IN HISTORY-MAKING MOVE, AFSOC SELF-DEPLOYS CV-22 FOR FIRST TIME EVER

Inside the Air Force -
‘Validates’ aircraft’s mission
IN HISTORY-MAKING MOVE, AFSOC SELF-DEPLOYS CV-22 FOR FIRST TIME EVER

Air Force Special Operations Command last month made history when the
command’s 8th Special Operations Squadron became the first unit to
ever self-deploy with the CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor.

The Hurburt Field, FL-based unit flew four CV-22s more than 5,000
nautical miles from the United States to Bamako, Mali, to provide the
airborne element for Operation Flintlock 2008 -- a three-week-long
joint operation involving U.S., Malian and Senegalese special
operations forces.

While Osprey crews have been rehearsing their low-level infiltration
missions for more than a year, the exercise allowed them to master one
of the main reasons the Osprey was developed; its ability to rapidly
self-deploy and operated from austere locations around the globe,
according to Lt. Col. Eric Hill, commander of the 8th SOS.

“It just validated what we’re training towards and that our training
program is on track, and I think that, really, that validation is from
the ground team and the ground commanders perspective that we’re able
to do that long-range mission for them and do it well,” said Hill
during a Dec. 3 telephone interview.

The exercise allowed AFSOC to prove the CV-22 could achieve the
mission it was originally designed to perform -- long-range delivery
of special operations troops into potentially hostile environments.
The Osprey was conceived in part as a result of the failed Operation
Eagle Claw Iranian hostage rescue mission that proved too complex to
pull off with slow and unreliable CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters.

The fact that the CV-22 cruises almost twice as fast as a helicopter
is a key factor in the plane’s effectiveness.

A typical two-hour trip for the Ospreys would take MH-53 Pave Low
helicopters roughly five hours, according to Capt. Randall Boas, an
aircraft commander in the 8th SOS. This gave the special ops ground
troops extra hours on the ground to perform their missions training
the Malian and Senegalese soldiers, added Boas.

“If [the daily missions] had been helo only it would have been a two-
day mission” instead of a one-day mission, said Boas.

This capability has never been available to special operations troops,
noted Hill.

“It’s unprecedented for an airplane to take seven troops for over 500
nautical miles and drop them off and then, without refueling, come
back and pick them up and bring them all the way back,” said Hill.
“The reduction in assets and the complexity in the mission sets that
the CV-22 provides is pretty unique, and that’s really what I think
the ground teams and commanders took away.”

The squadron was accompanied by two MC-130 tankers that refueled the
tiltrotors and carried specific maintenance kits allowing the Ospreys
to make repairs in the field. While the V-22 program was plagued with
numerous concerns about the aircrafts maintainability in austere
conditions, the 8th SOS experienced no major maintenance problems,
according to the airmen.

The command is hoping to accelerate the buy of the last seven of its
CV-22s in the fiscal year 2010 budget request, according to a recent
Pentagon budget summary reviewed by Inside the Air Force. The command
earlier this year announced it was hoping to accelerate its Osprey buy
to gain its full compliment of 50 Ospreys by 2015 (ITAF, June 27,
p1).

At the same time, a realignment in research funding could delay CV-22
Block 20 modifications by two years, according to the summary.