There are plenty of decoys that create the correct IR signature by the use of heaters.
Plus there are only 24 HAS at Marham...some aircraft have to be elsewhere, and that problem is growing. They've installed a long flightline shelter. Decoys would work very well under that. But more importanty in time of war they'd be really useful at dispersals and creating false targets.
But if we’re at war is Marham of much relevance for the F-35…?
We dont have enough people to support the actual jets, let alone add fake ones.
The best way to track air activities would be mobile phone and social media data of its associated ground personnel. Wherever they are is wherever the jets are. If they’re silent they’re busy…
The Ukrainians had a lot of success tracking Rhssian troop concentrations from their phones, even down to when to hit somewhere (command conferences and bridge crossings).
Remember, this is combat search and rescue, where speed is critical.
The ability to drop people on the ground and pick them up is far, far more critical.
The high downwash is a result of sizing the rotors and wings for the old LHAs, that ended up being out of service before V22s officially entered service. The proper fix is probably a "V-22C" model, that's been stretched about 6ft forward-aft, 6ft longer wingspan, and has 5ft wider diameter rotors.
Interesting, but nobody is going to revist the utter nightmare that was defeloping and certifying the Osprey. That’d be madder than doing it in the first place.
Nope, the USMC absolutely required something with Osprey speed and range. Which means a Tiltrotor of some flavor. The whole deal came out of the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis and attempted rescue.
Hmm they
absolutley wanted something and wrote documents to show that, but they definitely didnt absolutely need it.
The lesson of that crisis and attempt was act earlier to avoid the potential and then just dont try and do that.
The noise of a Chinook comes from the wide rotor blades, apparently. If they could make thin 5-bladed rotors like off a Sea King intermesh reliably, those would be far quieter.
Grew up listening to these echoing across the fields. Their noise do indeed travel much further as you never heard a Puma or a Wessex. Otoh they can be hard to pin to a specific direction.
As to why the Chinooks were originally chosen for special ops, they were twice as fast as a Huey. A loaded Chinook can hit 200mph, a loaded huey is usually around 100.
Faster than an Apache too, often left them behind in Afghan. Plus big and have proved battleworthy.
V22 is something that should have been strangled at conception, lives and billions saved for an absolutley marginal benefit that in no way makes any kind of cost benefit sense. Makes you feel sick when you’re in the back and the best moment is getting out. H-60 orders of magnitude cheaper and perfectly adequate. Afterall, they got to OBL as the “SF raid of this century so far”
Otoh, Merlin is also bit of a mess, completely unsuited to the battlefield, ludicrous 3 engine setup and a transmission that grossly limits its potential. If you’re a frigate with one cab then it’ll be airborne on blue moon only days.
Plus having been under one many times at sea, no more suited to CSAR than V22 or CH47 for downwash frankly. Indeed we drop it over (non known actively hostile) targets precisely to smash them about with its downwash as a distraction whilst the RIBs get the bootnecks the last few 10s of metres. Fundamental problem of a heavier thing with Sea King disc/blade constraints.
