After an epic, $18 billion development that stretched over more than two decades of testing, political fights, escalating costs, fatal crashes and scandal, the MV-22 Osprey is finally going to war.

Ten of the unusual aircraft -- which take off and land like a helicopter but can rotate their engines forward to fly like an airplane -- will be sent from their base at North Carolina's New River Marine Corps Air Station to Iraq in September, said Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway, speaking at a Pentagon news conference Friday.

The Marines fought for years to keep the Pentagon from canceling the program. Conway's participation in the announcement underlined the importance of the role they think the Osprey will play in the Corps' future.

The Marines have 43 Ospreys at New River, near Jacksonville. The unit that will deploy is Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263, the first operational squadron of Ospreys, which was started about a year ago.

In Iraq, they will be based at Al Asad, a sprawling air base about 110 miles west of Baghdad in the heart of western Iraq, where Marines have operated for years.

Lt. Gen John Castellaw, the deputy commandant for aviation, said that the Osprey would take on an array of jobs in Iraq. Its superior range compared with the helicopters it's replacing means that from Al Asad it will be able to reach anywhere in the country without refueling.

It's supposed to replace the Corps' medium-duty transport helicopter, the CH-46, which went into service during the Vietnam War.

Castellaw said that the Osprey will fly twice as fast and three times as far. He also claimed that it is six to seven times safer if attacked, in part because it has sophisticated systems, including missiles, to protect it and because it's faster.

"If you've ever gone rabbit hunting, you know it's harder to shoot a rabbit that's running than one sitting still," he said.

The complicated design that allows such performance has led to crashes and other problems. The Osprey was grounded after two crashes in 2000 that killed 23 Marines. Four civilians and three Marines were killed in 1992 when a test version crashed into the Potomac River.

A Pentagon report in December said that the development program had struggled in the past year because of frequent parts and system failures and other issues.

An Osprey was badly damaged in December when a hydraulic leak started a fire inside one engine cover of an Osprey that had just landed. Faulty computer chips led the Marines to ground the Ospreys for several days this winter.

The aircraft's critics have been so persistent -- and the mishaps so much a part of its image -- that in March, Conway braced the public for more crashes.

"I'll tell you there is going to be a crash," he told reporters. "That's what airplanes do over time. And we're going to have to accept that when it happens. And we'll hear some of the folks that are not fans of the program rise up, I suspect, when that occurs."

Ospreys now cost more than $100 million each, including development costs. The Marines are expected to buy 360, and the Air Force and Navy will buy about 50 each.

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