The Center for Security Policy welcomed the Defense Acquisition Board's long-awaited decision Wednesday to approve full-rate production of the V-22 Osprey, the Marine Corps-Special Operations hybrid helicopter-airplane that will support the sorts of missions the United States military will have to undertake in the 21st Century.
Unfortunately, the same questions might well be posed today about another aerospace technology in which the United States currently enjoys a decisive competitive advantage -- thanks to a farsighted and ambitious Defense Department program and the congressional support it has long received: the V-22 "Osprey" tiltrotor aircraft.
Its future means of performing amphibious assaults (the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle), its principal airborne assault vehicle (the V-22 Osprey) and the backbone of its dedicated ground-support aviation for decades to come (the F-35) would all be eliminated or rendered unaffordable.