Bell-Boeing Team Gets Osprey Contract

The Bell-Boeing aerospace team has been awarded a $770-million military contract to build 11 MV-22 Osprey helicopters in a continuing test program for the tilt-rotor aircraft, the Defense Department said.

Work on the 11 big helicopters is expected to be completed in 2005 by the Bell Helicopter division of Textron Inc. and Boeing Co. in a program that has been troubled by problems and fatal crashes.

The Pentagon decided last year to continue low-rate production of the aircraft, but to conduct a careful two-year testing program to determine if the Marine Corps will buy as many as 360 Ospreys.

The Marine Corps hopes the MV-22, which uses swivel engines to take off and land like a helicopter while flying like a plane, can replace its fleet of aging Vietnam-era troop-carrying helicopters.

Defense Undersecretary Pete Aldridge, the head of Pentagon acquisition programs, said in December that he had serious questions about the Osprey but the only way to prove the case was to put it back into a tough test program.