All Ospreys grounded after Iraq incident

By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Mar 27, 2009 6:09:50 EDT

All 84 of the U.S. military’s V-22 Ospreys were temporarily grounded Saturday after the discovery of loose bolts on the aircraft by Marines in Iraq, officials said.

The grounding affected all V-22s, including the Corps’ aircraft and the 11 CV-22s the Air Force operates, said Mike Welding, spokesman for the V-22 program at Navy Air Systems Command. As of Tuesday morning, 76 of the 84 aircraft had been cleared to fly, with problems discovered on four Ospreys operated out of Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, by Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 266 out of Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C.

The loose bolts were discovered by VMM-266 mechanics after a pilot noticed a vibration and heard a “loud noise” after a routine flight, Welding said.

An inspection revealed that four loose bolts had separated from a stationary swashplate trunnion and a gimbal ring on the drive tube, causing “minor damage” to the engine’s pitch links and spinner support, he said. The swashplate has a rotating and stationary plate, and translates a pilot’s commands to the rotors in motion.

“If this thing comes apart, then you lose control of the prop rotor,” said Welding, who declined to categorize the incident as a “near-miss.”

“We want to stress that this has not happened in flight,” he said. “This (grounding) was a precautionary measure.”

All 11 CV-22s stationed at Hurlburt Field, Fla., were inspected and cleared to fly on Tuesday and had almost no effect on training operations, said Don Arias, an Air Force Special Operations Command spokesman.

The Air Force has yet to deploy its CV-22s to Iraq.

No V-22s have been deployed to Afghanistan, though Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway said the aircraft is “made for Afghanistan” and could be sent there later this year.

No problems had been discovered on MV-22s in the U.S., which are based out of New River. Two of the four Ospreys with issues in Iraq had been repaired and cleared to fly, he said.

The incident is the latest for the V-22, which has been considered a success in Iraq since Marines with VMM-263 first deployed with Ospreys in September 2007. The aircraft has a checkered history, however, including three fatal crashes in the 1990s and during the early part of this decade that combined to kill more than 20 Marines.

The Corps has been transforming medium-lift squadrons centered on the aging CH-46 helicopter to the Osprey since 2006, when VMM-263 was activated as the first operational MV-22 squadron. There are currently three fully operational squadrons, all based at New River: VMM-263, VMM-266 and VMM-162. Two other New River squadrons — VMM-261 and VMM-365 — also have been activated as Osprey squadrons, but are still adding aircraft and manpower and are not yet fully operational.

The Corps is also planning to add Ospreys on the West Coast beginning next year. The preferred plan calls for eight MV-22 squadrons to eventually be based at MCAS Miramar, Calif., with an additional two squadrons based at nearby Camp Pendleton. An alternative plan could also put some of the aircraft at MCAS Yuma, Ariz.

The grounding is expected to have minimal effects on Marine operations and will not alter the first ever Osprey deployment with a Marine expeditionary unit this spring, said Maj. Eric Dent, a spokesman at Marine headquarters. VMM-263 (reinforced) is preparing to deploy this spring with the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 22nd MEU with the Bataan Expeditionary Strike Group.

That's an oh shitter!  

I'm fricking amazed that they were able to land it.
CH-53E's crashed with less broken hardware....

Loctite

Those things just freak me out.  Way too much going on inside there.  Having said that.........what a tool for fast insertion.

Yep!

On a scale of 1 to 10 on the Oh Fuck! scale, that's a solid 10.

Someone call home and order up a couple of gallons worth of blue/red loctite!

They're finicky beasts but they're damned useful beasts at that.

Indeed, this vehicle has lots of potential.

I just wish they'd arm them...

Very limited arcs of fire due to the huge props, marginal load capacity limits what can be fitted in a turret underneath were it won't shoot the props off..

Giggity!

Good job to whoever was doing the checks and found this.

When shit fucks up while flying, it's the worst feeling imaginable.  Ask me how I know.

At least it wasn't a downed aircraft causing this...

Wow, I expected 'KIA' and 'V-22 malfunction' to go together.

Glad it didn't

How difficult to safety wire

They do arm them.  50 cal on the ramp.

...and/or use a torque wrench...?

True, and I saw another poster mention the .50 on the ramp (if wanted).   I wasn't thinking heavy combat load, but surely they could fit 2-4 hellfires on there somewhere or some Viper strike bombs (GBU-44/b http://www.defense-update.com/directory/viper-strike.htm).   A gun that is forward firing/ slightly directional so it can fire downwards to strafe would be pretty nice (though I bet that is even more unlikely than putting a couple of those  small bombs onboard.

