An Osprey success story

ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq - After a troubled history, the V-22 Osprey - half-helicopter, half-plane - has been ferrying troops and equipment across Iraq for just more than a year without a major incident.

Critics say the Osprey, which was designed to replace transport helicopters, lacks firepower for defense in heavy combat.

But pilots say the Osprey makes up for that in speed, which one of them says can take the plane "like a bat out of hell" to altitudes safe from small-arms fire.

Since arriving at this sprawling desert base in western Iraq, a dozen Ospreys have been ferrying troops and equipment at forward operating bases. One even took Barack Obama around during his tour of Iraq in the summer.

But on only a handful of occasions has the aircraft faced serious enemy fire.

Military officials say that is partly a result of the changing nature of the war in Iraq, as well as the advantages the high-flying Osprey - which is partly built at Boeing Co.'s plant in Ridley Township outside Philadelphia - has over the Vietnam-era Sea Knight helicopters it will eventually replace.

The Osprey also avoids day flights into Baghdad or other tasks that entail excessive risk.

"It's not the same World War II tactics that we used to deal with, or even Vietnam tactics," said Maj. Paul Kopacz, who led two Ospreys on a recent mission to Fallujah. "We have not been battle-tested because we aren't going guns blazing into hot zones. Our nation is now too sensitive to the loss of soldiers to let that happen."

The military calls the Osprey a "tilt-rotor" aircraft, because it takes off with its rotors set vertically like a helicopter and glides in the air with them thrust forward as on an airplane. The shift requires only a pull of the lever by the pilot.

The aircraft, which took more than two decades to develop, has been plagued by technical failures and deadly crashes - including a pair in quick succession in 2000 that killed 23 Marines and nearly scuttled the entire project.

Some skeptics have attacked the design of the plane because they feel it is too slow in descent, lacks maneuverability, kicks up too much dust, and should have been delayed until designers mastered the idea of "autorotation" - which would keep the rotors spinning even if both engines are taken out.

Another issue has been the lack of firepower on the Osprey, which does not include a mounted gun on the front as once envisaged - though the Marines have put a machine gun at the rear.

There are also the Osprey's soaring costs, which have pushed the bill to more than $100 million per unit, including research-and-development expenses.

Still, it has won wide support from the Marines flying the aircraft in Iraq since September 2007, even among those with long experience as pilots of the CH-46 Sea Knight. They say problems experienced so far have been caused by desert dust and heat, mostly related to avionics, and nothing that has overly confounded technicians.

"I used to fly the CH-46, and we couldn't do nearly what we do now in terms of weight, cargo, distance or speed," said Lt. Col. Christopher Seymour, commanding officer of what is now the third Osprey squadron at Asad air base, a complex in the desert of western Iraq that houses 10,000 U.S. servicemen.

Seymour and other pilots at Asad say they have noticed the Osprey's advantages the most. It can travel twice as fast and three times farther than the 39-year-old Sea Knight; is equipped with radar, lasers and a missile defense system; and soars at altitudes far above its predecessor.

"It's a gorilla. The ability to accelerate to speeds is so strong," Seymour said, adding that the Osprey's benefits would become even more evident as the military continues to move away from ground convoys, which face roadside bombs and ambushes.

Kopacz said people can hear a helicopter from 10 miles away.

"You can't hear us until two miles away," he said, "and we're coming fast."

Bombs struck

a double-

decker bus and a taxi in east Baghdad yesterday, killing four people and wounding seven, authorities said. Iraqi police and hospital officials said the bus was carrying employees of Iraq's Housing Ministry through a Shiite-dominated neighborhood when it was hit by a roadside bomb.

Iraq's National Museum

, looted after the United States captured Baghdad in 2003, will remain closed to the public for up to two more years until security in the capital is better, the director said yesterday.

Director Amira Eidan

spoke after a ceremony launching a $14 million U.S.-Iraqi program that will include renovating the museum and developing galleries and storage facilities.

The museum

, a treasure trove of artifacts from the Stone Age through the Babylonian, Assyrian and Islamic periods, fell victim to bands of armed thieves who smashed glass cases and stole - or sometimes destroyed - their contents. Up to 7,000 pieces are still missing, officials from UNESCO say.

- Associated Press