Other companies build planes. Other companies build helicopters. Bell’s “secret sauce,” its CEO says, is its aircraft can be both.

Aviation, always the Army’s largest modernization account, goes into a nosedive in the fiscal 2017 budget, plunging from $5.9 billion to $3.6 billion. The $2.3 billion cut more than makes up for a $1.3 billion cut to total Army spending that helps fund readiness, operations and maintenance. But with aviation accounting for 25 percent of the… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Lockheed Martin’s planned purchase of Sikorsky Aircraft, the biggest U.S. helicopter manufacturer, is a natural fit that will mean a lot more to buyer Lockheed and seller United Technologies Corp. than it will for the military rotorcraft industry, present or future. Here’s why. First, the two companies have worked together on military helicopter programs for decades.… Keep reading →

Somebody’s finally doing something tangible about the future of Army aviation. Bell Helicopter subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems of Wichita, Kan., has started assembling the composite fuselage for the first prototype V-280 Valor, Bell’s new military tiltrotor. The Valor is sleeker, smaller, and, by design, more Army-friendly than the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey, which was built to fit… Keep reading →