Osprey said to be performing well in Iraq

By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer | Thursday, November 22, 2007 9:51 PM PST ∞

Nearly two months after the controversial Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft began flying in Iraq, a Marine Corps official said this week that no significant problems have emerged for the much-troubled aircraft.

"They have been moving troops and supplies with ease," Maj. Eric Dent at Marine Corps headquarters at the Pentagon said in response to an inquiry from the North County Times. "There have been no significant maintenance issues."

The Osprey's performance is closely watched by Marine Corps officials and critics of the hybrid aircraft, which takes off and lands like a helicopter and flies like an airplane at more than 400 mph with tilt-rotor propellers.

The Osprey and its tortured development were the subject of a Time magazine cover story last month, which noted the Marine Corps had spent $20 billion developing the aircraft and that 30 lives were lost during training missions before it was put into service.

Seven years ago, two Osprey crashes killed 23 Marines. Nineteen died when one went down near Tucson and four others died a few months later in North Carolina accident.

Fourteen Camp Pendleton Marines and one from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station perished in the April 2000 crash in Arizona, a mishap investigators blamed on a condition called vortex ring state, a danger for all helicopters.

Another Osprey also crashed in a nonfatal accident and others have been damaged in mishaps involving fires, including one earlier this month in North Carolina, and stalled engines and software problems.

Officially designated the V-22, the first 10 Ospreys to see active service were sent to Iraq in September and began flying missions in October.

The North Carolina unit in Iraq, VMM-263, has been flying sorties in Iraq for more than a month, although the Marine Corps would not say precisely how many missions it has flown.

"So far, the squadron has performed exactly as projected," Dent said. "The V-22 is making a significant difference in the way Marine aviation provides medium lift assault support to our Marines on the ground and we could not be more pleased."

Among the issues being closely watched is the Osprey's ability to withstand an attack of ground fire and respond. The aircraft now only has a rear-mounted machine gun but the service is working with the manufacturer, Boeing and Bell Helicopter, to install a second, forward-mounted gun and working on a remote-controlled turret gun.

Dent was unable to say if the Osprey had been involved in any firefights, but a former Pentagon official has said he believed the Marine Corps is restricting the Osprey's use to avoid combat.

The official, Thomas Christie, who was the Defense Department's director of Operations, Test and Evaluation for five years until retiring in 2005, said earlier this year that he believed the Marine Corps would carefully plan initial Osprey missions to avoid its flying into areas where ground fire would not be unexpected.

Dent said he was unable to address Christie's assertion. That may be because Gen. James Mattis, former commander of Marine Corps Forces, Central Command, ordered in September that a tight lid be kept on the Osprey's operations, according to a Marine Corps source familiar with that directive.

Dent said he was also unable to report the number of missions the Osprey has flown.

Approximately 11,000 Marines and sailors from that force's Regimental Combat Teams 1 and 5 and its headquarters group will assume responsibility for security in Iraq's Anbar region after the first of the year.

It was not clear this week if the Osprey unit now in Iraq will return to the U.S. next year and be replaced by a similar unit deploying with the locally based troops.

Although the Osprey has a range of more than 2,500 miles and can carry up to 24 troops or 20,000 pounds of cargo, the ones sent to Iraq went by sea.

The only known problem since the Osprey arrived came during its flight from the deck of the vessel that ferried it there, the amphibious assault ship Wasp, to the Al Asad Air Base in Anbar. One Osprey was forced to land in Jordan and make a second unscheduled landing the next day because of an undisclosed mechanical issue, the Marine Corps said at the time.

A former head of the Marine Corps' helicopter test and evaluation squadron, Col. Glenn Walters, recently wrote a column for the North County Times defending the Osprey.

Walters argued that the Osprey is the most thoroughly tested aircraft in the history of aviation and pointed out no similar aircraft has a forward-firing weapon. He also said the Osprey is the most maneuverable medium lift helicopter in the world, with the ability to climb or descend at a significantly higher speed than any other helicopter.

To date, the Marine Corps has received more than 52 Ospreys from the manufacturer as it moves to replace its fleet of Vietnam-era helicopters.

The service has ordered more than 360 Ospreys for combat assault and support missions, and the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command is buying about 50.

Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.