Marines, CH-46Es deploy for California fires

By Gidget Fuentes - Times staff
Posted : Friday Jun 27, 2008 21:07:54 EDT

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — Four Marine Corps CH-46E Sea Knight helicopters left the flight line at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego on Friday for a short deployment to help fight wildfires in northern California.

The medium-lift helicopters and personnel will be staged at Lemoore Naval Air Station, in California’s central valley, for a deployment expected to last up to 30 days, Miramar officials said Friday.

“Right now, we’re just filling in the request and sending up the birds and the crews,” said Maj. Jay Delarosa, a spokesman with 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Miramar.

Each of the helicopters are equipped with BAMBI water buckets.

The air support was requested by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and was forwarded to U.S. Northern Command, which is providing liaisons and coordinators, military personnel and aircraft to the National Inter-Agency Fire Center in Boise.

NIFC “will direct them, and that’s done in coordination with the on-scene commanders at their discretion ... working in support with wherever they need them,” said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Gary Ross, a NorthCom spokesman at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.

The helicopters are expected to join in soon with the firefighting efforts in California, where 32 significant fires had burned more than 271,000 acres as of Friday. Lightning is blamed for sparking many of the fires,

Along with the Marines, NorthCom officials said Friday they are sending two aircraft equipped with the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System, from the Wyoming National Guard’s 153rd Air Wing.

Those aircraft will join four other MAFFS-capable C-130H aircraft from the Air Force Reserve and North Carolina National Guard’s 145th Air Wing and are already deployed to assist with the firefighting efforts. Each aircraft is equipped with a tank holding 3,000 gallons of flame retardant.
Source

First Osprey squadron in Iraq to return home

By Trista Talton - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Apr 9, 2008 15:52:24 EDT

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. – The towering billboard says it all.

“Welcome Home VMM-263,” it reads. “Congratulations on a job well done.”

Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263, the first MV-22 Osprey squadron sent into the fight, is coming back home to Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C. The squadron, pictured in a massive photo stretched across the billboard less than a mile from the air station’s main gate, is wrapping up a seven-month deployment at Al Asad air base in Iraq.

Cpl. Brandon Gale, a New River public affairs officer, confirmed Wednesday that the squadron is returning, though he did not have an exact homecoming date.

The 12 aircraft the squadron operated will remain in Iraq, said Maj. Eric Dent, a Headquarters Marine Corps public affairs officer. Ten Ospreys sailed on an amphibious assault ship to get to Iraq last fall, with two additional tiltrotors joining the squadron last month.

Leaving assault support aircraft in the field and rotating aircrews and their support is fairly routine, he said.

The squadron will be replaced by VMM-162. About 175 members of that squadron deployed to Iraq late last month, Gale said.
Source

MV-22 Osprey in Iraq

AL ASAD, Iraq (Feb. 14, 2008) – Sergeant Zachary Hoag, an MV-22 crew chief with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263, mans the 240D medium machine gun while ensuring a safe landing on the flight line here Feb. 14. As of January 2008, the tiltrotor squadron has conducted more than 1,400 missions across the Al Anbar Province.
U.S. Marine Photo by: Lance Cpl. Jessica N. Aranda



Photo by: Lance Cpl. Jessica Aranda
Photo ID: 2008220298
Submitting Unit: 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing
Photo Date:02/14/2008

MV-22 ‘Osprey’ brings new capabilities to the sandbox

Mechanics from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 work on the rotor blades of the aircraft, Jan. 15. The Marines ensure the rotors are properly secured during a routine maintenance inspection. Since October 2007, the MV-22 has had an average readiness rate of 68%. The MV-22 has one of the highest rated comparative performance records for a new rotary wing/tilt-rotor aircraft in the history of Marine Corps aviation. The range and depth of aviation supply parts is the latent limitation for high availability rates.




Jan. 23, 2008; Submitted on: 01/23/2008 06:24:16 AM ; Story ID#: 200812362416
By - II MAW (FWD) PAO, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (FWD)



AL ASAD, Iraq (Jan. 23, 2008) -- The Marines of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 arrived at Al Asad to support air operations in the Al Anbar province on Oct. 4, 2007.

