"Osprey Fire - Days Before Big Contract Awarded"

STARTELEGRAM.com
Sky Talk
April 17, 2008

Osprey Fire Days Before Big Contract Awarded

Whoops, this wasn't reported by the Marines or Bell/Boeing last month
when they were counting down the days to the Pentagon finally awarding
a five-year, $10.4 billion contract for 167 new V-22 Ospreys.

Just two weeks prior to that award, yet another Osprey operated by
Marines in North Carolina suffered an engine nacelle fire, a recurring
problem. The good folks at Amarillo.com backed into the story a few
days ago with a nice story on a local Marine who had to be
hospitalized for inhaling too much fire suppressant while
extinguishing the blaze.

No word yet on the degree of damage to the aircraft, which was
apparently on ground at the time preparing to take off. A similar fire
a few months ago, that broke out in flight and required an emergency
landing in the middle of nowhere, essentially destroyed the engine
nacelle -- the compartment on the end of the wing that contains the
jet turbine engine* -- and left the wing itself in very bad shape,
according to both Marine and Bell sources.

The Marines have had a number of these fires over the last couple of
years but fortunately none have caused* a crash. No word on whether
there have been any fires involving V-22s in Iraq, which were the
first to have a nacelle fire prevention fix installed. What happens is
hydraulic and other flammable fluids leak inside the nacelle and then
get ignited by hot engine components.

Marine Corps public relations folks were busy through the winter
months touting the successful debut of the long sought V-22 Osprey in
Iraq and what a wonderful job it was doing carrying laundry and mail,
generals and VIPs, and the occasional* batch of Marines or Iraqi
troops around Iraq. Osprey fan Christian Lowe at Defense Tech posted
his own V-22 in action video online earlier this week.

The long awaited Iraq deployment was effectively a chance to show the
Osprey could make good on all of the many feats Bell, Boeing and the
Marines have promised it could deliver and make sure the even longer
awaited big contract was awarded.

The Marines have acknowledged that the Osprey's reliability in Iraq
(and
stateside) continues to be less than desired and now have said the
aircraft's engines are wearing way too fast. Then this week we learned
of another significant problem that has popped up in Iraq.

It seems that the oil cooling system that supplies both a generator
and one of the tilt-rotor gearboxes has a nasty tendency to go bad,
allowing temperatures to rise to levels that could damage the gear box
components. On four occasions V-22s at forward bases were grounded
until repairs could be made. Generators aboard the aircraft had a
problem with its oil cooling system.

An internal Marine memorandum says it has been very fortunate that the
cooling system hasn't failed in flight and forced a flight crew to
make an emergency landing in hostile territory. The memo says the oil
cooling system is lasting just 25 percent of its expected life.