Bell announces re-engine choice for 407
HAI Day One: Bell, Honeywell In Power Play
Anaheim, Feb 5, 2005. Bell and Honeywell took the pre-show stage here today, an event which was in effect a celebration of a return to linkage between the two. The latter was selected by Bell to put a new engine – a 900 shaft horsepower class derivative of the LTS-101 – on to the hot selling –407 after a rigorous competition which eliminated Rolls, P&WC and Turbomeca. The new engine – initially set at 925 shp features new components and some other modifications to yield a 40 percent performance increase and a pretty good specific fuel consumption for this engine class. Bell’s CEO Mike Redenbaugh – who oversaw development of Honeywell light helo engines in a former life – said he knew, better than most, the potential of the design. Things are looking so bright the new motor will be offered to the Army for the three hundred something ARH project – proposals for which will go in from Bell next week. To questions about new development risk in a programme that is supposed to be fast-track and ‘commercial off the shelf’ – Redenbaugh says the answer is in giving the Army better hot and high performance as well as something they can phase in later as growth dictates. Honeywell, taking stage immediately after an extremely up-beat review of Bell’s prospects by their ebullient boss, said the engine is performing well in tests and that a ‘ground run’ version will be offered to the –407 office at Bell soon.
In other remarks made by Redenbaugh:
. Bell is offering all-new versions of the AH-1Y and Z model gunship to the Navy to cover a capability gap the US Marine Corps will have when olderH-1s come in for the re-man programme;
, Recent problems with the V-22 have been fixed (or will be shortly) allowing the USMC to get on with their delayed opeval programme probably in March. The tests will run for four months.
. Bell backlog for 2005 is a whopping 93 percent up over this time last year;
. Industry has an ‘industry-wide’ problem on ‘drift control of bearings production,’ of the kind that surfaced with the recent enforced inspection of V-22 input quills. Bell is contributing data and knowledge on an industry-wide basis to fixing the problem;
. There is still not much movement on helicopters for the US Homeland Security effort. (Redenbaugh finds it tough to be downbeat on an issue, but even he was forced into negative body language on a long-running situation that hasn’t resolved itself since urgings after 9/11 and doesn’t look like it will;
. Honeywell is staying well back from any further controversy on the US Coast Guard re-engining issue, a senior Washington lobbyist there cautioning the company had decided it was better to take the ‘high ground,’ in the high-profile affair. Privately, executives claim so-called engine gripes recorded at the height of the campaign to unseat the LTS-101 engine from the HH-65 Dolphin have mysteriously ‘fallen off to near zero,’ now the battle has been lost.. Their new engine – called the HTS900 – handily won Bell’s –407 place, up against the same Turbomeca Arriel 2 engine the USCG picked. ‘We told the USCG about the issue,’ a diplomatic Bob Miller of Honeywell said. ‘But to be fair there were schedule questions in there which would have been an issue.
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