The ‘Thunder Chickens' took over the entire range of combat medium lift assault support missions in support of Multi-National Forces – West from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 363 to include battlefield circulation, raid and Aeroscout operations, helicopter/tiltrotor governance,Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel alert and casualty evacuation alert, flying everywhere within MNF-West throughout the battlefield from Baghdad to Al Qaim providing an operational capability over distance and time that has effectively collapsed the battlespace. The squadron has completed more than 2,000 ASRs in the first 3 months of the deployment, keeping approximately 8,000 personnel off dangerous roadways and accruing approximately 2,000 flight hours. They have accomplished every mission and met every schedule while maintaining an average mission capable availability rate of 68.1%.

The New River based MV-22 squadron has experienced a higher operational tempo while deployed, with the squadron completing missions and accumulating flight hours at a sustained rate well in excess of anything they've done before.

“The area of operations has, in a number of ways, highlighted the performance of the aircraft,” said Lt. Col. Paul Rock, VMM-263’s commanding officer. “Our area of operations is large and the aircraft's speed and range has been much-appreciated by many of the folks the squadron has supported. In addition, the precision navigation and situational awareness systems in the aircraft have enhanced our ability to perform such tasks as desert landings in brownout conditions.”

In brownout conditions, the MV-22’s unique hover coupled capability significantly increases the safety of troops in the execution of combat missions enabling the Ground Combat Element to be safely and precisely inserted on the desired combat coordinates. No other helicopter or aircraft in the inventory has this unique operational capability and safety enhancement. It reduces and mitigates risk while significantly increasing both Ground Combat Element and aircraft survivability.

Cpl. Bob Cowan, a crew chief with VMM-263, believes the aircraft has performed better than expected. The normal wear and tear of the desert hasn’t been as harsh on the bird as was originally expected.

“The aircraft has performed better than expected,” said Cpl. Daniel Stratman, a ‘263 crew chief. “We haven’t had to replace any major parts like prop boxes or anything; the main problem out here is getting the parts for this aircraft. We can fix just about anything, the only thing that slows us down is getting the parts.”

As a new aircraft, the supporting logistics system is new and this deployment provides valuable maintenance and logistics lessons learned that will enhance support of the aircraft in the future.

The squadron, which was the Marine Corps’ first Tiltrotor squadron, has been training for this deployment since they stood up in March of 2006. Aside from the normal pre-deployment and Desert Talon training, the unit has completed two deployment-for-training operations to practice landings in brown out conditions and they also completed training with infantry Marines practicing inserting troops during raids and other ground operations.

“We had some snags at the beginning, but we’ve learned from our mistakes,” said Cowan, a Cookeville, Tenn. native. “We’ve done the training back in the rear, but performing the missions out here is different, so we’ve ironed out the wrinkles.”

The Marines of the squadron have kept their heads held high throughout the deployment and have done well at keeping the ‘Osprey’ mission ready.

“Our Marines are doing great; it’s incredible to watch them work,” said Sgt. Maj. Robert VanOostrom, the unit’s sergeant major. “The weather is getting worse everyday … but they have to ensure a certain amount of aircraft are prepared to fly every day. The amount of time and energy they put in every day to make sure the aircraft fly, is incredible.”

Almost every service member has heard of the new aircraft, but most Marines haven’t even seen the aircraft fly, not to mention fly in it. Now, many service members are getting their first flight in the Corps’ faster, farther traveling and heavier lifting aircraft.

“In North Carolina you see the ‘Osprey’ flying every single day and it’s just another aviation platform. ,” said VanOostrom. “It’s ironic to see the individual Marine who gets on the airplane for the first time and sees what it can do and says ‘This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’”

The ‘Thunder Chickens’ have transitioned from a trained squadron to an experienced combat squadron that has completed every tasking and succeeded in maintaining the deployed operations tempo. VMM-263 has flown 5 Aeroscout missions, 1 raid, more than 1400 combat sorties and maintained an average mission capable readiness rate of 68.1% during their current deployment to Operation Iraqi Freedom 06-08.
Source

Report: Blue Angels pilot became disoriented

This is something I had been wondering about so I was glad to see this follow up story.

Davis died after failing to tense abs to counter G-forces
By Chris Amos - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jan 15, 2008 8:07:13 EST

A crash that killed a Blue Angels pilot during an air show April 21 was caused by a Navy pilot making a sharper-than-normal turn to catch up with his five squadron mates and then failing to take steps to prevent blood from rushing from his brain during the maneuver, according to a report released Monday.

Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis, flying in his seventh Blue Angels show, was attempting to rejoin a formation at the end of a Blue Angels performance when he crashed his F/A-18 into a wooded residential area about three miles west of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C.

Those forces caused by the maneuver — 6.7 Gs — were within the range expected for that maneuver, but their quick onset left Davis temporarily disoriented.

Navy officials say the squadron’s culture of perfection contributed to the crash.

“The culture of the Naval Flight Demonstration Squadron is that they constantly strive to perform a perfect show, every show,” the investigating officer, Lt. Col. Javier Ball, wrote in his report. “I believe that Lieutenant Commander Davis was simply trying to meet this standard, just as he would have at any other show.”

Investigators say Davis compounded his error by failing to flex his abdominal and leg muscles to keep blood from rushing away from his brain, as all tactical aviators are trained to do, investigators said. Failing to do so can lead to loss of consciousness, also known as blacking out, or loss of space and time perception, which they believe Davis experienced, known as a “grayout.”

Investigators say they believe Davis never lost consciousness because he maintained control of the Hornet’s control stick until impact, attempting to right the aircraft until it struck the ground at nearly 350 miles per hour.

Davis was found at the end of a debris field that extended several hundred feet. Rescue workers arrived within four minutes and attempted to revive him, but he was pronounced dead at the scene minutes later.

Witnesses said metal and plastic wreckage — some of it on fire — hit homes in a residential area about 35 miles northwest of Hilton Head. Eight people on the ground suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Davis, 32, of Pittsfield, Mass., had been an F/A-18 pilot since 1999 and had logged more than 1,900 hours in the Hornet, including deployments aboard the carriers Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy and extended operations in the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He worked as a Navy adversary pilot before joining the Blue Angels in September 2005.

Capt. Jack Hanzlik, spokesman for the chief of navy personnel, said he had performed more than 100 training flights with the Blue Angels — including the exact maneuver that led to the crash.

The Blue Angels were grounded for nearly a month while investigators studied the crash.

Before Davis’ death, the most recent Blue Angels fatal crash was in 1999, when a pilot and crew member died while practicing for air shows at a base in Georgia. An investigation determined that the pilot likely developed tunnel vision because a recent rib injury kept him from flexing his abdominal muscles.

After the 1999 crash, the Navy’s air training chief ordered the Blue Angels to consider wearing G-suits, which automatically inflate around a pilot’s legs and lower torso to prevent blackouts during tight maneuvering. Most tactical pilots wear them, but the Blue Angels do not because their sudden inflation could cause a pilot to accidentally bump the control stick — a potentially deadly move when flying inches from other planes during training and performances.

Since the 1999 crash, the Blue Angels pilots have received a series of waivers that allow them to fly without G-suits. Those waivers, investigators recommend, should continue.

Hanzlik said investigators recommended a number of steps be taken to prevent a similar accident in the future.

Those recommendations included ordering Blue Angels pilots to complete mandatory weight training — after studies found that 10 to 12 weeks of training focused on muscles used during “anti-G straining maneuvers” can lead to a 50 percent decrease in blackouts — and yearly centrifuge training geared to the unique stresses Blue Angels pilots endure. They also proposed developing a G-suit that could inflate without risk of bumping the control stick and looked at relaxing time standards for certain parts of the show to take some pressure off pilots.

But the best way to prevent these accidents, Hanzlik said, is to properly use the straining maneuvers.

“If you don’t properly perform this procedure, it can lead to a fatal impact,” he said.

Source

V-22 Osprey in Iraq

There has been so much negative talk about the Osprey in the past few years. Well, guess what? The first Marine Corps Osprey squadron to go to Iraq is kicking butt and I don't hear a peep about it. I've been looking for any news about them now that they are accomplishing their missions and there's next to nothing. Typical.

This little bit on Fox News is the only thing I found.

When we boarded the Osprey I sat down next to the colonel and got strapped in, but before we lifted off one of the crew members came up to me and told me to unbuckle and follow him towards the front. He showed me a jump seat attached to the open door of the cockpit, handed me a helmet and gave me a quick brief on how to strap myself in, then pointed me toward the front where I stepped in between the pilots. It had been a long few days, so I still didn't realize what was happening.

I said hello to the flight team and shook their hands and turned around to see the door closed behind me. That's when I realized I would have a front row seat for one of the coolest rides most people will never see.

