Marines fight for $48 billion high-tech air fleet

Marines fight for $48 billion high-tech air fleet

(EXCERPT) Staggering costs, fatal crashes have plagued vertical
take-off

LESLIE WAYNE NEW YORK TIMES SERVICE

PATUXENT RIVER NAVAL AIR STATION, Md.— In the clear summer sky, the
V-22 Osprey was showing its stuff. It went backward, zoomed at an
angle, hovered close to the ground and then shot straight up into the
air. Buck Rogers himself couldn't have created a more dramatic sight:
a hybrid craft, half helicopter and half airplane, that danced in the
sky and appeared to defy the laws of aerodynamics.

It was exactly the performance the Marine Corps wanted to show.

After 20 years in development, the Marines, with the Osprey's
contractors, Boeing and the Bell Helicopter subsidiary of Textron, are
in a final push to gain Pentagon approval for the Osprey, an aircraft
as high in promise as in problems.

The government has spent more than $12 billion (U.S.) on the Osprey,
which has suffered three fatal crashes in test flights, leading to the
deaths of 30 people, 26 of them Marines.

Still, the Marines are determined, and they see the Osprey as crucial
to their mission in the world.

"It won't be long before everyone wants one of these," said Col.
Daniel Schultz, the V-22 program manager. "It's the promise of the
future.''

The Osprey, which can take off like a helicopter and fly like a...

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