Staggeringly Wasteful New Military Aircraft Finally Goes into Service

Even by Defense Department standards, the new V-22 Osprey tilt-prop plane is extraordinarily expensive and dangerous. The Washington Post reports that the aircraft is finally coming online after twenty years of cost overruns, fraud, and accidents claiming 26 lives. At a staggering $109 million per plane, its hard to see the value to the taxpayer or the military. We clearly need a next generation transportation helicopter for use in Iraq and elsewhere, but the DoD bureaucracy bet everything this grossly mismanaged and risky project. As a result, taxpayers have spent over $20 billion for a suspect plane that is just now getting deployed in-theater….joining the fight years too late and at a price-tag too expensive for widespread deployment.