WASHINGTON, April 14 (UPI) -- The controversial Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft is headed to Iraq for combat, the U.S. military announced.
The V-22 Osprey takes off and lands like a helicopter, tilts its rotors and can fly like an airplane.
It has been in development for 18 years at a cost of $20 billion. The Osprey will go to western Iraq in September to support U.S. Marine combat troops, CNN reported.
The Osprey is intended to replace an aging fleet of CH-46 helicopters by 2018 and can carry soldiers three times as far and twice as fast, the Marines said.
The Osprey was redesigned after two accidents in 2000 killed 23 Marines and is safe and combat-ready, the military said. Critics of the Osprey contend that the tilt-rotor design makes it too complex to fly in combat.
"I flown the V-22," said Lt. Gen. John G. Castellaw, deputy commandant for aviation. "The ability to maneuver this aircraft is far in excess of what we have with the existing helicopters."
