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Osprey airmen expect to deploy within months

Although there have been no orders to send Air Force Ospreys to the war zones yet, the airmen who fly and fix the tilt-rotor aircraft are anticipating they’ll be there in a matter of months, not years. And when the airmen do get the orders , they’ll leave with lessons learned from the Marine Corps’ experience flying Ospreys in the desert.

“We feel we’re ready today,” said Lt. Col. Eric Hill, who has logged about 400 hours flying Ospreys and serves as the operations officer for the 8th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Fla.

The 8th, the Air Force’s lone combat CV-22 squadron, is expecting its fifth Osprey in the near future. The 71st Special Operations Squadron at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., is the CV-22 schoolhouse, which flies four aircraft. Eventually, the Air Force will own 50 Ospreys.

When the Marines dispatched 10 MV-22s to Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq in October, Air Force Special Operations Command sent Hill, who was already going to be in Iraq on a staff assignment, to spend time with the leathernecks. A senior enlisted Air Force maintainer went with him.

Hill said the most important lessons gleaned from the Marine deployment dealt with the nuts and bolts of operating in austere conditions, at the end of a supply chain.

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” Hill said.

For example, the ever-present fine sand caused some parts to quit working sooner than expected, Hill said. So when the 8th gets the call to deploy, airmen will know what to pack in spare parts kits and what components are at high risk, such as electronic sensors.

In the sandbox The Marine Corps hasn’t said much about how the Ospreys are faring in the desert. In March, the Navy program manager for the joint V-22 office told the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Expo that aircraft engines were wearing out sooner than projected. The predicted life of the turboprop engine was supposed to be 600 hours before needing an overhaul. But so far, the average life span is 380 hours in Iraq and 420 hours for the entire Osprey fleet.

From a command-and-control perspective, operating the Marine Corps Ospreys in Iraq required more coordination than helicopter missions, Hill said. Helicopters typically fly below the altitudes at which fighters and transport airplanes operate, and helicopter missions don’t have to be closely coordinated with air operations centers. But Ospreys fly high and low. If an Osprey shares airspace with a C-130 Hercules on a short hop between bases, then controllers and planners at several levels have to coordinate missions, Hill said.

Lessons about the flying aspect of Osprey missions were limited because of the differences between how the Marine Corps and Air Force use them, the lieutenant colonel said.

Marines use the Osprey to ferry troops and supplies between bases and to forward locations. The Air Force plans to use the Osprey to infiltrate enemy airspace and fly special operations teams — missions that often require night operations and flying low.

Despite the differences in missions, Hill said, it was valuable to see in a combat zone how the aircrews and Osprey handle the challenges of landing in billowing clouds of sand and other aspects of desert operations. One mission highlighted the Osprey’s versatility, Hill said. Over the course of one day, the Osprey he rode in as an observer landed and took off in a variety of conditions — from large-scale base operations, to a temporary landing zone marked on a road, to the landing strip at a forward operating base.

With the Osprey community still young and comparatively small, Marines and their AFSOC counterparts continue to share information, Hill said. The Air Force lieutenant colonel learned to fly the Osprey alongside Marines who are now squadron-level leaders. And all Air Force and Marine Corps pilots and maintainers attend joint introductory courses at Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C.

The 8th and its logistics counterpart, the 8th Aircraft Maintenance Unit, are building a cadre of pilots, flight engineers and maintainers. The Hurlburt squadron just finished its role in the initial operation test and evaluation of the CV-22, a step toward the aircraft earning its initial operational capability rating, now expected in early 2009.

But Air Force Chief of Staff T. Michael Moseley has said the Ospreys may deploy this year. The airmen at the 8th wouldn’t be surprised to leave, Hill said.

“By the year’s end, we’ll be asked to go.”