V-22 Osprey soon entering Iraq around Troop Surge. Bad Idea?

www.cnn.com...

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.

Interesting. I wonder in exactly what role it will be used in for Iraq. The V-22 has been in development for quite some time, and has been through quite a few accidents.

en.wikipedia.org...

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[edit on 23/4/2007 by Mirthful Me]

There have been four significant failures during testing:[4]

* On 11 June 1991, a miswired flight control system led to two minor injuries when the left nacelle struck the ground while the plane was hovering 15 feet in the air, causing it to bounce and catch fire.
* On 20 July 1992, a leaking gearbox led to a fire in the right nacelle, causing the plane to drop into the Potomac River in front of an audience of Congressmen and other government officials at Quantico, killing all seven crewmen and grounding the plane for 11 months. The seven crewmembers were Brian J. James (copilot), Sean P. Joyce (crew chief), Gary Leader (crew chief), Gerald W. Mayan (instrumentation engineer), Robert Rayburn (flight test engineer), Anthony J. Stecyk, Jr. (mechanic), and Patrick J. Sullivan (pilot). James, Joyce and Leader served in the US Marine Corps. Mayan, Rayburn, Stecyk and Sullivan were employees of The Boeing Company.

en.wikipedia.org...

Just a month or so ago a very high number of US helicopters were shot down in Iraq. Depending on the use of this plane/helo, imagine the media coverage, loss of money, not to mention loss of lives, when an insurgent with a Stinger Missle or RPG sees one of these new, expensive machines hovering nearby. Perhaps these will be used for more cargo use than they will combat operations - the backdraft these rotors create would probably be too much for operations on the ground just below it. I just think this is a recipe for disaster.

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[edit on 23/4/2007 by Mirthful Me]

And in 7 years since then there has been what, 1? 2? accidents. All aircraft have bugs in them, especially when it's something totally new like this. Look at the AV-8. When they first got them, they had 0 accidents, because all their best pilots flew them. They put newer pilots in them, and the accident rate skyrocketed. It's still a dangerous airplane to fly, but they're not having nearly the number of accidents they had at one point in time now.