Check the V22 Ospreys....

Update: Most people who have followed the V-22 through its history even in the most cursory fashion realize that it is made by Boeing.

Gulp.

I don't know whether anyone has noticed, but the photograph up on Drudge right now has our party's presumptive nominee standing in front of a pair of V-22 Ospreys in Iraq.

Does anyone know if that's a current picture? Are Ospreys deployed in Iraq right now to shuttle VIPs around?

C|Net had an article on October 10, '07 saying it had been deployed, although not without incident:

The U.S. Marines Corps Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263--known more colorfully as the "Thunder Chickens," after the Osprey--arrived Sunday at al-Asad airbase in Iraq, according to a story Tuesday from McClatchy Newspapers. The arrival wasn't without incident: McClatchy reports that a malfunction en route forced one of the aircraft to land in Jordan for repairs--twice. The unit and its 10 Ospreys departed a North Carolina port aboard a ship in mid-September. The Pentagon has hailed this as the first-ever tactical deployment by the world's first tilt-rotor squadron. In this photo from late September, an Osprey lands on the USS Iwo Jima while crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University is also closely watching the Osprey's deployment.

“From what I understand they’re not using it in combat. They’re using it like a truck, from one relatively safe place to another,” said Phillip Coyle, a former assistant secretary of defense and the Pentagon’s director of tests and evaluation until 2001.

I hope the Ospreys don't give Senator McCain any untoward trouble while he's over there. And I mean that very sincerely. The V22 Program has not exactly been without incident or calumny in its lifespan.