There are 77 different Bell Boeing MV-22 Ospreys in service with the U.S. Marine Corps, according to Deputy Commandant for Aviation Lt. Gen. Jon Davis. To combat that figure, the Marine Corps is set to launch the Common Configuration Reliability and Maintainability Initiative (CCRaM). This would involve the reconfiguring the aircraft to a common variant by the Marine Corps and the manufacturers.

As reported by Defense Daily, the information about the many configurations was disclosed during a recent Independent Range Review (IRR). Bell Boeing Ospreys have been in such high demand that any modifications needed post-production were being applied to aircraft right off the line. The Marine Corps has a fleet of 263 Bell Boeing Ospreys in total, which means that every fourth one is varied from the previous three. It also means that performing any maintenance, repair and overhaul can be cumbersome.

“That makes it hard to get the right parts for it,” Davis said. “It makes it hard to maintain for our Marines and Air Force personnel … Right now you’ve got a Marine going out with a computer and … it could be one of 77 different combinations of parts and repair protocols, which is really not good.”

The standardization initiative calls for reconfiguration as the aircraft proceed through scheduled depot maintenance, which is supposed to happen in the order of oldest aircraft to youngest. once reset to the baseline configuration, each Bell Boeing Osprey is to receive reliability and lethality upgrades. That includes new nose-mounted forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensors, which the Marine Corps plans to tender. A redesigned rotor nacelle is also on the list of upgrades. Twenty-four aircraft each year is the target for aircraft upgrades; the first two are set to be standardized this year.