One would be the Brewster Buffalo......
Another would be the F4U.........
At least now Marines get to decide what they get to fly
I will state that I am NOT a pilot.
I know NOTHING about the flight characteristics compared with helicopters.
However I know a lot about Marines. My life has been involved with the Marine Corp from diapers to now.... I must admit that I wanted the straight poop on the subject because of the accidents killing brave Marines.
So I went straight to the men that have worked on, flown in and maybe in charge of the unit involved someday... after several adult beverages I asked what they thought about the Osprey..... they looked at me, rolled their eyes and laughed. then they made this little comment... "it's a software problem....no, no, wait it's a hardware problem.... no, no, no ...you're right it's a software problem"..all laughing
..... then a classmate of mine said... "I'm not sending my kid up in one... , but we'll do what we gotta do." and then... "let's talk about something else."
It's a congressional pork project. Look at the various sites involved in the construction. When congressmen, the JCS and corporate officers of Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing fly it for 1 year to and from meetings....and the CIC converts it to Marine Corp 1, I'll say it's ready for our Marine Brothers.
I've already been told and am willing to be flamed by others... but its only my opinion...and as usual, "I could be wrong". It's just that I hate loosing Marines, 19 at a time. In fact I hope I'm wrong... and that this is the best thing since sliced bread, I'm just real skeptical about the gravy train from the Pentagon... to congressman's districts... to machines that might fly my brothers into combat.