10 to the Marines. It is still the finest CAS fixed wing air craft available IMHO.

True dat...

This blog post got a bunch of hits from the NCR http://selil.com/archives/2689. . .There most assuredly are better acquisition and weapons requirements strategies than what we're doing now.

True dat as well -- that's a good Post at the link! Works for me...

At the risk of being the resident curmudgeonly cynic, I have to warn you: I think the NCR visitors to the Post may be Congressional Staffers drawn to see such money saving and common sense heresy and who are likely determined to stop you before you annoy the Major Defense Contractors and affect jobs in their Bosses districts...

Though hopefully, the visitors would be folks who see the wisdom of the idea and push it into adoption...

[Compost]

Defense Industry Daily has issued an updated report on USMC efforts to ‘deconflict' and 'progress’ the CH-53K and MV-22B projects. Report is at

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...-updated-01724

Added by Moderator at author's request (3hrs ago):The update of DID's report on the CH-53K was released in public domain. That was later changed to subscriber only. Advice from DID is that there was some technical problem, also that the update will not be re-released as public.

[ganulv]

Defense Industry Daily has issued an updated report on USMC efforts to ‘deconflict' and 'progress’ the CH-53K and MV-22B projects. Report is at

www.defenseindustrydaily.com/ch53k-the-us-marines-hlr-helicopter-program-updated-01724

From the link above:

But the helicopters are wearing out. Fast. The pace demanded by the Global War on Terror is relentless, and usage rates are 3 times normal.

I think it might be better said that usage rates are 3 times projected.

[Compost]

Text moved to Post 10

[Compost]

Another update of DID's 'CH-53K: The U.S. Marines' HLR Helicopter'... is again publicly available (briefly ?) at

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...-updated-01724

[Compost]

DID has published a free updated report on the V-22 Osprey at: http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...Program-04823/

Its ‘Contracts and Key Events’ section refers to fallout from the April 2010 crash of a V-22 in Afghanistan, at:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012...d-general/all/

[Compost]

The USA has agreed to sell six Bell Boeing V-22 tiltrotor aircraft to Israel, but US officials do not say which version of the aircraft Israel will receive.

See http://www.flightglobal.com/news/art...rotors-392483/

In my opinion Israeli procurement of the precariously arranged V-22 Osprey is foolish. However, Israel receives about $US2 billion in military assistance from the USA each year. So the V-22s will come cheap although operating them is likely to prove costly.

Any force that paid real dollars for V-22s would seem doubly foolish, or simply stupid.