The Osprey's dash has four big display screens, including color GPS maps and an infrared video display. I'm no pilot so I didn't recognize most of the other gauges, switches, readouts and gadgets, but suffice it to say there's a lot going on up there. I did manage to pick out the digital altimeter and speed in yellow lights and watched the numbers climb as we did, lifting off and heading almost immediately nose up into the clouds, angled steeply to roughly 10,000 feet at an air speed of 240 knots, 280 ground speed with the tail wind (more than 300 mph, according to the pilots). The Osprey can fly up to 25,000 feet but passengers would need oxygen. Instead, my crew rode with the others in back with the rear ramp open. The pilots warned me if people didn't hang on to their stuff it would fall out for sure.

When we leveled off I was able to talk to the guys over headsets about the differences between these 22s and the 53s they usually fly.

They raved about the Osprey's performance capabilities (I think the word "awesome" was used more than once) and said the cockpit gauges were comparable in some ways to a fighter jet. They were thrilled to fly them, they told me, they believed in the birds' future and weren't worried about the lack of a forward-facing weapon.

"That's being looked at now," the Major in charge of the helicopter-borne assault force told me on the ground. "But we have plenty of backup systems. When we go in, we go in strong," he said. They're using the Ospreys for missions involving reconnaissance, interdiction and disruption. "We're just beginning to explore what it can do."

Discounts for Marine Families Attending Homecomings

Marine Corps News November 20, 2007

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- Families have spent thousands of dollars attending homecomings of returning Marines, but with costs of airfare sky rocketing, many families can’t afford to make the trip.

Addressing this issue, Christie Rooney, a Marine mom from Bixby, Okla., contacted America Airlines in order to ease these costs with fare discounts for Marine families, traveling to homecomings, discounts on airfare.

“Over the past few months, I've heard Marine families discuss the [difficulties] of making travel arrangements for homecomings,” said Rooney. “I decided to call America Airlines to see if they could help.”

Within two weeks America Airlines signed a contract with SATO Vacations to offer discounts to families traveling to their Marines’ homecoming from Nov. 1 – Dec. 15.

“The only airport that America Airlines flies into near the Camp Lejeune area is Raleigh-Durham Airport, which is why this is the only airport where we can honor the discounted prices for military families,” said Jerry Krus, for America Airlines.

If the arrival dates are changed and the military families notify America Airlines about the changes, the fee will be waived, as long as the families purchase their tickets through SATO Vacations, said Krus.

If America Airlines handles the exchange transaction, a $15 reservation fee will apply, he continued.

Marine families, who are unable to make the flight due to uncontrollable circumstances will be able to refund their non-refundable tickets for travel vouchers, concluded Krus.

For more information about the discounted airfare, call SATO Vacations at 1-877-698-2554, or visit the Web site at http://www.satovacations.com/.

Marine astronaut set to pilot shuttle today

Staff reportPosted : Tuesday Oct 23, 2007 7:48:34 EDT

When NASA launches the space shuttle Discovery today, the man piloting the craft will be Marine Corps Col. George D. Zamka, making his first spaceflight.

Liftoff of the seven-member crew is scheduled for Tuesday morning from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., according to an Army press release, though inclement weather may delay the planned 11:38 a.m. launch.

The mission will deliver an Italian-built connecting module to the station.
According to a NASA biography, Zamka graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1984. He trained on the A-6E Intruder at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash., and was assigned to Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 242 at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, Calif., where he was a Squadron Weapons and Tactics instructor. In 1990, he trained as an F/A-18 pilot and was then assigned to Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 121. Zamka flew 66 combat missions during Operation Desert Storm. In 1993, he was assigned to 1st Battalion, 5th Marines at Camp Pendleton, Calif., as a forward air controller. In 1994, he graduated from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, later serving as an F/A-18 Hornet test pilot and operations officer.

In 1998, he returned to VMFA (AW)-121 and deployed to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan.

