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Al ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq ---- Capt. Zachary Webb says he has no qualms about the Marine Corps' newest aircraft, the tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey that takes off and lands like a helicopter and flies like an airplane. "This aircraft is a Corvette," the 29-year-old native of Orange said Thursday during an interview on this sprawling air base centrally located in Iraq's Anbar province. "It can go from zero to 220 knots from takeoff until 9,000 feet." Webb is part of the first generation of Marine Corps pilots to fly the controversial aircraft after it went into service in the fall....

WASHINGTON, May 2, 2008 – The MV-22 Osprey has proven itself in Iraq, and Marine officials are applying the lessons learned in the first operational deployment of the tilt-rotor aircraft to current operations. From left: U.S. Marine Lt. Gen. George J. Trautman, Lt. Col. Paul Rock, Capt. Sara Faibisoff and Sgt. Danny Herrman answer questions about the initial combat deployment of the MV-22 Osprey during a press briefing at the Pentagon, May 2, 2008. All four Marines participated in the Marine Corps' first operational Osprey squadron. Defense Dept. photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Molly A. Burgess...

WASHINGTON — The Marine Corps’ MV-22 Osprey might be getting more firepower. The aircraft, which is currently making its combat-zone debut in Iraq, has the ability to hover like a helicopter and fly like a fixed-wing aircraft. It is meant to replace CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters, the Corps’ aging workhorse. Ospreys come equipped with a gun at the ramp in the rear of the aircraft, but they might also get a gun with a 360-degree field of fire, said Marine Lt. Gen. John G. Castellaw. “One of the options would be to install within what we call the ‘hell-hole’ —...

The truth about the Osprey By: COL. GLENN WALTERS - commentary Unlike most of the V-22 critics, I have actually flown the MV-22 Osprey. I flew hundreds of hours in this remarkable aircraft when I commanded the Marine Corps' test and evaluation squadron 2003-2006, and I am obliged to tell the truth. The truth is the Osprey is the most thoroughly tested aircraft in the history of aviation for one fundamental reason: the safety of its passengers. Our nation expects that the military will use the best engineered, maintained and operated equipment available. Our troops deserve it. The Osprey we...

Tilters You might say that Osprey pilots are neither fish nor fowl.By John Croft Like the sky-struck Zack Mayo in the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman, Brian Smith joined the U.S. military for only one reason: to get jets. Unlike Mayo, however, hovering in Smith’s subconscious was an attraction to a radically different flying machine, one he had admired from afar since his days at Wilmington College in Delaware in the early 1990s. What Smith saw in the distance was the New Castle County Airport, where an aerial commotion was under way: Partners Boeing and Bell Helicopter were...

A squadron of MV-22 Ospreys will be operating out of Miramar Marine Corps Air Station starting today. The Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron will be training at the base until Sept. 8. People in the area can expect to see the aircraft flying around the area. The Osprey is the military's first tilt-rotor production aircraft. It can go from flying horizontally at 200 mph to landing vertically like a helicopter in 45 seconds, carrying up to 24 people at a time.

A Bell Boeing MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor transport from the US Marine Corps' VMX-22 test squadron has made history by performing the type's first landing aboard a non-US vessel, touching down on the UK Royal Navy's strike carrier HMS Illustrious on 10 July.

EDWARDS AFB - It doesn't look like the sleek aircraft with which it shares the skies over Edwards Air Force Base, but the CV-22 Osprey is making its own mark in the annals of flight test history there. The hybrid aircraft, known as a tilt-rotor, is in a class by itself, combining the small-field landing and hovering capabilities of a helicopter with the speed and distance of an airplane. The tilt-rotor accomplishes its task by rotating its engines, mounted on the wings. With the engines down, the aircraft looks and flies like an airplane with propellers at the front end...

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C.(Aug. 22, 2006) -- Throughout the past two weeks, Marine Tiltrotor Test and Evaluation Squadron 22 has been testing the use of the M-240 as the primary offensive and defensive weapon of the MV-22 “Osprey,” an aircraft which has had no such capabilities up until now. “Along with the ITV (Internally Transportable Vehicle) testing, VMX-22 has been validating the weapons system that we’re going to send out to the fleet when the ‘Osprey’ goes operational,” said Maj. Raymond M. White, VMX-22 director of safety and standardization. There have been concerns of how and where...

Flight Daily News journalist Paul Derby was among a small band of writers who, to the envy of thousands of show-goers, had the opportunity to take to the skies in the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey here at Farnborough. When you are asked the question: "Do you want to take a flight in the V-22?" it’s something of a no-brainer. And when during the pre-flight briefing the aircrew spend time explaining the precise location of the airsickness bags with a glint in their eyes, the feeling that this might be a special experience is inescapable. We are not to be disappointed....

The Associated Press Monday, March 27, 2006; 11:28 PM MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. -- The Marine Corps said Monday it was investigating an accident with an MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft that damaged its right wing and engine. No one was injured, either on board the aircraft or on the ground at the air base at Jacksonville, the Corps said in a statement. "The aircraft damage resulted from an inadvertent takeoff followed by a hard landing" during a test flight following maintenance on the Osprey, according to the statement. The statement offered no further details. A base spokesman...

VMM-263 Marine makes historic flight Submitted by: MCAS New River Story Identification #: 2006322112221 Story by Lance Cpl. Jonathan A. Tabb MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. (March 22, 2006) -- Each day Marines around the world make history. One pilot with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 made history March 13 when she became the first female ever to pilot the MV-22 Osprey. Captain Elizabeth A. Okoreeh-Baah spent the first five and a half years of her career in the Marine Corps as a CH-46E “Sea Knight” pilot, but when Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron-263 began transitioning to the Osprey...

Representatives from the Marine Corps accepted the first production Block-B MV-22 Osprey for the government in a ceremony at Bell Helicopter in Amarillo, Texas, Dec. 8. “With the progression from Block A into Block B, we see for the first time the baseline configuration that the warfighter will take into combat after we reach IOC – our initial operational capability – in 2007,” said Col. Bill Taylor, program manager for the V-22 Joint Program Office. Marine Corps leadership turned out in force to witness the Osprey production line graduate from turning out aircraft for test and training to supplying operational...

Junior Marine earns Osprey inspector titleSubmitted by: MCAS New RiverStory Identification #: 2004827162034Story by 1st Lt. Katherine L. O'Neill MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. (Aug. 25, 2004) -- Lance Corporal Micah M. Houck, 20, assigned to Marine Tiltrotor Test and Evaluation Squadron- 22, became the first junior Marine to qualify as an airframes collateral duty inspector for the MV-22 Osprey. This achievement gives Houck more responsibility than the average airframes mechanic, who maintains the composite (“skin of the aircraft”) and hydraulics parts of the Osprey. Houck said he likes the extra duties. “I am now held to...