V-22 Osprey kicking ass

[DumbAss Tanker]

I married an AF brat. Her dad was stationed at Myrtle Beach AFB in the late 60's. They were flying the F-100's. I think they were the 358th. I do remember one fatal accident with the F-100 tho.

Mod. to add.
The SC Air National Guard were flying the F-104's when they were deployed to Spain for a year in the early 60's. They lost 3 or 4 pilots and never saw any hostile action. Flameouts on take-off mostly if I remember correctly. I think it was something about ejecting at low altitude.

A friend of mine who co-oped for NASA when we were in engineering school told me that the Luftwaffe's major problems were (1) that the F-104G had an automatic stall recovery system that would come into play if you tried to flare it into a nose-high ground effect landing like an F-86 (The plane the Luftwaffe had transitioned from, and a totally stupid and pointless approach given the 7-foot wings on a Starfighter), and (2) All the pilots were one tour in and then off to Lufthansa or other airlines to make the big bucks, so there was a huge amateurism/lack of institutional knowledge problem with them.  The Century-series were of course all back in the days when the canopy was blown off by a couple of 20mm cannon cartridge charges, and the seat ejected by a 37mm cannon charge, lofting it to mighty hundred feet or so, to low for a chute to open successfully if in close proximity to (or on) the ground.  The rocket seats we use now came later and have saved many, many lives. 

[WMD Owl]

Sounds like it was written by the manufacturer's marketing department, and contains about as much spin and shaded truths as in a marketing PR release, to boot.  

You may be right...

June 23 (Bloomberg) -- The V-22 Osprey’s performance during its 19 months in Iraq was substandard and the Pentagon should review whether the aircraft’s cost and reliability merit continuing the program, according to congressional auditors.

The tilt-rotor plane’s components wear out too soon, making it too costly to maintain and grounded too much of the time, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said.

The Defense Department has spent $28 billion on the aircraft developed and built by Textron Inc. and Boeing Co. and has bought 206 planes to date. It plans to spend $25 billion more on upgrades and the purchase of the remaining 252 planes in the 458-aircraft program for the Marine Corps and Air Force Special Operations Command.

The report, scheduled for release at a congressional hearing today, is the first independent assessment of the V-22’s performance in Iraq. The aircraft has been in development for 20 years and Marine Corps officials say it is likely to be deployed in Afghanistan this year.

http://www.bloomberg.com/...1103&sid=axdXXwjEYNYc