RE: V-22 in Iraq

"....the fact that our AC is no doubt aware of is that the Osprey are being deployed to Iraq in a largely photo opp / PR effort with extraordinary precautions used to keep them out of harms way...." Hmmmm, not what I heard. I don't know any Osprey pilots myself, but I've been told the Osprey's speed makes it prefered for overflying areas with expected heavy groundfire. The one downside of the V-22 in such ops has been the lack of a forward-firing gun to lay better suppressive fire, but I hear an under-nose turret may soon sort that.

RE: What If

"... they'd taken all the money spent on V-22 Osprey development, testing and production and just bought more Chinooks instead? Actually, a lot, lot, lot more Chinooks." The basic Chinook design is fifty years old. It wasn't exactly cheap itself to develop, and to produce a version that offers the same performance as the V-22 would require a massive investment and a lot of new tech. Whilst relatively reliable, it is still slow and short on range compared to the Osprey.

My hope is the USMC will stick with it long enough to get it sorted and the unit price down, then Westland can cut a deal to make some here in the UK for the RAF. ;)