Save The V-22 And Avoid Another FSX Fiasco

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., director of the Center for Security Policy, today released an analysis critiquing the Bush Administration’s decision to terminate the V-22 Osprey program. This aircraft is the only American aircraft design to incorporate successfully "tiltrotor" technology — an engineering breakthrough that enables a plane to take-off and land like a helicopter and to convert in flight so as to fly as efficiently and as fast as a conventional aircraft.

In releasing The Next FSX Fiasco at a congressional press conference held outside the National Air and Space Museum, Gaffney said, "Thanks to its investment of over $2 billion in developing the V-22, the United States is today the acknowledged world-leader in tiltrotors. If the Nation now proceeds with production of the Osprey — first to meet the urgent requirements of the Marine Corps and subsequently for myriad other military and civilian purposes — it stands to secure a dominant position in one of the most promising and potentially lucrative sectors of the aerospace industry."

Gaffney added, "If Congress adopts the Bush Administration’s recommendations, however, and terminates the V-22 program at this point, several undesirable — and entirely avoidable — consequences will result:

• "First, the U.S. military will be denied precisely the sort of flexible, multi-purpose, advanced technology systems we should be investing in the so-called Post-Cold War world.

 

• "Second, the opportunities to apply the tiltrotor technology to solving urgent U.S. civil transportation needs — like the gridlock at urban airports and shortfalls in air service to rural communities — will be foregone, at least in the near-term.

 

• "And third, we will find ourselves buying our own technology back from the Japanese — as was widely feared would be the result of the FSX deal — or others. There are many overseas who have the wit to appreciate the tiltrotor’s vast potential and the wherewithal to pursue it through the final validation, production and certification stages. Foreign enterprises are poised to capitalize on the results of U.S. technology should the United States make the mistake of leaving the job of bringing Osprey on-line to the U.S. commercial aviation industry (which is traditionally reluctant to bankroll even extremely promising but unorthodox new designs)."

Click here for copies of The Next FSX Fiasco.