Finally, the crown jewel of the Chap Mei vehicles is all mine. To customize.
I don’t know if there is a more storied toy for a more “storied” vehicle than this V-22. As a toy, it was made in the mid 2000s under the “Soldier Force IV” banner, and maybe they were released in the U.S., maybe not. I’ve never seen one in person until this week. It has been released overseas a few other times, but in the years since, it has become very rare. Hell, there have even been petitions started to earn it a rerelease.
And with a substantial amount of money, and some help from very good friends, I can see why. The body is about as large as the Chinook, and the wing stubs give it some additional height and mass, but with those massive Rolls Royce engines and three-bladed rotors, this thing is huge. And intimidating, and awesome.
The features list leaves little to be desired. Electronic lights and sounds, opening cockpit and rear hatch, spinning rotors that can fold, and a wing section that rotates to store like the real deal.
So, really, all I need to do is modify the cockpit, add some landing gear, change the livery to a USMC one, and perhaps add a new weapon loadout.
The mystique and difficulty of getting hands on this vehicle is very appropriate for the V-22. In development since I was a little kid, it finally reached active deployment in time for the first Transformers movie. Actually, there’s some synergy there — from the original to Michael Bay on the timeline. And along the way, it was maligned, beat down, overrun on costs, and a favorite for wannabe tech “journalists” and spending watchdogs to slap around on the evening news. Was some of the criticism justified? Absolutely. But inventing a new class of weapon takes a lot of time and money — and often, sadly, lives. It’s one thing to scrutinize the costs verses the benefits of a system. It’s another to editorialize it for a 3-minute soundbite.
Like the Harrier that it proudly shares that “MARINES” banner with, the potential of the design was so tantalizing to the USMC that they were willing to put substantial blood, tears, and treasure on the line. And they certainly paid. But also like the Harrier, once the training and the systems reached maturity, the Osprey has shown a great versatility, finally letting the old CH-46s retire, and now getting to reclaim some of those roles previously deemed too dangerous for an expensive craft like this, like fire support. I suspect it will follow the Harrier’s example and hit those “golden years:” the AV-B has become such a steady and capable platform that it is now slated to stay on the inventory well after the F-35 starts to deliver, replacing instead some very tired legacy F-18 Hornets. Maybe a gunship variant of the V-22 can help ease the burden on the Corp’s AH-1Zs sometime soon.
As for my burden, this is probably one of the scariest vehicles I’ve ever worked on. There are no replacements, and there’s really no going back. My landing gear of choice is once again from the conquest X-30, albeit this time I compacted it quite a bit. Once I started to screw it into place, it very quickly conformed to the mostly flat floor of the Osprey. Which is great, except …
Looks like it’s sitting on a tripod. I quickly ran through my other stored landing gear, and found nothing that would bolt on as well, and everything else would involve cutting into the floor — don’t want to do that.
So, I jumped ahead a little bit and looked at ordninance. Due to the folding nature of the Osprey’s wings, and the massive arc of the rotors, mounting rockets or missiles there wouldn’t be a good call on this (or the real) vehicle. But underneath would make good sense. I fitted the HM Armed forces Harrier’s rocket pods, and instantly felt much better. The mini gun ahead of the nose wheel wasn’t nearly as dramatic, but filled that space very well. And it’s consistent weaponry to my Harriers.
And magically, that knocked out two of the four changes I intended. So for the second half of this build/review, I’m going to set up the 6-inch cockpit and work out the new paint job. Be back soon.
