V 22

Key dates in development of the V-22 Osprey: June 1981: V-22 predecessor demonstrated at Paris Air Show. April 1983: Bell and Boeing awarded preliminary design contract. June 1986: Contract awarded for full-scale development, with 12-aircraft pilot production option. March 1989: First flight of V-22 prototype. April 1989: Program terminated in Pentagon budget request. December 1989: Defense Secretary Dick Cheney directs Navy to terminate all production contracts with Bell-Boeing team.

In the second accident in little more than a year, a V-22 Osprey crashed Monday as it approached an airfield at the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va., where it was to undergo flight tests with Marines aboard. The accident casts further doubt on the fate of the hybrid aircraft that has been the object of endless wrangling between Congress and the Defense Department. Marine Corps officials said that the aircraft carried seven people, including several Marines. All were presumed dead.

On a clear Washington day last spring, a flashy red-white-and-blue warplane glided smoothly toward the U.S. Capitol, hovered helicopter-style over the neatly tended lawn and landed--to hearty applause--beside a throng of well-wishers assembled on the steps. It was a spectacle of the sort that only the military can produce--a heart-pounding mixture of impressive new weaponry and patriotic spirit, designed to win a place in the budget for yet another piece of military hardware.

The Navy announced in Washington it has complied with orders by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and terminated all production contracts for the controversial V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft program for the Marines. Cheney and Congress were at odds this year over Cheney's decision to kill the $27-billion program for the revolutionary aircraft, which takes off and lands like a helicopter and flies like a plane.

Despite strong congressional lobbying, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney is remaining firm in his decision to halt the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey aircraft program, a congressional aide said today. A Pennsylvania delegation of Republican Sens. Arlen Specter and John Heinz and Republican Rep. Curt Weldon and Democratic Rep. Thomas M. Foglietta met with Cheney at the Pentagon on Tuesday to lobby for the V-22--apparently to no avail. Cheney announced in April his plans to cancel the V-22--a new tilt-rotor aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies like a plane--as part of $10 billion in budget cuts for fiscal 1990 that begins Oct. 1.

A top defense official said today the Pentagon is studying ways to grant at least a temporary reprieve to the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor program, which might avert threatened layoffs. Deputy Defense Secretary Donald Atwood, making his first Capitol Hill appearance since getting the No. 2 job at the Pentagon, told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee that two options are being examined and a decision should come "in a day or so." Atwood was peppered with questions about the program widely supported in Congress but canceled by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney as part of $10 billion in budget cuts.

Bell May Stop Work on V-22: Bell Helicopter Textron will begin layoffs next week unless the Pentagon restores funding for the Osprey V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, a company spokesman said. In a letter to the Defense Department, Bell said it would halt work on the program Friday and begin laying off about 2,000 employees Monday. Bell has been threatening to lay off employees in Ft. Worth, since last week, when it became clear the Osprey was in trouble. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney announced $10 billion in defense cuts--among them, the V-22 program.

Bell Helicopter Textron will begin layoffs next week unless the Pentagon restores funding for the Osprey V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, a company spokesman said today. In a letter to the Defense Department, Bell said it would halt work on the program Friday and begin laying off about 2,000 employees beginning Monday. Bell has been threatening to lay off employees since last week when it became clear the Osprey was in trouble. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney on Tuesday announced $10 billion in defense cuts, and among the items eliminated was the $1.8-million V-22 program.

While the effects of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney's scaled-down defense budget would be felt by defense contractors nationwide, some of the hardest hits would fall on the district of embattled House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), long the most powerful proponent of that region's defense businesses. On Tuesday, Cheney confirmed the worst fears of workers for some of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area's major defense contractors, announcing that he has proposed canceling a futuristic Marine Corps aircraft called the V-22, discontinuing an Army helicopter program named AHIP and delayed production of the Air Force's stealth bomber.