Nobody asked me, but … Technological Superiority

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can go twice as far as a helicopter on the same amount of fuel at twice the speed. Marine Corps tilt rotors could truly self-deploy around the world. Once in the theater of operations, they could immediately provide air mobile support to the ground forces. In ad­dition, in peacetime, the tilt rotors’ range and speed allow the self-deploy­ment of marines with their aircraft to training areas from Alaska to Twenty- Nine Palms to Panama.

Preliminary tests show that external load operations below the XV-15 is no more difficult than below a uh-in helicopter. A Bell flight test engineer walked under a hovering XV-15, which I was flying, to inspect the landing gear during one of the early flights without difficulty. Scaling the preliminary test data to the gross weight of the HXM tilt rotor indicates the downwash will be acceptable for sling load operations.

When the XV-15 reaches the airplane mode, the rotor blade loads reduce to very low levels. In helicopters, these blade loads in forward flight are a major source of vibration and low fatigue life on many helicopter components. They reduce reliability and increase the maintenance required to maintain read­iness. The tilt rotor’s low flight loads will improve maintainability and reli­ability. This is expected to significantly reduce the operating costs when com­pared with a helicopter.

The first active duty military pilot to fly the XV-15 was Marine Corps Ma­jor Bill Lawrence, a Patuxent R'^v«^r pilot. After his introductory stated: “I was favorably impresse such areas as ground handling <l^u j ties, low noise vibration le^ve s, ^ maneuverability. . . ■ Low airsp ^ handling qualities were compara ^ superior to those you would fin ⁱⁿ . conventional helicopter. The ai showed a pleasing capacity to main desired flight parameters such as

speed, altitude, rate-of-descent,

bank angles.”                   . _t0

I believe tilt rotor is far ^suP^er^ _afl the helicopter, and the utility 0 XV-15-type aircraft would be ‘^nva ^_ent strategically to the Rapid Depl°y _uj_{ Force and tactically in a lower a t* air-superiority role.

Nobody asked me, but . . .

Technological Superiority

The people who preach the watch­word of technological superiority ap­pear to believe that we are truly su­perior in this area. To one who cut his teeth on the 1.1-inch machine gun and the Mk-l4 torpedo, it is ob­vious that such superiority must have emerged since World War II.

When I think back on my postwar duty—there were the amplidyne drives continually burning out; the failure of Weapon Able; the hedge­hogs which landed on deck; the alu­minum superstructure which fell to pieces during structural test shots; ad infinitum. So this technological revo­lution must have occurred since 1960.

But a quick look at the present state of affairs is hardly reassuring.

We find the F-18 aircraft suddenly higher in cost than the complex air­craft of the hi-lo mix, yet less capable than the specifications for the simple aircraft. Or we may consider the de­velopment problems of the Trident submarine, which require no further comment. The question begins to arise, are we even equal to the Soviet Union in technology?

A brief review of history reveals that we have always lagged in the in­novation of weapons. We start new thinking with some “scientific fool­ing around” but never seem to get beyond that. We did not manage to field either the first operational or the first “built from the keel up” aircraft carrier. After some period of stum­bling, we imported our designs for World War II submarines. We are still fumbling around with building and operating the Harrier v/STOL fighter while the Soviets’ Yak-36 “Forgers” pile up operating time off Soviet carriers. We are beginning to install a Gatling gun close-in missile defense on our ships, while faded pic­tures of the Soviet Sverdlov cruiser show the Gatling concept installed years ago. And we proudly announce the installation of the Harpoon sur­face-to-surface missile (ssm) on our ships more than a decade after a So­

viet “Styx” missile fired from ^an^ Egyptian gunboat sank the Isra ^ stroyer Eilat. (A cursory exarmo^_vS of any treatise on world navies almost every Third World g^un armed with some SSM, be it ^ j_s. “Styx,” the French Exocet, or t ^ ^ raeli Gabriel.) A final example ^c found in the shipboard vertica j_s launch concept. While our ^sy^st^j_ear- still being tested, the Soviet ^nU , powered Kirov battle cruiser is tional with the concept.                     ,qs,

In the late 1920s and early French Defense Minister not endorsed the concept of ^a ^ ^ impervious defense line running _a length of France’s border for ^use jj₀^- defense against invasion, while ing France’s conventional fo^rceS ^ fall into disrepair. Let us hop^e ^ this dependence on technology periority, as a substitute for ₍

numbers of trained and intell'F¹ >^ve personnel and the equipment ^ them, does not become our Line.