Three CV-22s that had been scheduled to deploy to Yokota AB, Japan, in 2017 will not be stationed there until fiscal year 2020, the Department of Defense announced Tuesday. The three Ospreys were to be the first of 10 for a new special operations squadron at Yokota, according to a 2015 DOD plan. At that time, the Department said it was deploying the CV-22s to “provide increased capability for US Special Operations forces to respond quickly to crises and contingencies in Japan and across the Asia-Pacific region.” Neither the DOD nor Yokota responded to queries about the reason for the delay. It’s not clear if the delay also will push back final delivery, which was originally slated for 2021.
Lockheed Martin projects more than a billion dollars of losses on a classified program, but company officials said April 23 they are confident it will turn profitable by 2028 and become a "franchise" system in the U.S. military.