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Marines, MV-22s invade Hurlburt Field

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Angela Shepherd
  • 1st SOW Public Affairs
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. --  At approximately 10:15 a.m. March 27, Hurlburt Field was invaded.

But have no fear; it was just 100-plus U.S. Marines and their eight MV-22 Ospreys, and they came here to train with the Air Commandos.

For nearly two weeks, Marines from the Marine Medium Tiltrotor Training Squadron 204 based out of Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., worked hand-in-hand with Airmen from the 8th Special Operations Squadron and 8th Aircraft Maintenance Unit and spent some time practicing on the Eglin Air Force Base ranges.

"We picked Hurlburt Field for two reasons," said Marine Col. Mark Clark, the commanding officer of VMMT 204. "First, we wanted to leave our local training environment and expose our aircrew to a new one. Second, we wanted to build the relationship between the Marine and Air Force Osprey communities."

While forging this relationship was one of their main goals, the partnership between the Marines and the Air Force is not a new idea.

"We've had an exchange program with the MH-53 PAVE LOW community for quite some time," Colonel Clark said. "But now that we both fly a version of the V-22, it's only going to be a matter of time before we deploy together. We want to build that bond now so it's already strong when we meet in theater."

That partnership starts even before training opportunities like this. Air Force CV-22 pilots are trained by the Marines at MCAS New River. There's even a cadre of Air Force instructors assigned to VMMT 204 as part of the exchange program. During this trip though, the training and bonding reached out and touched the 8th AMU maintenance community as well.

"We've used this opportunity to pass on the knowledge our maintainers have gained on this aircraft since our squadron stood up a couple of years ago," said Marine Master Sgt. Jody Law, VMMT 204 maintenance chief. "These Airmen are getting to learn something they've never done before. And that comes with the territory of being so new and only having one CV-22."

On the flying side of the house, the MV-22 pilots used the Eglin ranges and Duke Field to practice aerial refueling, confined area landings, local area terrain training and night-vision goggle training. The Marines and Airmen feel they've learned a great deal from this opportunity.

"This has been a good exposure to our Marines on the AFSOC community and mission, and just on how the Air Force does business," Colonel Clark said. "Hopefully we'll continue to come here in the future. Maybe we'll even host the CV-22 squadrons for some training at New River."