{"product_id":"the-dream-machine-the-untold-history-of-the-notorious-v22-osprey","title":"The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey","description":"\u003cp\u003eWHEN THE MARINES decided to buy a helicopter-airplane hybrid tiltrotor called the V-22 Osprey  they saw it as their dream machine. The tiltrotor was the aviation equivalent of finding the Northwest Passage: an aircraft able to take off  land  and hover with the agility of a helicopter yet fly as fast and as far as an airplane. Many predicted it would reshape civilian aviation. The Marines saw it as key to their very survival.  By 2000  the Osprey was nine years late and billions over budget  bedeviled by technological hurdles  business rivalries  and an epic political battle over whether to build it at all. Opponents called it one of the worst boondoggles in Pentagon history. The Marines were eager to put it into service anyway. Then two crashes killed twenty- three Marines. They still refused to abandon the Osprey  even after the Corps own proud reputation was tarnished by a national scandal over accusations that a commander had ordered subordinates to lie about the aircrafts problems.  Based on in-depth research and hundreds of interviews  The Dream Machine recounts the Marines quarter-century struggle to get the Osprey into combat. Whittle takes the reader from the halls of the Pentagon and Congress to the war zone of Iraq  from the engineers drafting table to the cockpits of the civilian and Marine pilots who risked their lives flying the Ospreyand sometimes lost them. He reveals the methods  motives  and obsessions of those who designed  sold  bought  flew  and fought for the tiltrotor. These stories  including never before published eyewitness accounts of the crashes that made the Osprey notorious  not only chronicle an extraordinary chapter in Marine Corps history  but also provide a fascinating look at a machine that could still revolutionize air travel.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44983675093045,"sku":"ByrdShop_1416562958","price":28.06,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781416562955.jpg?v=1770805757","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-dream-machine-the-untold-history-of-the-notorious-v22-osprey","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}