The CV-22 Osprey makes its descent onto Hurlburt Field, the first Air Force base to receive the operational aircraft. (Photo courtesy of AFSOC History Office)
By James Teeple, Lt Col, USAF (Retired) The Air Force’s CV-22 acquisition process was a monumental, multifaceted effort that orchestrated so many simultaneous tasks: defending the military need for tiltrotor capabilities, fighting for and sustaining political support, while also developing and fielding transformational technology. To accomplish those major lines of effort, the HQ AFSOC acquisition team had to create, demonstrate, and deliver unique joint, as well as Service-specific, testing, training, and force structure management processes and programs before AFSOC’s Ospreys could be fielded for operational use. As a quick point of clarification, the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey is the name of the basic tiltrotor aircraft. US Marine Corps Ospreys are designated MV-22s, while the Air Force’s special operations Ospreys are called CV-22s, reflecting the AFSOC mission to focus on long-range infiltration, exfiltration and resupply of special operations forces into hostile or denied territory. Assigning the “M” prefix to the Marines’ version is a peculiarity in the US military aircraft naming conventions, as M is normally reserved for special mission aircraft such as AFSOC’s MC-130s or the Army’s MH-47 special operations Chinook helicopters.
This article will cover the period, 1993 to 1999, when the Department of the Navy, USMC, and AFSOC were developing the initial capability requirements that became the V-22. During this period, which ended with full scale development (FSD) and the concurrent flight and operational testing in 1997 described elsewhere in this issue of ACJ. AFSOC crewmembers participated with USMC aircrews and test pilots to accomplish the initial flight testing. Our HQ AFSOC acquisition team developed a comprehensive training system concept and designed the early force structure management programs to field the weapons system. Getting to initial operational capability and full operational capability would take several years after this early acquisition phase. You can read about those efforts in the other articles in this issue. It is no exaggeration to say there were very few people or organizations who believed the CV-22 had any chance of becoming the aircraft that would revolutionize how AFSOC engaged target sets around the world. But in the summer of 1993, new life was injected into the Air Force’s acquisition effort. This story offers a brief overview of the challenges and successes across Services, major commands, and headquarters
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staffs that resulted in AFSOC joining the tiltrotor world.
Requirements Development and Approval The CV-22 program fell under an Acquisition Category level 1 (ACAT) program, meaning its funding was projected to exceed $2.7 billion. Just the cost of 50 V-22 airframes alone, without special operations modifications, was in the $5 billion range. AFSOC’s Plans and Programs office (then called XP, now A5) and the AFSOC CV-22 Command Systems Management group was charged with completing the Air Force’s requirements document and getting it through the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) at the Joint Chiefs of Staff in less than six months. Due to the level of detail required and the scrutiny leveled on high-dollar programs, especially the multi-billion dollar ones, this is a task that normally takes a couple of years. Our first task was to fully explain and justify the operational and sustainment requirements for SOF tiltrotor capabilities in an Operational Requirements Document (ORD). An older version of the ORD existed, but it did not adequately reflect what the www.aircommando.org
