that plane is the Osprey
FAIRFORD, England -(Dow Jones)- The V-22 Osprey was on display to a panoply of foreign dignitaries Saturday, after an unexpected trip to Iceland due to engine trouble for one of the two U.S. aircraft that crossed the Atlantic.
Both aircraft appeared as scheduled at the Royal International Air Tattoo, a military air show famous for its flying demonstrations and plane-mad crowds. But while U.S. Marine Corps pilots signed autographs and foreign dignitaries streamed by, V-22 program officials also were scrambling to understand engine troubles that affected both of the visiting aircraft.
The Osprey is a new tilt-rotor aircraft made by Boeing Co. (BA) and Textron Inc.'s (TXT) Bell Helicopter that can take off like a helicopter and also fly like a plane. This trip to the air tattoo and next week's Farnborough International Airshow mark the aircraft's first foreign appearance since 2002, when it returned to flight after two years of grounding due to a pair of deadly crashes.
Col. Bill Taylor, the Osprey program manager, said the latest engineering difficulties aren't a major safety issue and will only affect the oldest Ospreys in the fleet. Newer planes have incorporated past engineering fixes and are on schedule to enter combat service next summer, he said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires.
Still, the engine troubles show that the Osprey hasn't worked out all of its development kinks. Taylor said he expected no other countries would want to buy the Osprey until after its first combat deployment.
"My view of this is that they're still watching with great curiosity. They want the Marines to prove this out," Taylor said. "I don't think the Marines will prove this out until that first deployment is behind us."
Boeing program manager Phil Dunford said four countries have expressed initial interest: the U.K., Israel, Japan and Australia. Persian Gulf states also are eyeing the plane - Saturday's display aircraft drew a visit from Prince Faisal of Jordan and his young son, Prince Omar.
Flight demonstrations also drew considerable interest. The Osprey routine shows the aircraft's ability to shift from helicopter mode to airplane mode in flight, along with its maneuverability.
The latest batch of U.S. Ospreys cost just under $70 million per copy. Bell and Boeing have pledged to get aircraft costs down to $58 million each, if the U.S. moves forward with a long-term buying agreement.
Navy weapons buyer Delores Etter signed off on the multi-year contract plan June 28, paving the way for negotiations to begin. Congress also must approve the transition from single year purchases to a long-term contract in its 2007 defense authorization bill, which is still in progress. So far, the plan seems poised to clear Capitol Hill without incident.
Dunford said the contractors are making steady progress toward the new cost target. "We're ahead of our plan," he said.
The first Ospreys to enter combat will be the "Block B" planes, which are nearly combat ready. Over the next year, those planes will receive a ramp-mounted weapon, a retractable refueling probe, new troop seats and the final components of a new de-icing system.
By May or June, they should be declared combat capable, Taylor said. The deadline for that milestone is September 2007.
The Marines also have a group of 29 "Block A" aircraft that were the first off the production line. These Ospreys are not as advanced, and they are the ones affected by the latest engine troubles.
On the way to the air shows, both planes encountered compressor stalls on their long haul flights, as did a third plane that accompanied them as far as Goose Bay, Nova Scotia. A compressor stall occurs when debris or some other cause interrupts air flow into the engine.
In two of the planes, the stalls were not serious and were only discovered after the flight. But in one plane, the stall shut down one of the engines for a few minutes. A second, less serious stall followed, prompting the decision to divert to Iceland to wait for a replacement engine.
Taylor said the stalls probably resulted from "abnormal wear and tear" on the Block A engines. This was because they don't have the most advanced de-icing systems, and they also have been flying without a filtering device called an engine air particle separator.
The filtering equipment came off the airplanes some months ago because of a leaky hose. A new and improved design was developed for the Block B planes, but the older aircraft have not yet been retrofitted, Osprey officials said.
Despite these blips, Osprey pilots say they are thrilled with the aircraft and have no reservations about flying it across the Atlantic. Lt. Cmdr. Matt Rising, a Navy pilot assigned to fly Ospreys with the Marines, said the new aircraft will be safer than a regular helicopter in combat because it can fly higher and faster - up to 13,000 feet while carrying troops, or higher if the pilots use auxiliary oxygen.
"It's pretty hard to get shot at from 25,000 feet," Rising said.