Bell Boeing V‑22 Osprey Spurs International Interest in Dubai Airshow Debut

PATUXENT RIVER, Md., Dec. 1, 2011 — The Bell Boe­ing V‑22 Pro­gram, a strate­gic alliance between Bell Heli­copter, a Tex­tron Com­pa­ny [NYSE: TXT], and The Boe­ing Com­pa­ny [NYSE: BA], drew wide inter­na­tion­al atten­tion at the Dubai Air­show held in Dubai, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, from Nov. 13 to 17.

V‑22 Osprey over Dubai Source: Bell Boe­ing Click to enlarge

“The V‑22 Osprey received sig­nif­i­cant inter­est at the Dubai Air­show from poten­tial cus­tomers from around the world,” said John Rad­er, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Bell Boe­ing V‑22 Pro­gram. “It is clear the V‑22 is the right solu­tion for those seek­ing range, speed, pay­load, and oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy for mil­i­tary and human­i­tar­i­an oper­a­tions.”
The V‑22 Osprey is a joint ser­vice, mul­ti­role com­bat air­craft that uses tiltro­tor tech­nol­o­gy to com­bine the ver­ti­cal per­for­mance of a heli­copter with the speed and range of a fixed-wing air­craft. With its nacelles and rotors in ver­ti­cal posi­tion, it can take off, land and hov­er like a heli­copter. Once air­borne, its nacelles can be rotat­ed to tran­si­tion the air­craft to a tur­bo­prop air­plane capa­ble of high-speed, high-alti­tude flight.
“The amount of inter­est in the V‑22 exceed­ed our high­est expec­ta­tions lead­ing up to the show, with many region­al offi­cials request­ing brief­in­gs and demon­stra­tion flights,” said Michael Ander­sen, deputy direc­tor, Bell Boe­ing V‑22 Pro­gram. “We are now work­ing on fol­low-up vis­its and pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion as request­ed by sev­er­al gov­ern­ments.”
The Osprey cur­rent­ly is flown by the U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Com­mand (AFSOC), and the oper­a­tional fleet has amassed about 125,000 flight hours, near­ly half of which have come in the past two years. A total of 10 Marine Corps and two AFSOC squadrons are oper­a­tional­ly deploy­able today, and the two ser­vices have togeth­er logged 16 suc­cess­ful com­bat, human­i­tar­i­an, ship-based or Spe­cial Oper­a­tions deploy­ments since 2007.
“The V‑22 was very well received by the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in Dubai,” said Marine Corps Col. Greg Masiel­lo, head of the V‑22 Joint Pro­gram Office (PMA-275) at the U.S. Naval Air Sys­tems Com­mand (NAVAIR). “With its unprece­dent­ed range, speed and sur­viv­abil­i­ty, the Osprey is per­fect­ly suit­ed to many of the mis­sions that Mid­dle East­ern forces require.”
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Contact: 

Andy Lee
Bell Boe­ing V‑22 Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
215–834-7010
andrew.h.lee2@boeing.com