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thedrifter
03-03-06, 05:55 AM
Bloated Osprey flies

BY RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Way over budget and way behind schedule, the first squadron of V-22 Ospreys will finally be activated today, with future operations of the Marine Corps riding on the controversial aircraft's tilt-rotor design.

But a mission in Iraq for the $74 million hybrid - which takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like a fixed-wing turboprop - is not immediately in the works.

"We estimate that within a year, the Ospreys will be ready to deploy" overseas, said Cpl. Steven Sawyer, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C. A combat zone mission "is probably farther down the road," Sawyer said.

The nine Ospreys of the new Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron-263 will carry the "Thunder Chicken" call sign to honor the famed Thunder Chicken helicopter squadron during the Vietnam War.

Lt. Col. Paul Rock Jr., of Baltimore, commander of the new squadron, and his troops "decided they were going with the name, and they hold proudly to it," Sawyer said.

Members of Congress, top Pentagon officials and other dignitaries will be on hand for the New River ceremony that will formally introduce the Ospreys, but Vice President Cheney will not be among them.

As defense secretary under the first President George Bush, Cheney tried three times to scuttle the Osprey, which he called an overpriced "turkey" in private.

The Osprey can travel more than 500 miles at speeds greater than 300 mph without refueling. It can fly more than twice as fast and carry more than double the load of the workhorse CH-46 twin-rotor helicopter it eventually will replace.

But the four crashes that killed 30 troops since the aircraft left the drawing board in the early 1980s raised concerns about whether the Osprey could be maintained and flown in a combat zone.

"The Marines are really rolling the dice with this," and will be left without the ship-to-shore assault primacy that defines the Corps if the Osprey fails, said Lawrence Korb, a defense analyst at the Center for American Progress.

"There's just so much riding on this thing," said John Pike, a GlobalSecurity.org analyst.

With the Osprey as the centerpiece of a whole new generation of surface ships, "there's an enormous amount of money driving this forward," Pike said.

Originally published on March 3, 2006

Ellie