Osprey will carry Marines after 20 year development

After 20 years of testing and rework the Marine Osprey aircraft is at long last on the edge of deployment. "The Osprey takes off and lands like a helicopter, but once in the air, the two motors mounted on its wing tips tilt forward so it can fly like an airplane. The Marines say the aircraft will allow them to strike farther and faster than the CH-46 helicopter it is supposed to replace."

Exerpt from the news report...

News and Observer
March 2, 2007
Jay Price, Staff Writer

Long-hobbled Osprey finally soars
Exercise wins Marines' praise

ATLANTIC - Above the scrub-pine horizon, four small smudges appeared, then within seconds became odd-looking aircraft that swooped down onto the cracked pavement of the old airfield. As a storm of rotor wash sprayed grit and rocks, the V-22 Ospreys disgorged about 75 Marines, who dived to the ground pointing their M-16s or faded into the adjacent tree line.

Then the Ospreys clawed back into the sky, tilted their engines forward and were gone.

The Marines who took part in this exercise Thursday won a battle older than some of them: making the long-troubled Osprey officially ready to be ordered to war.

The mock airfield seizure in a remote corner of Carteret County was the final exercise for Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 before it gets an order to deploy and begins mission-specific training, which Marine leaders have said could be this year. Read more...