The V-22 Osprey is a marriage of airplane and helicopter: its two huge engines rotate 90 degrees — from pointing up, for takeoffs and landings — to pointing forward in as little as 12 seconds for speedy forward flight. It is the world's first production-model tilt-rotor. This allows the Bell-Boeing aircraft to go at high speed for something that can take off and land in a tight space. This was an essential ability during the rescue of a pair of American F-15 aviators who bailed out over Libya during on March 21, 2011. Despite a troubled 20-year development program that saw several fatal crashes, V-22s have been used in both Afghanistan and Iraq with only a single deadly accident in 2010 that killed four (the downed V-22 was a rare Air Force special-ops model, and not the more common Marine variant).
For the inside story on America's military operations around the world, check out Mark Thompson's blog, Battleland: Where military intelligence is not a contradiction in terms.