Depends on the maintenance manual.
Some bolts/nuts are not required to be safety-wired, sometimes "shit happens" that require changes in maintenance/operation procedures.

This sounds to me to be more along the lines of someone forgetting to properly inspect something after a maintenance procedure.
Could have been an O, I , D or manufacturer level problem.

I had that coming.  Almost edited the post after I made it.  Good stuff!

Osprey = scary fun

Other than weight, is there any reason why you couldn't put one of the 30mm cannons we use on our Apaches in the nose and some missile/rocket hardpoints on the underside of the fuselage? Looks like it'd clear the props to me...




The thought of Apache firepower combined with Osprey speed and cargo capacity makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...





 

Where? There's about a foot and a half of clearance from the ground to the fuselage, less with the landing gear compressed.



The nose is where most of the avionics are located.

Didn't think of ground clearance. Still might work if we installed longer gear struts to get the whole thing higher off the ground.




 

Okay, I'll ask. Why would you want or need to arm them? They are cargo (marine) carriers, not gunships.

I just think it'd be neat if you could give them an Apache-like loadout so you could do a pass over a landing site, clean it up a bit, deliver troops, then give them air support. But I think the Hind transport/gunship idea is a cool concept so what do I know...




 

Or have it pop out of a bay during flight and recess back into the belly for landing.

eta: Not that I have any idea whether that's possible or practical...

That would work, now where ya gonna put the Marines, gear and cargo?  

The Army will never fly into a hot landing zone again..............

The HMMV's speed will allow it to escape ambushes, so it doesn't need to be armored...........

Because when you put unarmed/unarmored vehicles anywhere on the battlefield, they will get attacked.

Every vehicle that will have the oppuritonity to come into small arms range, should have a defensive armament.

We teach them yoga and have them squeeze between the missile racks?




 

iirc there's no room to wire these bolts.  design level problem, they will most likely have to throw some engineers at it.

We had that happen on our airplane once

The safety wire on the nuts that hold the prop on broke, and started working loose... things started vibrating bad, and so so we landed.  Ended up having to replace the prop hub (had been deformed) and get the whole thing overhauled.

Now we check the safety wire every flight...

The ones I've ridden in only had an M-240D, not a .50 cal.

OK, now they're just making shit up.  

That's like old sailor talk or something - "Aye laddie, ye needs t' crawl up on yonder mainsail, and ungibble the mizzenshaft afore it turnswoggles the yardmizzle. Now hop to it eren the Cap'n 'll have ye fer his scullery maid! Yarrr."

I think my mechanic told me my car's swashplate trunnion was worn out, and he was gonna charge me $600 to replace it.

It is an assault support aircraft not a gunship.  The current rear firing 7.62 is not really needed according to the pilots because it is out of its effective range in  few seconds from take off.

1. Main rotor hub yoke
2. Trunnion
3. Mast nut
4. Elastomeric bearing
5. Grip
6. Main rotor blade
7. Drag brace
8. Pitch horn
9. Connecting tube (pitch link)
10. Mast
11. Friction collet
12. Antidrive link
13. Collective lever
14. Swashplate support
15. Collective control hydraulic cylinder
16. Lateral cyclic control hydraulic cylinder
17. Fore and aft cyclic control hydraulic cylinder
18. Transmission
19. Drive link
20. Swashplate outer ring
21. Swashplate inner ring
22. Scissors and sleeve assembly
23. Sand deflector
24. Mast nut lock
25. Main rotor blade retention bolt

I see them fly just about every day and i love them

This will have a * by it in the new FMF manual for the Opsreys

Or how about some safety wire?  I can safety wire some bolts now.

and safety wire...

I'm assigned to the unit that reviews the Boeing parts of the manual up here in PA at the plant as a maintenance SME.

I have never seen an aircraft with more safety wire, thread locker (locktite), and cap sealed fasteners.  I've also never seen an aircraft that was so good at shaking fasteners loose or breaking mounts.  Bell has been trying to fix issues in the area where this failure happened for some time now.

I'm sure we will see these bolts added to the 35 hour phase inspection.

And sealant, lots and lots of sealant.

Only in the absence of sufficient volume.

Wasn't it called proseal?

Those things are so cool.

I followed it's development back in the '80s.  It was originally supposed to be armed with a Cal. .50 GE "gatling gun" (IIRC, they called it the "GECO") which I believe was to be nose-mounted as a means to provide self-defense in a "hot LZ".  

When development costs started to go apeshit, the gun turret was canceled to save money.  It was stated at the time that an "upgrade" to arm the MV-22 at a later date was still an option (of course, who knows how much the airframe has changed since then).

I remember reading an issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology in '88 or '89 talking about deleting the gun system from the aircraft.