Two other service members will be onboard the shuttle. Air Force Col. Pamela A. Melroy will command the mission and Army Col. Douglas H. Wheelock will serve as mission specialist.
Source

Leaders, experts slam Time article on Osprey

I am so glad to see this article. I am not a Time Magazine reader, but happened to see this particular issue in the library. I saw the Osprey on the cover and because one of my sons is in an Osprey squadron, I was curious about it and read it. It was extremely negative. I came home and started searching on the internet and found lots of blogs talking about the Osprey in a very negative way too. When I next talked to my son I asked him about the points that the article made. He said most of them were either outright wrong or dated. One of the blog posts I read even stated that the prop wash from the Osprey would rip a Marine's clothes right off of him and that the Osprey wasn't equipped to fly into clouds. My son has been in the Osprey while it was flying through clouds, so I knew right off that that part wasn't true. He also works with Ospreys every day and has NEVER heard of any one's clothes being ripped off. Where did that even come from? Just made up on the spot by the blog author? I didn't know enough to put together a whole blog post about it and answer all the accusations, so I was thrilled to find this article. Be sure and read that last paragraph.

By John Hoellwarth - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Oct 14, 2007 9:39:00 EDT

The Corps’ MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft will crash eventually, and Marines will die. That much is certain. The same can be said of virtually every aircraft in the military inventory.

Marine officials conceded the point in the wake of an eight-page Oct. 8 cover story in Time magazine titled “A Flying Shame.” The article highlighted the Osprey’s checkered past and called into question the capability, safety, economy and wisdom of fielding an aircraft that hovers like a helicopter and flies like a plane on the eve of its combat debut in Iraq.

It’s “silly” to expect the Osprey to be the military’s first crash-proof aircraft, said Col. Glenn Walters, a former Osprey squadron commander and pilot now serving as head of the Corps’ aviation plans, programs and budget branch.

The Time article describes how “narrow interests” kept the Osprey alive in Congress despite schedule and cost overruns throughout its 25-year development. It tells how specifications were modified — and eliminated — as the prototypes failed to meet them. Ultimately, the article says the Corps is putting Marines’ lives in “jeopardy” by putting them in the Osprey.

But what the article leaves out, said senior Marine leaders, civilian and military aviation experts, a Washington think tank and at least one of the “critics” quoted by Time, is the aircraft’s true status.

‘Sensationalistic view’
In an official letter to the magazine dated Oct. 1 and obtained by Marine Corps Times, Assistant Commandant Gen. Robert Magnus wrote that reporter Mark Thompson’s story “serves up a one-sided, sensationalistic view of the program, full of inaccuracies, and misleading to Time’s readers.”

“It is sad that Time’s story failed to include the fact that in the past six years, the [Osprey] program had the most extensive technical and programmatic review in the history of aircraft,” Magnus wrote. “The cover and the story, including dated material, was neither balanced nor accurate.”

The Corps’ top spokesman, Brig. Gen. Robert Milstead, himself a Marine aviator, called the story “old whine in a new bottle.”

Attempts to reach Thompson were unsuccessful. An automated response generated by his e-mail account said he was on leave until Oct. 15. Daniel Kile, a spokesman for the magazine, said, “Time stands behind the story.”

Meanwhile, the critics are having a field day with the piece, deconstructing its assertions point-by-point on blogs, in newsletters and even in an official “information paper” prepared by Marine officials. The question on many minds is, simply, do Thompson and Time magazine fully understand the mission and purpose of this new kind of aircraft?

Lack of autorotation
Take, for instance, the lack of an autorotation capability. If a helicopter loses its engines and begins to fall, the upward push of air on the unpowered rotor blades keeps them spinning fast enough to bring the bird down in a jarring, but survivable, landing. This autorotation is a standard requirement for helicopters. But the Osprey can’t do it, which Time considered a flaw.

But as Marine officials note, the Osprey is not a helicopter.

The hybrid, “though worse at autorotation than most helicopters, also has a glide landing capability that no helicopter possesses,” wrote Maj. Eric Dent, the Corps’ aviation spokesman, in an information paper about “inaccuracies” in Time’s article.

The Osprey has unusually thick wings, which give the aircraft lift at very low air speeds and allow it to glide at speeds as low as 40 knots. A hovering Osprey doesn’t need to fully convert to airplane mode to leverage this advantage. A small tilt on the nacelles does the trick, allowing the bird to glide to the ground as well as, if not better than, other fixed-wing aircraft, Walters said.

The autorotation wording was dropped from the requirement in 2004, when Corps officials changed it to say only that the Osprey must perform a survivable emergency landing in the event both engines are lost.

Time described the change as a failure by engineers to rewrite the laws of physics.

