CV-22s complete historic deployment

Published Nov. 20, 2009
By 2nd Lt. Mark Lazane
1st Special Operations Wing Public Affairs

HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. -- After patiently waiting out Hurricane Ida, crew members and support personnel from the 8th Special Operations Squadron and the 8th Aircraft Maintenance Unit returned home Nov. 12, to anxious family and friends waiting for them inside the Freedom Hangar.

The scene was familiar to many involved in the various homecomings that occur on base.

Family members and friends, many of them children, waited patiently for the first sight of the large tilt-rotor aircraft and its green rotor tips to break the overcast evening's darkness.

At the height of the anxiety, the first two CV-22 Ospreys appeared over the runway, effortlessly touching down and taxiing to Freedom Hangar. Four more quickly followed, ensuring all six Ospreys returned home safely together.

Lost by many on this warm evening was the historical significance of the aircraft's arrival. The planes weren't just simply returning from yet another overseas contingency operation support mission to see their families and friends, though that is always most important.

The very planes the servicemembers were flying to reunite with their families were returning from their first ever operational deployment in support of combat operations.

"It hasn't quite set in yet, I'm sure people are just relieved to be home," said Lt. Col. Matt Glover, 8th SOS Operations officer and the mission commander for the redeployment from the area of operations. "We were starting to feel while we were deployed that this thing is going to find a niche and that people are going to want to use it."

Hurlburt Field received the first operational CV-22 tilt-rotor in November 2006.
Usually, it can take several years for a plane to become certified to operate in a combat environment.

The CV-22s and the host of men and women who fly and maintain them did it in less than three.

"We definitely accomplished the mission," Colonel Glover said. "The maintainers are setting the bar higher than we ever expected. They generated airplanes and spares every night, and the aircrew did a great job flying them. I don't think we could have asked for more."

The Osprey's main mission is insertion, extraction and re-supply of unconventional warfare forces and equipment into hostile or enemy-controlled territory using airland or airdrop procedures.

In line with a helicopter's capability, the CV-22 can take off vertically and touchdown in many areas not accessible by conventional aircraft.

However, unlike helicopters, the Osprey can turn its propellers horizontally and fly like a fixed-wing aircraft, capable of attaining speeds of 275 miles per hour while being up to 75 percent quieter than conventional helicopters.