Osprey learning sea borne deployment

The crew of the US Bataan and its Marine air wing have become the Navy’s premier experts at operating the MV-22 Osprey aboard ships, mostly by making it up as they go along.

“It’s always something new, different and unexpected,” said Cmdr. Dan Olson, the ship’s air boss. “We are constantly trying to figure out stuff we don’t have published guidance for, and we’re always writing notes, e-mails off to spread what we know.”

When the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit sailed in May, they became the first ARG and MEU to deploy with Ospreys only — and none of the Corps’ old-standby CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and his entourage climbed aboard one of Bataan’s 10 Ospreys on Aug. 7 in Kuwait to experience the rocket-ship liftoff and silky fixed-wing flight out to the underway Bataan.

Olson said the ships in the ARG have become good at working the Ospreys into air operations, but unexpected things still crop up. “It can slow down operations, it’s cumbersome, it takes up more space on the flight deck than other aircraft,” he said.

Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 and the crew of the Bataan have added more safety observers to keep an eye on the Ospreys and the flight deck crew members who work under the cyclonic downwash from their massive rotors.

Managing Ospreys on Bataan is just one part of the challenge. The tiltrotors also must take off and land from the other ships in the ARG, both of which have much smaller flight decks than Bataan. Capt. Sara Faibisoff, an Osprey pilot with VMM-263, said the small-deck gators could accommodate two Ospreys comfortably.

“It’s not that bad at all,” she said. “You make a slow approach, put it down and there’s plenty of space.”

The main difference with landing on small-deck gators is the damage its engine exhaust does to flight decks. An Osprey’s twin nacelles blast heat downward when a V-22 is in helicopter mode. Crew members aboard the small-deck amphibs have taken to setting up metal pads, known as “hot plates,” underneath the nacelles while an Osprey’s engines are running on the flight deck.

“We touch down, they run them in, and then they take them away before we launch,” Faibisoff said.

The Osprey had many skeptics aboard this ship and in Iraq’s western Anbar province, where it deployed last year, because of the controversy surrounding the aircraft’s quarter-century of development, its high cost, and crashes that killed more than two dozen Marines.

“When we were first flying up there, people didn’t want to fly in them — they were scared,” Faibisoff said. “It takes getting used to.”

 

U.S. Navy gets some AIP experience – not ours tho’

We talked before about we feel that the US Navy has made a narrow minded decision to only have nuclear powered subs in the fleet. It’s the humble opinion of this layperson observer that we should diverseify with a mix of nuclear boomers, large and ICBM equipped, smaller, nuclear attack and special ops boats plus a contingent of smaller, ultra quiet AIP subs. These smaller AIP subs would be ideal for covert missions plus sneakin’ and peakin’ at targets at sea and inland. “Course what do we know ? – We’re watching from the sidelines as the chess game at sea unfolds between increasing numbers of international AIP subs and our outstanding fleet that’s getting smaller in numbers.

In the past the US Navy has spent some time with the Swedish attack submarine HMS Gotland at Naval Air Station North Island, Calif., in 2005 conducting a one-year bilateral training effort with the U.S. Navy’s anti-submarine warfare (ASW) forces. Now our forces have a chance to spend some time with Italian submariners when the ITS Scire pays a visit the Mayport Naval Station, Florida to take part in a Joint Task Force Exercise. Including the Scire, 13 ships from nine countries will work with the U.S. strike group centered on the strike group led by the USS Harry S. Truman, is designed to test the group’s reaction to a variety of wartime scenarios as the carrier prepares for an upcoming deployment. For its part, the Scire will both work within the task force and serve as an enemy, allowing the Navy’s submarine hunters to do their job.

The Scire has a 28-man crew and is the most modern vessel in the Italian fleet. From its high-tech fuel cell engine to its automated torpedo loading system, the ITS Scire has advanced technology crammed into its narrow body. The crew’s focus will be on leveraging their technology, particularly a fuel cell that produces electricity from hydrogen and oxygen, allowing the boat to stay submerged for three weeks while running completely silently. The propulsion system is a combination of a conventional diesel generator with a lead acid battery and a fuel cell equipped with oxygen and hydrogen storage. The fuel cell system is comprised of nine Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cells, each of these cells providing between 30 kW and 50 kW.

The Todaro-class submarine comes out of a joint Italian-German project started in the 1990s, focused on producing a virtually undetectable vessel with a much lower magnetic, acoustic and thermal signature than other subs. The “Salvatore Todaro” was delivered to the Italian Navy in mid 2005, followed by the sister boat “Scire” in mid 2006. The two Italian boats and four German type 212A boats are submarines of the 212A class, using a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell plant, which produces electrical energy from oxygen and hydrogen, permits this class of submarines to cruise under water for weeks without surfacing.

The 212A class is designed with

with a highly integrated Command & Weapons Control System which interfaces with sensors, weapons and navigation system. There are six torpedo tubes in two groups of three. Type 212 is equipped with a water ram expulsion system for torpedo launch. The submarine is equipped with an automatic torpedo loading system. For countermeasures the sub is equipped with effectors which are jammers and decoys with hydrophones and acoustic emitters.