The U.S. Navy has chosen the Ground Self-Defense Force's Camp Kisarazu near Tokyo as the maintenance site for its MV-22 Ospreys deployed in Okinawa, the Defense Ministry said Friday.
In an international tender conducted by the U.S. Navy, Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. was selected from Japanese and South Korean entrants to conduct the maintenance work. The GSDF camp is in Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture.
The ministry, which is in the process of procuring the tilt-rotor aircraft for the GSDF, has already decided the camp will also maintain Japan's Osprey fleet once the hybrid aircraft are acquired and go operational.
The maintenance work for the MV-22, the U.S. Marine Corps version of the Osprey, concerns 24 aircraft deployed at Futenma air station on Okinawa. Periodic maintenance, which the marines see happening every five years or so for each Osprey, is expected to begin around January 2017.
Such maintenance will take three to four months to complete, including test flights around the camp in Chiba, according to the ministry.
The aircraft takes off and lands like a helicopter but cruises like a plane. In Okinawa, the presence of two dozen MV-22s has raised worries among residents about the risks of accidents around the air base involving the odd-looking aircraft.