Dallas Morning News
May 5, 2006

V-22 Is Going To War, Marine General Says

Aviation chief says he will order the aircraft to Iraq next year

By Richard Whittle, The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON - The V-22 Osprey will make its combat debut next year in
Iraq, despite a recent mishap in which one of the tilt-rotor aircraft
broke a wing, the Marine Corps' aviation chief said Thursday.

"We're conducting the tactical training; the aircraft is cleared to
go," said Lt. Gen. John G. Castellaw, deputy commandant for aviation.
"Next year we're going to put it into combat with great confidence."

Built by Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. of Fort Worth and Boeing Co.'s
helicopter division, the Osprey, a troop transport aircraft, uses two
tilting wingtip rotors to take off and land like a helicopter but fly
like an airplane.

Two crashes that killed 23 Marines nearly led the Pentagon to cancel
the $50.5 billion program six years ago. But after redesign and
retesting, the Defense Department approved full production last year.

Critics continue to argue that the Osprey is too complex and costly and
that its unorthodox method of flight is too risky for combat.

Gen. Castellaw said the problem that caused the March 27 accident at
Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., in which no one was injured,
can be avoided by rewriting some of the Osprey's software.

The Marines also will install and test a gun on the ramp of the Ospreys
by January.

The Marine Corps, which plans to buy 360 Ospreys to replace its
Vietnam-era CH-46 troop transport helicopters, has established three
V-22 squadrons at New River.

Gen. Castellaw declined to predict in which month the V-22 would get to
Iraq, and planners are still deciding whether the first Ospreys
deployed will be based on ships in the Persian Gulf or on the ground.

One option is to station them at al-Asad, an airbase about 110 miles
west of Baghdad, where CH-53 helicopters that fly supplies and carry
Marines to outposts in western Iraq are based, Gen. Castellaw said.

The V-22 has roughly twice the speed and three times the range of the
helicopters it is meant to replace.

"It can operate unrefueled in a radius anywhere from al-Asad all the
way out to the western borders up to Mosul, way past Baghdad to the
Iranian border and south to Kuwait," he said.

Saying he had flown the V-22 four times in the past six weeks, Gen.
Castellaw said it is "a stable, powerful, extremely capable aircraft
.... and it's going to do everything we expect it to do."