Bull.
The V-22 has amassed about 35,000 flight hours since the mishaps in 2000. Three squadron deployments to Iraq. Fourth squadron about to float with the 22nd MEU.
Many, many upgrades, most of which work OK, incorporated and more about to be tested.
The V-22 works. It will only work better from here on out.
For $11B, you can do a lot:
1. Customize a presidential interior.
2. Armor "the seat."
3. Buy OD paint that gleams.
4. Put in cellphone, radios, TeeWee, VTC, or any other comms technology that the Obama Kids want
5. Install hydraulically operated blast fences around the LZ on the south lawn, or
5a. come up with another SOP where the VIP motors to, say, the Mall and gets picked up, assuming the Jefferson Magnolia means so much to you.
The tiltrotor was thrown out of the original competition because of "transportability." In a C-17. OK. Buy some widebody transports, or buy some KC-130 tankers. The V-22 does in-flight refueling fine, and it can self-deploy anyway, so give them 24 hours notice and they can take three VV-22s across the country, along with their people, in 24 painful hours.
What's the problem? Ospreys are selling for around $75M apiece today at your marinetiltrotormart.
TC
Not bull. Look, I'm not saying VV-22's couldn't do the job. I think they'd do an excellent job of physically moving a President from point A to point B. 35k hours isn't something to sneeze at. But it's not a platform with over a hundred thousand of hours, build off a platform with well over a million flight hours. The S92 incorporates a lot of technology and same parts from the Blackhawk series. Unlike the V-22, we unfortunately have tons of data on what happens when you do quite horrible things to our bird. Blackhawk's have been shot up and down in every darn near every manner you can think of. We use this data to make our products better, safer helicopters.
S92's are slightly easier to transport. We also can add in flight refueling capabilities. We had them on some of our prototypes for when we were pitching the S92 as the "Superhawk". Actually, we can pretty much slap an extending refueling probe on anything with a rotor. Ask the Special Operations gentlemen and ladies who use Sikorsky products in their line of work...
The other side of the coin is that we have experience building Presidential aircraft. Not just for the POTUS, though we are the only company that has POTUS helicopters in the wild. We have already made Presidential S92's for other countries, including South Korea. We installed some very snazzy kit on the SK Presidential helicopters. I'm not sure if the price tag was publically released, but it was very reasonable. But well under the unit cost of a stock V-22, let alone the estimated cost of a VV-22. Already making VIP S92's drastically cuts down on R&D time and costs. AFAIK, there are no VIP V-22's in existance.
In addition, prop wash from an S92 is only a bit more than a VH-60. No blast shields or alternative LZ's needed.
Let me just add: I think we should have a damned good reason to buy Marine One from anybody BUT Sikorsky, who have built every presidential helicopter since the first one and who have a very distinguished association with HMX-1.
Hehe, thank you for the endorsement. But really, the safety of the POTUS is the primary concern. Cost is and should be a factor, obviously. Whoever builds the best rotorcraft that meets the requirements should be the company making the HMX-1. I'm proud to say, thus far, in my humble opinion, no one has beaten us yet. But we always need to be engineering and building our aircraft to be better and safer.
I'll sit back and watch this discussion evolve between RevDisk and Leatherneck.
It's really just enthuastic agreement.
