Bell to boost commercial copter biz
[SINGAPORE] Bell Helicopters will look to grow its commercial helicopter business further to make up for lower military spending, says CEO John Garrison.
In an interview with BT yesterday, Mr Garrison said future production of military aircraft such as the tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey will slow, necessitating growth from commercial helicopters to offset it.
Bell delivered 41 V-22s last year, its highest ever, he said. But planned deliveries this year and the next will fall to 36 and 21 aircraft, respectively.
Mr Garrison said Bell will build more advanced and reliable helicopters, and leverage on strong service and maintenance support to differentiate itself and grow market share in the commercial helicopters sector.
"We've captured more of the market in 2012 and 2013," he said. "So we've enhanced our position in the marketplace."
Globally, commercial sales for Bell grew 13 per cent last year in a challenging market, he added.
The company has "a very active engineering and development programme", and is developing two new commercial helicopters scheduled for their first flights this year.
One is the five-seater Short Light Single (SLS) first announced last year in Paris, which will be unveiled at Heli-Expo 2014 in two weeks' time. The second is the larger Bell 525 Relentless that takes 16 passengers. It will be the first commercial helicopter to feature fly-by- wire.
On the military side, the company is developing the V-280 Valor, a third-generation tilt-rotor aircraft, as part of the US Air Force's search for a replacement of Apaches and Black Hawks.
The V-22 Osprey, on display for the first time at the Singapore Airshow, has received tremendous attention here, Mr Garrison said.
With reduced production for the US government, he said there is capacity available from Bell and Boeing for foreign governments, too. "There's no doubt the speed, capability and range of the aircraft are ideally suited for this region."
In Singapore, Bell's capabilities at its 165,000 square foot Seletar facility, shared with Cessna, have continued to grow.
Said Mr Garrison: "We are able to offer new (engineer) training, some training solutions, and we have received certification from Transport Canada to do some maintenance and customisation work."
