The V-22 Ospreys would be capable of carrying out multiple tasks in addition to conducting deliveries to aircraft carriers, Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley said Jan. 15, while stopping short of confirming a report earlier this week that the service has decided to buy the tiltrotor aircraft for cargo delivery rather than modernize the C-2s currently doing the mission.
Stackley told reporters another key benefit of using the V-22s for the carrier onboard delivery missions, referred to as COD, is that they are already in production for the Marine Corps and there is already an infrastructure in place for training on the aircraft and for spare parts, repairs and maintenance.
“The MV-22 is an aircraft that’s currently in production,” Stackley said, using the Marine Corps designation for the V-22, which is built by a partnership of Boeing [BA] and Bell Helicopter, a division of Textron [TXT].
“When you look at the MV-22 as the COD, it’s much more than a COD aircraft,” Stackley said at the Surface Navy Association symposium just outside Washington.
Stackley noted that the Navy’s review of options, known as an analysis of alternatives for the COD replacement aircraft that would begin operations in the 2020s, highlighted the value the V-22s would bring to the fleet by offering diverse mission sets to carrier battle groups.
The analysis also looked at the possibility of modernizing the aged Northrop Grumman [NOC]-built C-2 Greyhounds that have been performing COD for decades, as well as procuring a new type of aircraft. Northrop Grumman had proposed gutting the C-2s, adding new wings leveraged from the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye program, and a new avionics suite.
But the review determined that was not viable because it would require removing the C-2s from operations at a time when the Navy is already short on the number of aircraft needed for COD.
“We don’t have enough current COD aircraft to meet our current mission, so extending the service life of those means taking a large number of them out of operations to go through a life extension,” Stackley said. “While there are certain cost benefits in doing that and there are certain aspects of lower risk in doing that, there is downside in terms of the number of aircraft, the amount that you would invest in extending service life for the number of years that you would get,” he said, later adding:
“The analysis of alternatives went through each of those cases and recommendations came out of that in terms of the direction the Navy is going to propose to go with.” he said.
The Navy is expected to reveal the plan as part of the rollout of its fiscal 2016 budget proposal Feb. 2. Stackley said he did not wish to “get out in front” of the unveiling of the budget and five-year procurement blueprint.
Breaking Defense earlier this week reported Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert signed a memorandum of understanding with Gen. Joseph Dunford, the commandant of the Marine Corps, to use V-22s for COD. The Marine Corps had been making a hard push for the Navy to buy V-22s for the COD mission, figuring more production numbers would help lower the unit costs.
Mabus, also speaking at the SNA symposium, acknowledged the existence of the memorandum reported by Breaking Defense, but declined to discuss the content, noting any decision regarding the COD program would be announced with the fiscal 2016 budget.
According to the report, the Navy would buy four V-22s in each of fiscal years 2018, 2019 and 2020, the final three years of the five-year procurement plan. More would likely come later. The required number of aircraft for the COD mission is about 44.