Some More Spectacular Photos as Another Pair of United States Marine Corps (USMC) MV-22B Osprey Tiltrotor Aircraft Visit Rockhampton for the Final Time

In what has been reported to be their final visit into the beef capital during this deployment, on Saturday 1 June, the same United States Marine Corps (USMC) Bell Boeing MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft completed two more visits into the Australian Army District Support Unit (DSU) compound nearby to Rockhampton Airport. 

The two Ospreys that visited Rockhampton on these two occasions were identified as 168244 / YZ-00 and 168285 / YZ-13.  During the morning, they departed Townsville and flew into the Shoalwater Bay Training Area (SWBTA) before continuing to the DSU at Rockhampton.  They later departed back to Towsnville and were noted flying together as "Skytrain 12".

Then during the evening, the two Ospreys arrived back into the DSU at Rockhampton but this time as "Skytrain 16".  After taking on fuel, they returned to Townsville.

As mentioned on previous occasions, The Ospreys are of the Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 363 (VMM-363) ‘Lucky Red Lions’ which have been deployed to Darwin recently as a part of the 8th Marine Rotational Force Darwin (MRF-D).  Several MV-22B Ospreys, along with Bell  UH/AH-1 helicopters, arrived in Darwin via ship before being flown the short distance to RAAF Base Darwin.

Sincere thanks to all the local plane spotters - including Ash B in this post - for taking the time to capture and for allowing for allowing us to share their spectacular photos of a spectacular start to the ‘Joint Warfighting Series’ of exercises of which some have been and will continue to take place in the ShoalwaterBay Training Area (SWBTA).

All photos taken by Ash Burggraaff  ©