Israel will be the first to receive America’s advanced V-22 aircraft

jns.org Israel will become the first U.S. ally to receive the advanced V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. In his address to the Anti-Defamation League on Thursday in New York, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that the delivery would be “expedited,” and that Israel “will get six V-22s out of the next order to go on the assembly line, and they will be compatible with other [Israeli defense] capabilities,” NBC News reported. A senior Pentagon official also said that Israel, which requested the Ospreys this week, would receive the aircraft quicker due to threats it is facing from Iran, Syria, and terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula. The V-22, which first came into service in 2007 after nearly two decades of testing, is unique in that it has a vertical takeoff and landing similar to a helicopter but flies like a jet, enabling the quick transport of soldiers.