Marines to deploy Osprey to Iraq

[Fishu]

http://us.cnn.com/2007/US/04/13/osprey/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The military's controversial V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft will head to Iraq for its first combat tour later this year, Marine officials announced Friday.

After 18 years and $20 billion in development, the plane will deploy to western Iraq in September to support Marine Corps combat operations for seven months, Marine officials said.

The plane, which is intended to replace the Corps' 40-year-old fleet of CH-46 helicopters by 2018, can fly like a plane and land like a helicopter, giving the Marines more flexibility in the field, officials said.

The V-22 can carry troops three times as far, twice as fast and has six to seven times more survivability than the CH-46 widely used now in Iraq, the military says.

Looks like Osprey is finally going to see the first combat operations. I've been waiting to see for a long time how it will do in combat and how well it withstands the battle wear in a combat zone. Nothing like this has been used in a conflict yet. Reliability is the biggest question for me.

[Regular]

They didn't work to well in Halflife.

[Wolfala]

Originally posted by Regular
They didn't work to well in Halflife.

Neither did Apache's or those crazy looking bug things with the tail rotor for a rectum in Half Life 2.

[Halo]

They sure look vulnerable with that twin rotors on wings configuration (apparently there is even a four-rotor version in the mill).  But then all helicopters look vulnerable with that big rotor radius target.