Secretary of the Navy Dr. Donald C. Winter logged his first flight hour aboard an MV-22 Osprey at Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., Jan. 9, less than a week after being sworn into office.

Winter made the flight with VMX-22, the Marine Corps squadron that conducted the successful operational evaluation of the tiltrotor aircraft last summer. VMX-22 shares a flight line with VMMT-204, the training squadron that is preparing Marine aviators for the start of Osprey combat operations in late 2007.

“This aircraft proves that transformation is more than just a buzzword,” Winter said. “The combination of range, speed and operational flexibility the Osprey provides is going to change all the rules for how our Marines engage the enemy. As central as these capabilities are to our Sea Strike concept of future operations, I wanted to come see it for myself.”

The new Secretary of the Navy sat in the cockpit jump seat for the flight, which traced a route over the Camp Lejeune area and included tactical approaches to landing zones, hovers and vertical takeoffs. Col. Glenn Walters, VMX-22 commanding officer, piloted the Osprey with Navy Lt. Cmdr. Matt Rising. Theirs was the lead in a two-ship formation, Walters said, allowing the Secretary to observe the second aircraft perform various maneuvers, including transitions between helicopter and airplane mode.

The flight began with a short rolling takeoff. Within seven seconds of leaving the deck, the nacelles were fully forward in airplane mode, with the aircraft accelerating through 180 knots. The cruising speed for the day’s flight, about 240 knots, came just a few seconds later.

“The agility of the aircraft has to be experienced firsthand to be appreciated,” Winter said.

To exploit that agility and the Osprey’s other unique attributes, the Marine Corps is developing new tactics and techniques not possible with the CH-46 and CH-53 helicopters that the Osprey will replace.

“With twice the speed, three to five times the range, and the ability to carry twice as many Marines, the Osprey will permit joint force commanders to execute large Marine Air Ground Task Force operations in a single period of darkness,” said Col. Bill Taylor, V-22 joint program manager.

Under the current program of record, the Marine Corps would purchase 360 MV-22s for missions including amphibious assault, ship-to-objective maneuvers and sustained operations ashore. The Navy is also slated to get 48 MV-22s, which could be used for fleet logistic support and search and rescue.

The Air Force Special Operations Command will acquire 50 CV-22 variants, with enhanced capabilities tailored for their unique mission requirements. The CV-22 will reach initial operational capability in 2009, while the Marines’ variant will be ready to deploy in late 2007.

The V-22 program was approved for full rate production in September, after the operational evaluation verified that the Osprey had achieved all the “key performance parameters” identified by the Marine Corps as essential to its mission. Recommendations from that OPEVAL validated the program’s roadmap for follow-on test and evaluation, to add capabilities as the aircraft progresses toward its deployment date.

“The significance of this program to the Naval services is not about hardware or technology,” Winter said. “It’s about what it will mean to our people. The Osprey can deliver Marines to battle more safely, bring them reinforcements over greater distances in greater numbers, and evacuate wounded more quickly. That all equates to lives saved, as we continue to prosecute the global war on terrorism.”

In remarks made at a roll-out ceremony for the Block-B MV-22 in December, Lt. Gen. Jim Amos, commanding general of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force, talked in specifics about how his Marines would employ the MV-22 in Iraq today if they could.

“The Osprey remains at the very soul of our Corps' ability to fight future conflicts across a widely disbursed battlefield,” Amos later said. “Battlefields where the tyranny of distance is solved with speed, and where an irregular enemy who chooses to fight at an urban marketplace or at an ambush site in a wadi is faced with the dilemma: ‘Where are they? I know they are coming, I just don't know when or where.’”

The first operational Marine Osprey squadron, VMM-263, will stand up at New River in March, with many of its pilots going through training now at VMMT-204.