The first US Navy CMV-22B Osprey, replacing the C-2 Greyhound, has arrived at Patuxent River after completing its ferry flight from Bell’s Amarillo Assembly Center in Texas.
This is the first of two CMV-22B aircraft assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (HX) 21, the squadron leading the developmental test efforts for the programme, say the US Navy.
“Accepting the first aircraft and ferrying it to Patuxent River to continue developmental testing is a critical step forward for the program,” said U.S. Marine Corps Col. Matthew Kelly, program manager for the V-22 Joint Program Office (PMA-275).
“Our government – industry team can be proud of this milestone as we prepare to put the CMV-22B through testing which will ensure it is ready to support the Navy anywhere around the world.”
HX-21 and Bell conducted the aircraft’s first flight in December prior to transiting cross-country.
The first operational squadron, Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission Squadron (VRM) 30, is scheduled to receive the aircraft in summer 2020 and operational test is slated to begin in early 2021.
The CMV-22B is a variant of the MV-22B and is the replacement for the C-2A Greyhound for the Carrier Onboard Delivery (COD) mission. The aircraft will be used to transport personnel, mail, supplies and high-priority cargo from shore bases to aircraft carriers at sea.
The CMV-22B will be capable of transporting up to 6,000 pounds of cargo and/or personnel over a 1,150 nautical mile range. This expanded range is due to the addition of two new 60 gallon tanks installed in the wing for an additional 120 gallons of fuel and the forward sponson tanks were redesigned for additional capacity.
CMV-22B is scheduled to achieve initial operational capability in 2021.
Sorry, you still can’t have one…nice as it is!
Like every story on here, there will be a plethora of posters saying we should have X number for lots of really good sounding reasons, while conveniently ignoring the fact that we already have a huge hole in the MOD budget. Its nice playing fantasy fleets sometimes though.
Yes it is but it is WRONG! People keep going on about global Britain, free trade deals etc. Well if that is the case keeping our maritime trade routes open is THE national defence priority is it not? If we can spend c£100 billion on a new choo-choo to London we should be able to afford 2 proper carrier air wings, enough proper escorts and attack submarines. If we can’t all sorts of policies & priorities are obviously wrong. The case for a proper uplift in defence spending is surely beyond doubt.
Agree Rob.
I don’t disagree with any of what you say, but there is almost zero chance of this Government raising the defence budget by any significant margin. No votes in it and too many other promises to make, I.e the NHS and infrastructure. I’m afraid Global Britain doesn’t mean more money for the MOD. As a consequence we have to be realistic.
Agreed – so global Britain, a maritime free trade nation is a pipe dream then…
It’s not a pipe dream it’s current reality We have been global and a maritime free trade nation for over half a millennia We have free trade deals already with loads of countries around the world that need replaced after we leave EU proper, we trade massively around the world London is the global hub of world finance bar none, the idea Britain is currently not global is preposterous No new trade routes will be magically appearing because we already use them all After all is said and done and whatever terms of trade we have with the EU (probably… Read more »
This is a defence blog, I’m not being pro or anti Brexit. Just pointing out that if we do more trade around the world and less with Europe we will be more dependent upon keeping global shipping lanes open than before. For example, the Foreign Secretary is trying to do trade deals at the mo in the Far East (Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, S Korea, Australia & New Zealand). That trade will go through the Malacca Strait choke point. Now a global trading nation needs to be able to secure places such as this, maybe we will need to forward deploy… Read more »
I agree Rob, it wouldn’t do to be pro or anti-Brexit on a defence website. I have long argued for impartiality on such matters. However, the idea that Britain could in any way replicate the Pax Britannica of the late C18th is rather fanciful! Other than Hormuz, there isn’t a lot of need for sending a gunboat. I believe that China sells a few bits and bobs to us here in good old Blighty….and where are the Chinese vessels ensuring their trade in the hostile environs of the English channel?
Just because we might do a abit more trade around the world, doesn’t mean we need a shit load more Frigates. How many car transporter ships eg have been attacked recently coming over from Japan or China…..err, none
The Malaca Strait has been an issue for decades. When ever I was on a deployed vessel in that part of the world we took anti piracy measures at night and we where a warship.
That said I cannot think of a single time that world trade has stopped because of piracy in the Straits. Yes it would be great to have a far east flotillatactically and realistically it’s not required. Strategically it would be more of a political statement than a real world solution to piracy.
But we arnt at war Rob, so why should we spend billions more on defence, the sea lanes and trade routes have remained open quite nicely with what we have now. We have built 2 superb aircraft carrier’s, but it’s never been the intention to operate both with full airwings of F35’s. same as the Americans don’t have enough airwings to man all 11 carriers. The T26,T31 and current T45 and Astute are truly world class capabilities. The country has voted for more NHS and public services spending, so we have to be realistic about what is coming to defence… Read more »
Problem is we don’t appear to have a lot to show for that 40 Billion! When you bear in mind the carriers cost just over 3 Billion each……..you have to ask where the hell is it all going? They Type 31 Corvette is not world class……..