Weaponry
There’s also the issue of defensive weaponry. The Ospreys that press reports say are now operating in Iraq, all with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263, are equipped with M240G medium machine guns pointed out the back ramp, ready to spray hundreds of 7.62mm bullets into a hot landing zone.

Retired Gen. James Jones, former commandant of the Marine Corps, told Time he’d always wanted the Osprey to have a forward-mounted gun, a .50-caliber under the nose — something he never pulled off as the Corps’ top Marine.

Jones thinks all assault support aircraft should have forward-facing weaponry, according to the article. He described it to Time as a fundamental belief stemming from his Vietnam War experience: Biggest and baddest is best. A spokesman from Jones’ office said the retired general was unavailable to comment for this article.

The Time article quoted Jones as saying, “A rear-mounted gun is better than no gun at all, but I don’t know how much better.”

But Walters said the Osprey’s rear machine gun is the same weapon system the Corps has in every assault support aircraft, none of which has guns facing forward.

Over the past five years, side gunners firing from CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan “found that most of the threat was on the ramp,” Walters said.

He said Jones wasn’t the only Marine to stand by a forward gun on principle.

“It’s an emotional issue for a lot of people,” Walters said. “I can come up with a scenario where it would be valuable, but we haven’t seen it in five years of combat.”

That doesn’t necessarily rule out more firepower in the future, though. The Marine Corps has allocated funds to pursue a forward-firing, “all-quadrant gun,” Walters said.

A prototype of such a weapon was displayed last week at the Modern Day Marine Expo in Quantico, Va. That weapon, the Remote Guardian System developed by international defense contractor BAE Systems, could be hard-wired into the Osprey’s avionics and deliver accurate, sustained fire throughout the entire flight envelope, according to a corporate release.

Performance problems
The Time article also said a 2006 incident — described by military officials as an uncontrolled takeoff — was the apparent result of a computer glitch that caused an Osprey to rise 25 feet into the air “on its own” before crashing back to earth. The article goes on to cite the example as just one in a series of problems throughout the Osprey’s development, including a “flawed computer chip” and “bad switches.”

But Corps officials insist the 2006 incident had nothing to do with computer malfunction. It was a maintenance mistake, Dent said.

“Two wires were accidentally cross-connected when reinstalled after maintenance,” he said. “There was neither a design problem, nor a software glitch.”

But that’s not to say the Osprey hasn’t had performance problems.

“Nobody has ever sent an aircraft that combines the characteristics of an airplane and a helicopter into combat before, so of course you’re going to have development challenges that you wouldn’t encounter on a more conventional airframe,” said Loren Thompson, vice president of the Lexington Institute, a Washington think tank. Thompson, who is no relation to Time’s reporter, has followed the Osprey program closely over the years and posted a scathing rebuttal to the Time piece on Lexington’s Web site.

“Whatever you may think about the way the Marine Corps has gone about developing the [Osprey], the notion that it would deliberately field a dangerous or an inadequate airplane is simply preposterous,” he said.

A report from the Defense Department’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation in 2000 found the Osprey operationally effective but not operationally suitable, according to Time. Walters said that the article doesn’t mention, however, the August 2005 report by the same office that gives the Osprey thumbs up in both columns.

“You could have written that article in 2003,” Walters said of the Time piece. “It didn’t acknowledge the really good work that has happened over the last four or five years.”

In a blog about his appearance in the article, Military.com editor Ward Carroll, who spent three years as the Osprey’s spokesman, wrote that Time sensationalized his concern that as many as six aircraft might crash during the Osprey’s first year in combat.

Carroll wrote that he spent a half-hour on the phone with Time’s Mark Thompson talking about the aircraft’s potential, “including my belief that the airplane really could change everything in terms of how the Marine Corps fights.”

“Thompson left out the part where I indicated my support and hopes for VMM-263’s success and resultantly I am presented as a ‘critic,’ ” he wrote. “That’s what I get for attempting a complete thought with a reporter who’s reverse-engineering a story.”

Carroll — who wrote that the article’s title, “A Flying Shame,” is “a pretty good indication of the writer’s thesis” — isn’t alone in taking umbrage at the story.

“The article goes over issues that are old, long-since addressed, and it is a fundamentally inaccurate assessment of the [Osprey],” said Jack Satterfield, program spokesman for Osprey manufacturer Boeing.

