Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey News

U.S. House budget writers who oversee military spending authorized a multiyear contract Thursday to purchase 98 V-22 Ospreys over the next five years, U.S. Rep.

It's the new reality facing the U.S. military and, by extension, the industry that designs and builds helicopters for it.

The U.S. Navy has doubled down on an effort to build a hybrid flying robot that takes off like a helicopter and cruises like an airplane.

In an attempt to combine the vertical take-off and landing capabilities of a helicopter, with the speed, range and altitude capabilities of a fixed wing aircraft, tiltrotor aircraft, such as the AgustaWestland AW609 and the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey rely on powered rotors mounted on rotating shafts or nacelles at the end of a fixed wing.

Two marines were killed and two others were severely injured in an V-22 Osprey crash in Morocco, according to a report on aviation website FlightGlobal.