Coincidentally I just got done reading a writeup about the V22 in the July Wired magazine (of all places!). It's actually a pretty good article, other than its title ("Saving the Pentagon's Killer Chopper-Plane"!).. It covers the program's history, some details about the four crashes that I hadn't seen elsewhere, and focuses on the work that's gone on since those accidents.
I have been very critical of the tiltrotor in the past - at least for tactical military stuff (I have to admit that I think the BA609 is a helluva nice looking ship and would love the opp to fly one!). I will still be watching with great interest as they deploy the aircraft in large numbers, but I came away from the article thinking that it's not *as much* of a boondoggle and terrible idea as I thought before. But at $105M per copy (this is GlobalSecurity.org's estimate of the *real* cost), every one they lose due to "whatever" is going to hurt.
Dave Blevins