Industry and Technology

Protecting the Tiltrotor Industrial Base

By CAPT Chris “chet” Misner, USN (Ret)

These are my personal views as I ruminate on the recently signed budget and the future of the CMV.

Now that the FY-23 budget is a done-deal, we can spend a little time thinking about what each service received for funding. I have seen a few articles making the point that adding Hornets to the Navy's budget was necessary to protect the Strike Fighter Industrial base. Seems reasonable, but what about for the F-35 line over at Lockheed Martin? However, this does bring up a fair point. As we look towards the future of rotary wing aviation across all the services, we need to be aware of protecting the industrial base. As we look towards the use of tiltrotor aircraft across all the services, we must look to Bell. If in fact Bell is successful with its V-280 Valor to win the FLRAA contract, that means we need to have the production capability right here in Texas to meet that future demand - a lot of demand. The Bell Team in Amarillo, along with their Boeing counterpart in Philadelphia that manufactures the V-22 fuselage, produces the V-22. Bell will be able to leverage decades of experience in designing, building, testing and operating tiltrotors from which the Army will benefit. Not only will the Army benefit, but the services that follow will benefit from the millions of dollars spent on R & D. In the case of the Navy, and possibly the Marine Corps, they will likely be further down the line for a tiltrotor FVL aircraft (manned or UAS).

The Navy will need to quickly learn how to operate the CMV, and just as quickly decide if they will need more to expand the CMV's role beyond just a C-2 replacement. The potential for the CMV to take on some additional roles as the Navy marches, or I guess sails towards their own H-60 replacement, or Navy Future Maritime Strike, is there. If we believe we are looking at a potential conflict with a near peer competitor out west, then the Navy must look to Bell Boeing to continue to produce the V-22 to the end of the decade. Keeping the production line going in Amarillo will not be just some Congressional Staffer's pet project. Protecting the industrial base in Amarillo will be as important to the services as it will to the Navy. The industrial base question isn’t only about producing new aircraft. Those production lines will be critical to sustaining all the variants of the Osprey to the 2050s and beyond.

The difference between the industrial base argument that got the Hornets the CNO didn't want and the Navy doesn’t need ,and the industrial base question in the case of Texas and “Philly,” is Bell in Texas (and Boeing in Philly) offers the Nation's ONLY tiltrotor industrial capability. This is an argument that needs some attention. The word "only" cannot be taken lightly. In a response to one of my LinkedIn posts, a colleague wrote, “Logistics movement within an increasingly disbursed Indo-Pacom maritime force is an imperative. The tilt rotor method of addressing those logistical challenges has real value, even in a contested logistical environment. If we lose the ability to manufacture tilt rotors at scale, it is incredibly expensive (in time and money) to restore that ability.” This last point is spot-on!

If we are talking about protecting an industrial base, that final assembly and nacelle work only happens in Texas. Protecting the Nation's "only" tiltrotor industrial base isn't just about Texas jobs and defense contracts, it is a national security imperative and it must be protected.

A CVM-22B Osprey, from the "Sunhawks" of VRM-50, takes off from the flight deck of USS Nimitz (CVN 68). U.S.

Editor's Note CAPT Misner is a retired H-60 pilot who commanded HS15, NAS Kingsville, and is currently employed as a Senior Manager at Bell and serves as the Bell-Boeing Team Osprey Co-Lead. These are his personal views.

A CVM-22B Osprey, from the "Sunhawks" of VRM-50, takes off from the flight deck of USS Nimitz (CVN 68). U.S.