100 Ospreys

Proponents have high hopes for future of aircraft

By David Bowser
Correspondent

While the Amarillo Bell-Boeing facility celebrated the delivery of the 100th V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft last week, the future of the plane and Amarillo's involvement could be decided next week.

Photo by Ralph Duke 100 and counting: The 100th Osprey left the assembly line during a ceremony at the Bell Helicopter assembly plant at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport. The aircraft was delivered to the U.S. Marine Corps.

"We hope to sign a multi-year contract with the government to provide not another 100, but 167 airplanes to the U.S. government," said Gene Cunningham, Boeing vice president and Bell-Boeing V-22 program director.

He said that four years from now, he hopes to be looking at the 200th V-22. Three years beyond that, he said Amarillo could be looking at the 300th V-22.

Chuck Allen, Boeing vice president and general manager of Rotorcraft Systems, said that in spite of skeptics of tiltrotor technology, the V-22 is transforming the fighting capabilities of U.S. armed forces.

"Go back 50 or 60 years," said Dick Millman, president and CEO of Bell Helicopter, "and think about the first person who climbed in a tiltrotor and had the courage to transition in flight from helicopter mode into an aircraft mode. The first time ever."

He said Marines in Iraq are getting up everyday and going to work flying the latest version of that aircraft. Cunningham said that the Marines have 12 V-22s in operation in Iraq. The first squadron of V-22s went into combat with the Marines in October, 2007.

That squadron has been in Iraq for five months, carried over 14,000 passengers, flown over 3,500 hours and carried more than a million pounds of cargo.

"A lot of important things are going on in Amarillo," Millman said standing before the 100th V-22 in an Amarillo hangar, "here in this facility and surrounding facilities, and I'm a lucky guy to be a part of it."

Lt. Gen. George Trautman III, deputy commandant for aviation for the Marine Corps., said he remembers being on the flight line in the 1980s in Yuma, Ariz., standing next to the Secretary of the Navy following a tiltrotor demonstration.

"The Secretary said, 'Wow, we have to get some of those,'" Trautman said. "I was standing there as a young major and said, 'Wow, we do need to get some of those.'"

He said he became a fan of tiltrotor technology at the very beginning of its development. While attending the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., in 1988, Trautman wrote a paper entitled, "Can the Osprey Survive in Combat?"

That paper surfaced when Trautman assumed his duties as head of Marine aviation in 2007. He made sure that his officers read it. Trautman said the conclusion of his paper was right. It can.

"This machine can do things that no other aircraft in the history of mankind has been able to do," Trautman said.

Citing an article in Popular Mechanics last fall, Trautman said the V-22 is one of the big deals of the 21st Century.

"Slowly, over time, people are starting to realize what a big deal it is," Trautman said.

He said the V-22 has flown into battle and carried out the wounded to get them to emergency care during the first critical moments of injury, something other aircraft wouldn't have been able to do.

"They've done that faster and with more efficiency than anything that's gone before it," Trautman said.

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Posted: March 20, 2008