Walters expressed disappointment over negative attention caused by inaccuracies published in Time, which circulates more than 3 million copies weekly, because he doubts whether vindication will be as public.

“The first time this thing picks up a wounded soldier or Marine and gets him the medical attention that saves his life because of speed and range, you’ll never hear about it,” he said.

Source

Ospreys head to Iraq for combat deployment

By Trista Talton - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Sep 18, 2007 7:49:23 EDT

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — The first MV-22 Ospreys to make a combat deployment are on an amphibious assault ship heading for Iraq, according to a Marine Corps headquarters spokesman.

Ten Ospreys and roughly 200 leathernecks and sailors with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 flew out of Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., and landed aboard the Wasp on Monday, Maj. Eric Dent said.

He did not know where the Norfolk, Va.-based ship was when the Ospreys boarded. The ship was diverted from an international exercise in Panama on Sept. 5 to the Nicaraguan coast to assist with disaster-relief efforts in areas affected by Hurricane Felix.

VMM-263 is heading for Al Asad Air Base for a seven-month deployment; the Ospreys will provide tactical assault support for Marines and soldiers.

The Corps decided to deploy the tilt-rotors via ship, in part to allow the aircraft to do shipboard integration operations. Corps officials would not say where the Ospreys will leave the ship and move into Iraq.

“Due to operational security, we can’t discuss the specifics,” Dent said.

The squadron has been preparing for its combat deployment debut for the past several months, doing everything from taking grunts on their first Osprey flights to performing integration training with other aircraft.

Ospreys will become the Corps’ new troop transport aircraft, flying faster and farther between refuelings than the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters they’re replacing. There are three operational MV-22 squadrons — VMM-263, VMM-162 and VMM-266 —all based at New River.

The Corps has more than 50 MV-22s, with 14 more scheduled for delivery next year.
Source

Of course, I have to include yet another Osprey video (from the Discovery Channel's "Future Weapons"). Since actually getting to see one in person, I am just fascinated.

MATSS meets 'digital sky' landmarks

Aug. 24, 2007; Submitted on: 08/24/2007 11:24:28 AM ; Story ID#: 2007824112428

By Lance Cpl. Cecilia N. Rooks, MCAS New River

Jim Kessler, a Marine Aviation Training Systems Squadron MV-22 Osprey instructor and retired Marine Corps major, demonstrates how to determine a destination while flying in a MV-22 Osprey full-motion simulator before unit instructors completed their 20,000 flight-training hours at MATSS Aug. 7.

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. (Aug. 24, 2007) -- A group of instructors celebrated the completion of 20,000 flight-training hours and 10,000 missions in the Marine Aviation Training Systems Squadron MV-22 "Osprey" simulators Aug. 7.

The milestone flight-training hours and training missions were celebrated in a small ceremony signifying the unit's dedicated effort in ensuring the Marine Corps and "Osprey" program field the best trained and safest pilots available, said Maj. Walter D. Reece, the MATSS officer-in-charge.

Thirty years ago, pilots did not have simulators to help them learn how to fly the aircraft, explained Mark Thoman, a MATSS MV-22 instructor. He added that before simulators, Marines would come across problematic scenarios during training and would not know what to do.

"We have the simulators; if something goes wrong with the aircraft, (the pilots) have seen it and they will know how to react," said Kurt Miller, a MATSS MV-22 instructor.

"If a student makes a mistake, we can reset (the scenario) and do it over and over again until the Marine gets it right," explained Thoman.

Thoman, who has been a MV-22 instructor since MATSS' first simulator training class, explained that their first class was held in May of 1999 and that each mission consists of an hour brief, two hours of simulated flight time and half-hour debrief.

These instructors have 40,000 hours of actual flight time between them, which leaves no question as to why these mentors love to train young pilots, explained Jim Kessler, a MATSS MV-22 instructor.

Being able to put this flight suit on everyday and train young aviators in the ways of the aircraft is a blessing, said Miller, who is a retired Marine CH-46 pilot.

"It gives great pleasure to the civilians and us retired guys to be able to teach these Marines how to fly in a safe environment," added Thoman. "My biggest thrill is taking a young fellow who is having trouble with a maneuver and climbing into the simulator and taking him through it until he is doing it perfectly. That makes me grin," he added.
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