Not alot to show for 40 billion? We have a true global blue water Navy, a independent nuclear deterrent, one of the most deployable Army’s on the planet. And one of the most capable air forces, yes, we aren’t the biggest, but our people, training and equipment is world beating. We are entering into service 2 x 65k ton aircraft carriers, and buying a fleet of 5th gen fighters to fly off them, only the Americans can generate such capability. Other nations have such as Australia buy very nice equipment, but they don’t have the full spectrum warfighight capabilities we… Read more »
If only…….our blue water Navy is made up of aging vessels with the near obsolete Harpoon missile as it’s only offensive anti ship capability. Our new carriers have no point defence missile systems, and although QE can have 4 x Phalanx fitted, so far the navy has fitted 2?? Add to that our F35B purchase is so slow we cannot raise more than 12 for QE’s initial deployment in 2021. We have carriers without aircraft. The RAFs 7 x E3Ds will be heading for the scrapyard because we failed dismally to update them, replacing them with just 5 E6 wedgetails.… Read more »
The carriers don’t need defence missiles, we have T45 Destroyers for that, and a layered air defence system. The Invincible class carriers (which I served on) survived for over 20 years without missiles. The F35 buy rate is slow, but even a small number of F35’s is fantastic capability. QE will deploy with 24 F35’s in 2021, yes, some of those will be USMC, but it won’t be to long before we can deploy 24 or more British F35’s. 5 E7 wedgtails will eclipse the capability of the Sentry fleet, and we have only had 4 in service for many… Read more »
RobW-do you know what a plethora is? If not, watch the Movie the Three Amigos!
I can”t tell if you are just joking or being condescending. But yes I do thanks.
Sorry Rob-let me clarify. Definitely not being condescending-100% joking. To understand- You Tube-The three Amigos-“What is a Plethora”-an iconic scene
Regards
Ah ok no worries. Despite being in my mid 40s I haven’t seen that film. I’ll check out that scene!
Nice, can we a have 3 or 4 maybe for transport, refuelling and AEW on QE class?
Please treasury??
Don’t need them for transport or refuelling. For transport we have Merlins. Any uplift in fleet air transport should be via more Merlins. For refuelling: F35B, whilst it has a shorter range than the C variant, it still has a combat radius in excess of 500 miles. I’m unsure what situations they will truly need to fly much more than 500 miles away from the carrier. There may well be some but I don’t believe it’s enough to justify hundreds of millions spent on Ospreys for carrier-based midair refuelling. A better, far cheaper alternative is conformal fuel tanks. They would… Read more »
Transport: Extended ship to shore large load trans would be very helpful – why do you think the American’s have it? Refuelling: F35B has an operational range of 500 miles. Well that’s good and a major uplift from the Harrier but modern hypersonic ASMs have ranges beyond 1000 miles. Any future peer on peer engagement (that means the Russians) need to be kept at maximum arms reach. Since we don’t have the proper carrier variant F35 it would seem wise to provide refuelling so that that reach out as far as possible. AEW: The Merlin Crowsnest, despite being good, doesn’t… Read more »
What anti ship missile has a 1,000 mile range? I don’t know of any. Ballistic missiles do but F35 won’t be able to counter that. For that we need ABM defences, which will be put onto the Type 45s. Conformal fuel tanks are so much cheaper, require little to no maintenance and can extend the F35s’ reach dramatically. I’d rather save the money and put it into something else. As for ship to shore, or even ship to ship, we have Chinooks. We already have them and if we need more they are cheaper to both procure and to run.… Read more »
Conformal fuel tanks fitted to a F-35B, and fully loaded with fuel, could Exceeded the F-35B take-off STOVL weight Limit, most likely.
Hypersonic anti ship missiles are a pipe dream straight from a Tom Clancy novel. They are years away from being a credible threat. And believe it or not, but even finding something as large as a aircraft carrier in a very vast ocean, let alone getting a accurate firing solution is incredibly hard.
Finally someone who understands the complexity of Anti Ship Missile warfare!!
If you cannot find something you cannot shoot at it.
Right let’s have a discussion about Zippo calls next…. I’m feeling nostalgic.
Haha, ex RN mate, so do have some understanding of how all this works. Some on this site haven’t a clue, they just think we are going to be invaded by Russia or China any day now, so we must have huge numbers of everything! ??
Before choosing the V-22 to replace the Greyhound, the USN checked that they could transfer the engine from an F-35b onboard, direct to an LPH. I don’t suppose a Merlin could do that.
Chinook could as an underslung load. Rather easily as well.
