May justice be with her.
Looks to be the same hard clutch issue that's been plaguing the USAF which has forced them to ground their own CV-22 fleet -
What's 'incredible' about this is that the US armed services that fly all of those Osprey variants i.e. USAF, USMC and USN have all known about the clutch slippage issue since 2010. Instead of fixing the engines they just treat it as part of the "emergency control measures" if/when it does occur -
Doubly incredible is that the USAF has the good sense to say "enough is enough" and ground their own fleet, while the Marines and the Navy are still flying them and relegate the problem as part of the Osprey's operating procedures for the pilots to deal with during flight...
One can argue whether that's justifiable, but from the USMC and the USN's POV their position is somewhat understandable considering they've effectively pigeonholed themselves into flying the Ospreys exclusively, particularly on flattops, since it's not like they can go back to flying CH-64s and C-2s respectively; whereas the USAF has plenty of alternatives that they can afford to ground the Ospreys without meaningful loss of capabilities, and the same goes for the JSDF.
What's 'incredible' about this is that the US armed services that fly all of those Osprey variants i.e. USAF, USMC and USN have all known about the clutch slippage issue since 2010. Instead of fixing the engines they just treat it as part of the "emergency control measures" if/when it does occur -
Doubly incredible is that the USAF has the good sense to say "enough is enough" and ground their own fleet, while the Marines and the Navy are still flying them and relegate the problem as part of the Osprey's operating procedures for the pilots to deal with during flight...
One can argue whether that's justifiable, but from the USMC and the USN's POV their position is somewhat understandable considering they've effectively pigeonholed themselves into flying the Ospreys exclusively, particularly on flattops, since it's not like they can go back to flying CH-64s and C-2s respectively; whereas the USAF has plenty of alternatives that they can afford to ground the Ospreys without meaningful loss of capabilities, and the same goes for the JSDF.
Hope that got -really-fixed soon.
Osprey is a pinnacle of engineering of combining contradictory characteristics between good VTOL ability of a helicopter and range-speed of an aircraft. The compromise is of course complexities which brings reliability issues and a transitionary flying regime from VTOL to aircraft which are challenging.
Osprey is a pinnacle of engineering of combining contradictory characteristics between good VTOL ability of a helicopter and range-speed of an aircraft. The compromise is of course complexities which brings reliability issues and a transitionary flying regime from VTOL to aircraft which are challenging.
The SPY-7 seems very identical with SPY-6/AMDR except it's made by Lockheed instead Raytheon and have Japanese components.
Unfortunately there are no figures for the size of SPY-7 yet. But assuming 6.1 m diameter US Navy requirement for "Future ballistic missile threat" and similar architecture as SPY-6. The resulting radar would be an 82 RMA Radar, having area of roughly 29.2 square meters.
This radar would have 29 dB Loop gain/sensitivity improvements over baseline Aegis but only 3 dB over 69 RMA variant. It will have range of approximately 1475 Km against 2 sqm target RCS and 329 km against 0.005 sqm target RCS. Doing a horizon barrier search and target RCS (which is a side of a ballistic missile) with RCS of about 10 sqm It would be able to detect it at roughly 2205 Km.
Unfortunately there are no figures for the size of SPY-7 yet. But assuming 6.1 m diameter US Navy requirement for "Future ballistic missile threat" and similar architecture as SPY-6. The resulting radar would be an 82 RMA Radar, having area of roughly 29.2 square meters.
This radar would have 29 dB Loop gain/sensitivity improvements over baseline Aegis but only 3 dB over 69 RMA variant. It will have range of approximately 1475 Km against 2 sqm target RCS and 329 km against 0.005 sqm target RCS. Doing a horizon barrier search and target RCS (which is a side of a ballistic missile) with RCS of about 10 sqm It would be able to detect it at roughly 2205 Km.
29dB is almost 1,000 times more powerful than the SPY-1 radar. That’s 10 times the range against an equivalent target.
The SPY-1D(V) “can track golf ball-sized targets at ranges in excess of 165 kilometers.” A golf ball-size (1.68 inches diameter) metallic sphere corresponds to radar cross section of about 0.0025 m2 at 3.3 GHz. This is most likely for short dwells on target in volume search. Longer dwells can significantly increase radar range.
Therefore, I suspect the SPY-7 radar’s range against a 0,005m2 target would be at least on the order of 2,000km. Possibly more if using longer dwells.
what use is this to Japan? The only place they can safely and usefully deploy these is northwest of Hokkaido at the corner of the Sea of Japan. Otherwise they're food for Russian shore based missiles, naval aviation and subs in the Kurils, Chinese sub/missile/air complex in the East China Sea, etc. it still doesn't get around the question of the radar horizon. Finally, we know that almost every Japanese project is over budget and under capability.