Lessons of the War with Iraq (Part 3): Use the V-22 for Combat Search and Rescue

(Washington, D.C.): As part of its
ongoing effort to identify lessons from
the war with Iraq and to recommend
appropriate changes in U.S. policy and
programs, the Center for Security Policy
today urged Defense Secretary
Cheney to relent in his campaign to deny
the United States state-of-the-art
tilt-rotor technology. It called upon him
to commit at least one of the
flying prototypes of the Marine’s V-22
aircraft to emergency use for combat
search and rescue in the war with Iraq.

The Center has long argued that the
nation needs to capitalize on the more
than $2 billion already invested in
proving the feasibility and utility of a
tilt-rotor aircraft — aircraft capable
of vertical take-offs and landings like a
helicopter and horizontal flight at
speeds approaching traditional
propeller-driven planes. The Center is
convinced that not only the Marines
but each of the armed services
have compelling requirements for
transport and special function aircraft
that can be optimally satisfied by the
V-22 Osprey and its derivatives.

An enormously valuable fringe benefit
of bringing such an aircraft to
operational use in the U.S. military,
however, would be the contribution it
would make toward preserving the United
States’ present, distinct competitive
advantage in commercial aviation. As with
many other “national” programs
the Defense Department has pursued for
its own purposes (for example, the
jet engine, the helicopter, the wide-body
jet and space launch vehicles), putting
the Osprey into production for the
military will create the levels of
experience, economies of scale and other
efficiencies necessary to create a civil
tilt-rotor infrastructure.

Alternatively, if Secretary Cheney
were to prevail in his opposition to the
Osprey procurement program — now at the
most critical stage, awaiting a
commitment to initial production —
the United States would neither
have an immensely flexible aircraft for
its military forces nor, as a practical
matter, the basis for supporting
commercial variants. Instead, the
nation’s uniformed and civilian users
would have to buy European or Japanese
versions now under development in order
to obtain the unique benefits of
tilt-rotor technology.

That such a setback would so
unnecessarily be dealt to both the men
and women of our armed forces and the
last bastion of American industrial
competitive advantage — aerospace — is
doubly remarkable in light of
contemporary U.S. experience in the
Persian Gulf. Consider but a few of the
many ways in which the V-22, if
operational today, would be transforming
the character of the conflict:

• Search and Rescue (SAR)
  — Today, pilots and
  aircrews flying deep over enemy
  territory are faced with the
  unhappily high probability of
  falling into enemy hands if they
  are shot down due to
  serious limitations in the range,
  speed and survivability of
  existing SAR aircraft.
  Historical data shows a dramatic
  decrease in the likelihood of
  recovering downed pilots if SAR
  assets cannot be in the vicinity within
  one hour.
• Amphibious Assault —
  Should a ground campaign prove
  necessary, it will almost
  certainly prominently feature a
  flanking action by Marine
  elements coming across the beach
  into Kuwait. The number of lives
  lost in such an operation will be
  dramatically higher than would be
  the case of an assault featuring
  Ospreys as a result of the serious
  constraints imposed on unit
  mobility, speed of movement, lift
  capacity, aircraft survivability,
  etc., associated with current
  generation helicopter assets.
• Special Operations —
  Throughout the theater of
  operations, the capability of
  U.S. and allied special forces to
  disrupt enemy communications,
  leadership functions and
  warfighting capabilities is
  seriously hampered by limitations
  on the means of inserting and
  extracting these forces. The V-22
  is universally regarded by the
  Special Operations community as a
  god-send — a vehicle
  that would greatly enhance the
  contribution these elite units
  can make to saving friendly
  forces’ lives and securing rapid
  victory.
• Emergency Medical
  Evacuation — The
  V-22 is uniquely designed to
  provide collective protection for
  aircrews involved in the movement
  of troops — including evacuation
  of the wounded — into and out of
  a chemically or biologically
  contaminated battlefield. When
  this feature is combined with the
  Osprey’s other qualities —
  especially its speed, range and
  inherent resilience to enemy fire
  — its use in a medical
  evacuation role would translate
  into further American lives
  saved.

In short, if the United States could
take full advantage of the high
technology inherent in the V-22 in the
present conflict, the case for this
investment would be just as clearly
validated as have that associated with
other, previously controversial programs,
such as: cruise missiles and other
precision-guided munitions;
anti-ballistic missile defenses;
low-observable or “stealthy”
airframes; night-vision goggles; AWACS
command and control systems and
space-based navigation assets.
Regrettably, we are unable to do
so today — thanks largely to foolhardy
delays in funding the Osprey development
effort and obstinate refusals by the
executive branch to get on with the
program pursuant to congressional
direction.

Even though such a full scale
deployment of V-22s to the Persian
Gulf is not possible at present,
Secretary Cheney could
immediately direct that one or possibly
two of the prototype aircraft be sent to
the theater for immediate use in
the search and rescue function.
Such a step would not be without risks;
some aspects of the aircraft’s ultimate
operational configuration have not yet
been tested or installed.

Still, there is ample
precedent for dispatching systems that
have yet to be completely checked out
into combat situations in cases where the
need is great and potential benefits
significantly outweigh the likely costs.
The anti-ballistic missile
version of the Patriot missile
and the JSTARS airborne sensor
system are two that come to mind
in the present conflict alone. Where the
lives, safety and morale of U.S. and
allied airmen is directly at stake, the
Center believes the benefits in terms of
markedly enhancing existing search and
rescue capabilities far outweighs the
risks involved in employing the V-22 in
such a limited operational role at this
time.