RIDLEY PARK, Pa. – Confident the V-22 Osprey will do well when it goes into combat for the first time this fall in Iraq, Pentagon officials are already courting foreign buyers for the Texas-built tilt-rotor troop transport, the program director said Monday.

Britain and Israel are among nations keenly interested in the helicopter-airplane hybrid, Marine Col. Matthew Mulhern told reporters at a ceremony to mark completion of the 100th Osprey fuselage by Boeing Co., which builds the V-22 with Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. of Fort Worth.

About 2,500 people work on the Osprey for Bell in Fort Worth and Amarillo.

The Naval Air Systems Command put on a V-22 demonstration last month at Patuxent River, Md., for representatives from 16 nations as part of an effort to stir up foreign interest.

The event was held in lieu of sending an Osprey to this month's Paris Air Show, the world's largest aviation trade fair, Col. Mulhern said.

The Navy wants to gin up foreign sales because they would reduce the cost of V-22s bought by U.S. forces. The current price is about $71 million, not counting development costs going back to 1983, when the program began.

"There's a lot of interest," Col. Mulhern said. "I think everybody is waiting to see how it does on this deployment."

The Marine Corps is sending a squadron of 10 Ospreys to Iraq in September to carry troops into combat, evacuate the wounded and fly other missions in the place of CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters. The Osprey can fly about twice as fast and three times as far as a CH-46.

The seven-month deployment by Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 could make or break the reputation of the Osprey, which was nearly canceled after two fatal crashes in 2000.

Critics insist the aircraft is unsafe and too costly. The Marines say it is ready for combat.

Combat "is what we are going to use this aircraft for," Marine Lt. Gen. John Castellaw, deputy commandant for aviation, told an audience of Boeing workers and guests at the ceremony. "It is what it was built for."

Telling a group of young enlisted Marines in the audience to stand, Gen. Castellaw urged Boeing workers to "remember the faces that you're looking at now, knowing that they're going to be flying against an enemy that's trying to kill them so that they can eventually kill you. And with that in mind, produce the best quality airplane possible."

The Marines are buying 360 Ospreys. The Air Force is buying 50 for special operations.

The Navy is still considering whether to go ahead with a long-term plan to buy 48 for special missions.

Bell-Boeing and Col. Mulhern's office hope to agree by the end of the year on a five-year contract for 167 more Ospreys. The deal could save $400 million by stabilizing prices, Col. Mulhern said.

The production schedule under the proposed multiyear contract would leave room for Bell-Boeing to produce an additional three Ospreys per year for the Marines or Air Force or for any foreign buyers, though Col. Mulhern said foreign sales were some years away.

Pentagon, State Department and congressional approvals are needed, and "it's a few years before the process will start," he said. "I don't think it's 10 years away, but it's not next year."