Bur not very far, which is the point of COD – the carrier can stay far offshore on mission while urgent transfers of personnel and kit can be flown too and from land-bases without the ship having to divert. A Chinook could lift one from a support ship to a carrier (if anyone had remembered to back one), but if one was needed to be sent from the UK (or an urgent medical case the other direction) then the carrier would need to divert to the nearest friendly coastline until it got into CH-47 underslung load range, (which is not… Read more »
As we have been through a large number of times, on here and on SRN, drop tanks don’t help unless you sacrifice weapons load for fuel. The reasoning behind drop tanks is so you can get off the deck with a big weapons load (max take of weight) add fuel in the air (to max flight weight which is always more than take off weight). You then burn the fuel and maybe drop some weapons so that you end up below max landing weight which is always less than max flight weight and usually less than max take off weight.… Read more »
Dunno about the treasury, but the USMC are bringing Ospreys with them when they embark on the QE for her first deployment next year. I can see a scenario where a clear case will be made for a UK purchase.
Why is there all this fuss about V22?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM5AI3YSV3M
Not the safest of contraptions. We need more Merlins and the like now….
Can they shut down one engine in an emergency?
I don’t believe they can, no. V22 is very expensive and I think we should look at what we would want it to do before ordering them. – Troop transport: already can be done by Merlins and Chinook – Transport of heavy goods from ship to ship or ship to shore: already can be done by Chinook. – Midair refuelling of our F35s: i believe CFTs are a better way forward to extend their range. Both procurement and maintenance would be a fraction of the cost of V22. – AEW: this is the only area I think it could be… Read more »
Actually the V-22 has been very safe in service. There were 2 fatal accidents in the early days with ring vortex issues, once these were understood and mitigated it has had a very good service record.
But there are a number of Merlin HM.1’s in storage that we need restored to HM.2 configuration far ahead of any mythical V-22 purchase. In reality CMV-22 would be near the bottom of any RN purchasing wish list.
Nope, we need Ospreys! Someone at the MOD seems fairly serious about using the POW as an LPH. That being the case we need the range and speed of the Osprey to be able to airlift troops in from a greater range rather than put one of carriers in serious danger. Either that or build an LPH and speed up the F35B order so we can create two full carrier airwings
Before we play fantasy fleets, does anyone know the unit cost of a CMV-22? Not the usual MV-22 Wiki answer please.
Best guess on the interweb, is between $70 to $100 million. So my fantasy RN FAA fleet of 12 V-22 (6x CMV-22, 6x MV-22) would probably cost $1.1 billion. We have no money, oh wait, Boris has found £106 billion for HS2 & £5 billion to b*gger up the congested roads with more cycle lanes.
You can’t compare infrastructure spending to defence spending, the HS2 budget would last about 2.5 years in the hands of the MOD. And such a HS2 budget is spread out over about 15- 20 years.
Well you would get 30 years of service out of a V-22. A Pound is a Pound. If you really want a long term return, build the Severn & Wash barriers at £20 to £30 billion each, as they would be producing electricity for the next 150-300 years.
Can these be stowed below decks?
Yeah they can, the carriers were designed with this in mind, they can also take a chinook on the lifts.
They actually fold up spectacularly well.
Buy 3 for the SAS CRW Wing.
Why else has a runway appeared at Credenhill?
Incase we need to use USAF examples would be my guess. So nice to have a few of our own.
The landing pads were always behind the gym, and now there is some serious hard standing and a strip, which can take multiple types mate, and a small number of these babies are seriously considered, to come out of the SF budget, which is increasing, and more importantly, gets priority. We will wait and see. Cheers Daniele.
Exactly my understanding mate, thank you.
It is not a proper runway as such, but neither is it a heli pad. It has the usual 08 – 26 runway markings at each end.
I was asking here a few months back whether V22 took of vertically or took a short run up first, before climb. The vids I have seen show this take off, which was why I speculate that this “runway” has appeared for SF use.
We know DSF would like some of these as the CT standby squadron can get to an incident faster than using the Dauphins.
Would they be nice to have, sure but would they bring a lot to tha party for the cost, no. This site back in 2018 wrote a good comparision of the V-22 vs the Chinook, yes the V-22 has twice the range, double the speed, they do however have about half of the the troop capacity but are double the cost in both purchasing and operations. So what extras would you get, well anti submarine work, but the RN has the very capabile Merlin for that, Airborne Early Warning, but that has not been developed, air-to -air refueling that is… Read more »
Ron – I’m sure changing an Engine on an F35b aboard a Carrier is a reasonably routine operation.
Just reread my post, last sentence should be F35 engines on the F35B, a supersonic V-22, ah well wishful type error.
This goes back to the USMC buying the F-35C , Navy actually just wanted the old Jigs pulled out of storage and more C-2’s produced but both parties needed reduction in costs through numbers . Australia currently has all the heavy lift it needs through Ten CH-47’s operated by the Army but again we have the USMC trying to push the CH-53K to the Australian Navy instead of two future projects that are neither aviation related .