symposium

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 26, 2001 | by Frank J. Jr. Gaffney, | Christopher Hellman

Then there are more intangible, but no less real, operational considerations. Studies have shown that the V-22's significantly longer range and faster speed may contribute decisively to success on the battlefield. Not least, this can mean losses avoided in a currency we hold even more dear than dollars --the lives of our troops as they fight the nation's wars.

In particular, unlike the alternatives, the Osprey was designed from the ground up to operate in nuclear, biological or chemical (NBC) weapons-contaminated environments. As going into harm's way in the future may well require fighting in such difficult conditions, the armed forces must have the best NBC protection possible.

The V-22 also has been designed to be self-deployable -- a huge, albeit difficult to quantify, contribution to the flexibility and rapidity with which the United States can respond to far-flung crises without tying up already-overcommitted and rapidly aging transport aircraft. Various scenarios that have been modeled suggest the difference may prove to be a timely intervention that makes possible a decisive and low-cost victory on the battlefield on the one hand, and a tardy and insufficient engagement that can incur needless tactical setbacks and human tolls on the other.

These qualities mean that once the Marines have perfected the Osprey, the other armed services are sure to purchase tilt-rotor aircraft in significant quantities. The Air Force already is committed to acquire a derivative of the V-22 to support the nation's special-operations units. In due course, search-and-rescue, combat-medevac and the Army's heliborne forces likely will find the enhanced performance made possible by tilt-rotor technology to be irresistible, with a possibly profound and positive impact on the economies of scale and unit price of each plane. Ditto the very sizable potential for foreign military sales.

There is, however, another powerful argument for the United States to support the Marines in their determined effort to capitalize on the nearly 20-year investment in the V-22 -- an argument that neither 60 Minutes, nor the GAO nor the other critics have addressed: Like GPS, tilt-rotor technology not only will transform how the military performs in combat and in peacetime. It promises to provide a technological and economic windfall to the U.S. civilian sector as well.

At a time when the American people are reeling from the effects of gridlocked airports with little likelihood of additional construction of long-runway facilities to ease the congestion, commercial spinoffs of the V-22 offer the promise of cost-effective and convenient air transport for millions of our countrymen. Imagine the increased productivity and other benefits associated with travel directly from and to relatively austere helipads serving downtown areas hundreds of miles apart at speeds comparable to conventional commuter planes.

What is more, the export potential of such aircraft is potentially huge as well. Keen interest in civilian tilt-rotor technology is being expressed in densely populated countries such as Japan, where real estate and rapid transit are at a premium. They also appear to appreciate the applications of the V-22's technology for such additional nonmilitary purposes as executive transport, package delivery, emergency relief, counterdrug efforts, firefighting and search-and-rescue activities. In fact, if the United States now falters, other nations are sure to exploit the technology developed at considerable cost to the American taxpayer -- and we will wind up buying it back from them.