I saw this show on the 1st run a week or 2 ago. Very well done, shows the breaking of new airfrme to the fleet. Considering that this airframe has 2 high profile mishaps, this airframe has been very sucessful ove the past 4 yers or so. Technology has caught up with the concept in this case. Every airframe will have ground mishaps, the Osprey has had them. However there have not been any major mishaps in 6 years. This can not be said about the 46 and 53.....
I did external lifts (HST's) with the V-22 in '03 at Pax River MD when they were trying to get this bird back in the fleet. 4 or 5 birds lifting HMMWV's almost daylight to dark for 3 days. I was so broke off after that... The downwash was insane! No cone like with a 46 or 53. We stayed in what seemed to us as a resort - log cabin on the water. We flew there from Lejeune in one of those tiny jets that Generals fly on. Being a Lance Corporal and picked to go do testing like that was awesome.
A Cpl or Sgt (I can't remember) from PAO was there and his assignment was to get pics from under the bird during a lift but he freaked out the first couple of times he attempted to go under the bird. He asked me about 10 times, "what do I do? where to I stand?" I got frustrated and wrote, "follow me" on my kevlar and pointed to it right before we ran into the zone.
