{"id":3246,"date":"2013-08-14T13:47:53","date_gmt":"2013-08-14T13:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=3246"},"modified":"2013-08-14T13:47:53","modified_gmt":"2013-08-14T13:47:53","slug":"osprey-takes-off-with-new-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=3246","title":{"rendered":"Osprey takes off with new assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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That big aircraft assembly plant next to Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport has a new gig.<\/p>\n

The MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft being assembled out there is now being assigned to carry key White House personnel as part of the Marine Corps presidential security detail.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2013\/08\/ospreys-get-a-big-presidential-lift-95478.html?hp=l8<\/p>\n

Maybe one day, the cutting-edge birds will be hauling the president himself (or herself) to and from the White House.<\/p>\n

The Osprey has come a long way from its formative years when Bell Helicopter returned to Amarillo in 1999 thanks to a grant awarded by the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation. The plane, which lifts off like a helicopter and then flies like a conventional fixed-wing aircraft, has had its fits and starts — and its share of tragedy. It has crashed with Marines aboard, killing 19 of them once on a training mission in Arizona. The Marine Corps and Bell engineers fixed what was wrong with the bird and put it back into the air.<\/p>\n

Mechanical difficulties have grounded the Osprey on other occasions. The Pentagon stayed with it, lobbying Congress to keep funding the program. <\/p>\n

It’s been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, where it has ferried troops and supplies to and from the battlefield. <\/p>\n

Now, according to Politico, the Osprey has been used to fly White House support staff and equipment to Martha’s Vineyard, where President Obama has been vacationing with his family.<\/p>\n

Any kind of state-of-the-art aircraft is going to have trouble. That’s been the history of U.S. aviation. The Osprey in that context is no different from other aircraft.<\/p>\n

The bird that’s being built in Amarillo is earning its wings with an important new mission.<\/p>\n

Well done, Bell.<\/p>\n\n

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That big aircraft assembly plant next to Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport has a new gig. The MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft being assembled out there is now being assigned to carry key White House personnel as part of the Marine Corps presidential security detail. http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2013\/08\/ospreys-get-a-big-presidential-lift-95478.html?hp=l8 Maybe one day, the cutting-edge birds will be hauling the … Continue reading Osprey takes off with new assignment<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[290,303,581,2902,3708,3944,4949,5074],"class_list":["post-3246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amarillo-city-hall","tag-amarillo-edc","tag-bell-helicopter","tag-marine-one","tag-president-obama","tag-rick-husband","tag-u-s-aviation","tag-v-22-osprey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}