Now the aircraft that flies like an airplane but takes off and lands like a chopper is about to make its combat debut in Iraq. It has been a long, strange trip: the V-22 has been 25 years in development, more than twice as long as the Apollo program that put men on the moon. V-22 crashes have claimed the lives of 30 men - 10 times the lunar program's toll - all before the plane has seen combat. The Pentagon has put $20 billion into the Osprey and expects to spend an additional $35 billion before the program is finished. In exchange, the Marines, Navy and Air Force will get 458 aircraft, averaging $119 million per copy.
The saga of the V-22 - the battles over its future on Capitol Hill, a performance record that is spotty at best, a long determined quest by the Marines to get what they wanted - demonstrates how Washington works (or, rather, doesn't). It exposes the compromises that are made when narrow interests collide with common sense. It is a tale that shows how the system fails at its most significant task, by placing in jeopardy those we count on to protect us. For even at a stratospheric price, the V-22 is going into combat shorthanded. As a result of decisions the Marine Corps made over the past decade, the aircraft lacks a heavy-duty, forward-mounted machine gun to lay down suppressing fire against forces that will surely try to shoot it down. And if the plane's two engines are disabled by enemy fire or mechanical trouble while it's hovering, the V-22 lacks a helicopter's ability to coast roughly to the ground - something that often saved lives in Vietnam. In 2002 the Marines abandoned the requirement that the planes be capable of autorotating (as the maneuver is called), with unpowered but spinning helicopter blades slowly letting the aircraft land safely. That decision, a top Pentagon aviation consultant wrote in a confidential 2003 report obtained by Time, is "unconscionable" for a wartime aircraft. "When everything goes wrong, as it often does in a combat environment," he said, "autorotation is all a helicopter pilot has to save his and his passengers' lives."
The Plane That Wouldn't Die
In many ways, the v-22 is a classic example of how large weapons systems have been built in the U.S. since Dwight Eisenhower warned in 1961 of the "unwarranted influence" of "the military-industrial complex." The Osprey has taken years to design, build, test and bring to the field. All that time meant plenty of money for its prime contractors, Bell Helicopter and the Boeing Co. As the plane took shape and costs increased, some of its missions were shelved or sidelined. And yet, with the U.S. spending almost $500 billion a year on defense - not counting the nearly $200 billion annually for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan - there's plenty of money for marginal or unnecessary programs. Pentagon reform and efficiency are far less of a cause among lawmakers today than during the years of Ronald Reagan's comparatively modest defense-spending boom. "Almost every program the U.S. military is now buying takes longer to develop, costs more than predicted and usually doesn't meet the original specifications and r