The Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey has been in such high demand that the service has been modifying and tweaking the aircraft on the fly as they came off the production line, resulting in 77 different configurations of the aircraft being rushed into combat zones.
With 263 total Ospreys in its fleet, every fourth one is substantially different from the previous three, according to Deputy Commandant for Aviation Lt. Gen. Jon Davis. The dramatic divergence in models was found during a recent Independent Range Review (IRR).
“As we developed them off the line, there were changes that we needed to go forward in combat,” Davis said. “They were modified as they came off the line, sometimes several in a given year. Then these aircraft went directly forward to Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) or to combat zones. It’s what we did.”
“That makes it hard to get the right parts for it,” Davis said. “It makes it hard to maintain for our Marines and Air Force personnel…Right now you’ve got a Marine going out with a computer and… it could be one of 77 different combinations of parts and repair protocols, which is really not good.”
That realization resulted in the launch of the Common Configuration Reliability and Maintainability Initiative (CCRaM). As the V-22s – oldest to youngest – proceed through scheduled depot maintenance, they will be reconfigured into a common variant by Marine Corps, Bell Helicopter [TXT] and Boeing [BA] maintainers, Davis said. The work will be done during incremental preventive maintenance prescheduled for each aircraft.
Each airframe, once it is reset to the baseline configuration, will receive several reliability and lethality upgrades. Topping the priority list is integration of a new nose-mounted forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor, Davis said.
This spring, the Marine Corps will hold a flyoff of nose-mounted forward-looking sensors for the V-22 in Yuma, Ariz. At least three companies are vying to provide the sensor, according to Lt. Gen Jon Davis, deputy commandant for aviation.
Integration of the new sensor into each aircraft’s nose will be done during the reconfiguration maintenance period, he said. New improvements also are planned for the aircraft as they pass through depots, including a redesigned rotor nacelle, Davis said. The rotating portion of the wing that houses each of the two engines are being tweaked to improve reliability and maintainability.
The first two airframes undergo common configuration work this year. Eventually the service hopes to reconfigure 24 aircraft per year.
The sensor is a requisite capability for integration of a new suite of weapons onto the aircraft, a longtime desire of the Marine Corps as it flies the tiltrotors into more remote combat zones.
Davis said the V-22 could use its new sensors to designate targets for itself or another aircraft like an unmanned aircraft or a fighter jet.
“Job one: Better sensor. Job two would be the weapons we put on that airplane,” Davis said.
The Marine Corps already has tested dropping freefall bombs from the V-22, as well as forward firing rockets, but so far the orientation of the large rotors make mounting guns and missiles problematic.
“All the stuff we are flying on Harvest Hawk, I think would work very well for V-22, to include a weapon like a Switchblade,” Davis said.
Davis is referring to the Hercules Airborne Weapons Kit (HAWK), which on the C-130J for which it was designed, includes an advanced sensor ball with a FLIR capable of laser target designation and the capacity and capability to carry and fire Hellfire, Griffin and Viper Strike missiles.
Harvest Hawk also includes integration of the Intrepid Tiger electronic warfare pod that is also capable of teaming the aircraft with unmanned aerial systems. Intrepid Tiger is flown in combat aboard the AV-8B Harrier and the Bell UH-1Y Huey. It will be installed on the V-22 Osprey, the entire fleet of Lockheed Martin [LMT] C-130 and Bell AH-1Z attack helicopters.
“It’s going basically on everything other than F-35, which already has a pretty good organic electronic warfare capability on its own,” Davis said.