Here’s One from the “What Were They Thinking” Department

The bad news hit the media only a few days after the folks at Bell/Boeing were toasting a decision by the Pentagon last week to send the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft into full rate production. Today, the defense contractors are drawing flack for an admittedly offensive advertisement (pdf) that ran in the September 24 edition of the magazine National Journal. It featured a hovering V-22 with soldiers fast roping onto what appears to be a mosque as black smoke rises from an apparent car bomb parked nearby (click here to see the PDF of the ad).

If that wasn’t bad enough, the ad used some unfortunate language with spiritual overtones: “It descends from the heavens. Ironically it unleashes hell.”

Media reports said that Bell, Boeing and the National Journal all quickly issued official apologies after the Council on American-Islamic Relations protested because they said it appeared to endorse a war on Islam, rather than on terrorists. The aircraft builders promised that it would never again see the light of day.

"We consider the ad offensive, regret its publication and apologize to those who like us are dismayed with its contents," Mary Foerster, vice president of communications for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, said in a statement.

"When the company became aware of the advertisement, we immediately requested that our partner’s agency withdraw and destroy all print proofs of the advertisement and replace it with one that was appropriate."

If the situation depicted in the ad were real, the V-22 and fast ropers would be sitting ducks to enemy shoulder-fired missiles and bullets because so far the aircraft has no gun to defend itself. If the street were not paved the soldiers sliding down the ropes would be fighting brownout conditions – or reduced visibility – caused by swirling dirt and debris created by the V-22's huge rotors.

A report released last week by the Pentagon’s top independent tester (pdf) said the V-22 is capable of operating safely and routinely from unprepared landing zones consisting of grassy fields with some loose dirt. However, the report said, “In more severely degraded environments, such as in brownout conditions, the immediate area affected by downwash is large.” While crews are getting better at dealing with such environments, approximately 25 percent of the landings in severe brownout conditions resulted in “unintended wave-offs,” the report said.

Comments

[Pogo Denizen]

I guess the Pentagon's Director of OT&E didn't read "In the Company of Soldiers : A Chronicle of Combat," by Washington Post reporter Rick Atkinson.

It is an interesting chronicle of the ground war phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom (or whatever the spinmeisters called it). Atkinson was embedded with the 101st CG, David Petraeus. The 101st is supposed to be airmobile, relying on their helicopters for a good portion of their combat power. What Petraeus and his senior staff spent a lot of time worrying about was the brownout conditions created by their helicopters when they attempted to land in the desert (you would have thought that they would have learned about this problem in Desert Storm). Anyhow, if UH-60's and Ch-47's have this problem, what do you think is going to happen to an Osprey? Maybe the Pentagon figures we will be out of Iraq and never return to the Middle East by the time the OSprey is out in the field.

[Gary P. Norton]

Instead I'd say that asymetric warfare is here. RPG into that open bay. Wrong aircraft for the mission.

[Someone Else]

CAIR seems close to being a supporter of Islamic terrorists to me. Screw 'em.

If CAIR's agin it, I'm for it.

[stephen russell]

Nice ad, Good projection of power.
Id use these in the ad:

Fire from Above
Hell from Above
& or
Aid from Above.

Hovering Hell is here.
Hovering Torment for Insurgents
E Ring Qualified Here.

[pbswatcher]

The ad offended CAIR. That's a good start. See PBS Watch