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The Navy will buy V-22 Osprey tiltrotors to replace its aging C-2A Greyhound turboprop aircraft in flying carrier on board delivery (COD) missions. Breaking Defense obtained a Jan. 5 memo, signed by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford. It stipulates that the Navy will buy four V-22s each year from fiscal 2018 to 2020.
The MOU marks a major triumph for the Naval Air Systems Command V-22 program office, the Marine Corps and other Osprey advocates, who have argued for years that the Navy should replace its aging conventional take off C-2As with vertical take off and landing V-22s.
U.S. Navy said to opt for Bell-Boeing V-22s for carrier deliveries | Reuters
(Reuters) - The U.S. Navy plans to buy V-22 tiltrotor aircraft built by Boeing Co and Textron Inc's Bell Helicopter unit to replace the older C-2A turboprop aircraft it now uses to ferry passengers and cargo to aircraft carriers, two people familiar with the issue said late Tuesday.
The sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that top Navy and Marine Corps officials had signed a memorandum of understanding on Jan. 5 that maps out their plans to use the V-22 for the carrier on-board delivery (COD) mission.
So it looks like "Pork Barrel Spending" and politics win out again over a reasonable cost approach proposed by Lockheed in re-purposing the S-3B's sitting at Davis-Monthan. This is especially disappointing when looking at how this impacts true "Blue Water Ops" with the limited cargo capacity / range of the Osprey and the fact it will not be able to fit an F-35 engine within the fuselage.
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