Bell asked to come up with a tilt-rotor gunship to escort V-22s

[Henry J Cobb]

http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2004/07/05/daily3.html

Gee, if only we had a fighter aircraft with the range, speed and S/VTOL
abilities of the V-22 that could deploy from the same ships to replace the
Harrier and escort the Osprey.

It would be nice if it were stealthy and supersonic too. ;-)

And oh yeah, make sure it has lots of common parts with Air Force and Navy
aircraft also.

-HJC
http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Military/Aviation/Aircraft/Fighters/F-35_Joint_Strike_Fighter/

[Thomas Schoene]

Henry J Cobb wrote:
> http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2004/07/05/daily3.html
>
> Gee

[snip wiseass remarks about JSF]

The problem the Marines have--clearly stated in the article--is that the
F-35 is too fast to provide close escort of Osprey units (it has to fly
orbits around them, reducing its range). On the other hand, the AH-1 that
escorts current helicopters is really too slow to be a good tactical match
with Osprey. But they've got themselves committed to the AH-1Z rebuild, so
I think there's little prospect of a replacement CAS/escort aircraft in the
near future.

If the Piaseki Vectored Thrust Ducted Fan was working, that might end up as
a viable alternative, but I've heard no recent news on its status. There is
an article in the current Proceedings, but I don't think it says anything
about the progress of flight testing.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when
wrong to be put right." - Senator Carl Schurz, 1872