The Air Force may accelerate the combat debut of the CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to avoid a decrease in the vertical-lift capabilities available to the special operations community as the service’s remaining MH-53 Pave Low helicopters are phased out over the next 18 months, Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley said recently.
Moseley said the frustratingly slow pace at which Air Force Special Operations Command is acquiring the special-mission Ospreys is causing the service to consider moving the CV-22s that it has into the Middle East/Near East region sooner rather than later instead of waiting for its first Osprey unit to receive additional aircraft and be formally declared ready for combat.
“In light of the slow production rate, we are looking at options to deploy the CV-22 pre-initial operational capability,” the chief said during his speech on the closing day of the Air Force Association’s 2007 Air and Space Conference and Technology Exposition in Washington, D.C. This action, he said, would be “to prevent a mission impact and loss on U.S. Special Ops Command in its vertical lift and covert insertion capability.”
The Air Force currently has only six CV-22s, Moseley said. The service’s program of record is to acquire 50 CV-22s, with all in the inventory in 2017. The original combat-ready date was 2009.
Bell Helicopter Textron [TXT] and Boeing [BA] build the Osprey. The Marine Corps’ version of the Osprey, the MV-22, is now headed to the Persian Gulf.
The Air Force’s MH-53s are simply wearing out. Moseley used the example of the MH-53M that had a hard landing earlier this month at Duke Field, Fla., as an example of the challenges and dangers of operating old platforms.
This particular helicopter, he said, was built in 1969 and has 12,000 flying hours, more than 1,000 hours above the average for the Pave Low fleet.
Among its rich history, this Pave Low was used in the evacuation of Saigon in 1975, he said. The aircraft returned to the United States in May after a one-year combat tour in Iraq, its fourth rotation to that combat theater, he said.
The Air Force Pave Low fleet now stands at 21, given the loss of six in combat and the gradual drawdown of the fleet that has been ongoing, he said.
“Over the course of the next year and a half, we will eventually retire the remaining MH-53s,” Moseley said. “There is a good chance that the last MH-53 sortie will actually be flown in combat.”