Marines
The Ultimate Fighter?
With the F-35, Lockheed Martin takes a turn trying to make one combat plane that can do everything.
February 2012 |
By Richard Whittle
Combat on Canvas
Art and artifacts from the Marine front lines, now on display in Washington.
January 24, 2012 |
By Rebecca Maksel
![<b><i>Writer and photographer Ed Darack</b></i> spent time in December 2009 with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 261 (VMM-261) in southern Afghanistan. In addition to Darack’s story, “Osprey at War,” featured in our April / May issue, we offer a slideshow of images taking during his stay.
<br><br>“The pilots put the tip lights on for safety during nighttime and at dawn and dusk,” says Darack. “They just started this one up—you can see the plume of white smoke.”
<br><br>Many of the Osprey pilots used to fly the Boeing CH-46 Sea Knight, known colloquially to the Marines as the “Phrog.” “Basically, coming from the CH-46, I felt safe in the Phrog because it had two .50-caliber machine guns,” says Captain Chris Meixell of VMM-261, “but with this airframe, we have triple-redundant flight controls, and those controls are routed in different parts of the airframe. The engines are 46 feet apart, which decreases the chances of both of them getting shot out by enemy fire, and [the MV-22] can climb to 9,000 feet in airplane mode on one engine. The fuel system is a suction type system, and if you take a round, it is just going to suck air, it is not going to spray fuel. The greatest safety advantage is the performance of the aircraft itself, which allows us to climb quickly out of small-arms and shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile range.”](http://media.airspacemag.com/images/200*133/Osprey--4.jpg)
A Tiltrotor Squadron in Afghanistan
Scenes of a Marine unit flying the incredible, versatile Osprey.
March 15, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Hornet v. MiG
U.S. Marine aviators to Malaysian MiG pilots: Show us what you got.
March 2010 |
By Ed Darack
Marine One
Meet J.T. Bachmann, the first USMC pilot to fly the Joint Strike Fighter.
April 09, 2009 |
By Michael Klesius
Air War Iraq
From Al Asad Air Base, portraits of U.S. aircraft and crews in the fourth year of fighting.
November 2007 |
By the Editors
Through Darkest Iraq with Gun and Cobra
A month of war through the night-vision goggles of a Marine AH-1W SuperCobra pilot.
January 2004 |
By Story and photographs by James Cox
Dog of War
Think of Yankee Lima Four Two as a time machine: Jump in and you're back in Vietnam.
July 2001 |
By Stephan Wilkinson
Extreme Machine
The U.S. Marine Corps' sword gets a brand-new edge.
November 1998 |
By George C. Larson
