It's Been A Good Two Weeks

The Helicopter Association International (HAI) wrapped up its Annual Convention Tuesday in Dallas, TX and it was a record-breaking show for Bell Helicopter. Bell representatives told Aero-News the company took orders for 100 aircraft during the three-days of HAI, nearly tripling its then-record number from last year. Coupled with the recent Asian Aerospace show held in Singapore, during the past 14 days, Bell has booked 140 helicopter orders.

"To put this in perspective, at HAI 2005, we had our best show in decades and took orders for 34 helicopters," said Bell CEO Mike Redenbaugh. "This year we significantly increased that number, continuing to build our backlog. This validates our growth forecast as well as Textron's capital investment in the Bell business."

At Asian Aerospace, Bell took orders for 40 aircraft including nine of Bell's newly unveiled 417s and 13 Bell 429s unveiled last year at HAI. Bell's HAI order intake of 100 aircraft includes 46 Bell 417s and 33 Bell 429s.

"Whatever the need whether corporate, offshore, firefighting or law enforcement, tourism, utility or any other mission, we have a helicopter that will meet the need," said Bob Fitzpatrick, Senior Vice President for Marketing and Sales at Bell Helicopter. "This versatility of our product capabilities coupled with our award winning customer support network is clearly the right answer for our customers because they have definitely responded."

"What was so fantastic about these two aviation shows was the spectrum of customers who purchased our products," Fitzpatrick said. "We took orders from major corporations, emergency medical service providers as well as individuals. And the orders came from all of our geographic regions around the

world. We have a healthy backlog with customers taking delivery positions into 2010"

Bell Helicopter produces of commercial and military, manned and unmanned vertical lift aircraft, and is the pioneer of the revolutionary tilt rotor aircraft. Bell's global workforce serves customers flying Bell aircraft in more than 120 countries.

FMI: www.bellhelicopter.textron.com