from the Fort Worth Star
ARLINGTON - Nearly four decades ago, UH-1 Huey helicopters built by Bell Helicopter Textron first carried U.S. soldiers into battle.
If all goes as planned, U.S. Marines will still be flying into the world's hot spots 20 years from now aboard Bell-built - and rebuilt - Hueys.
The first of the next-generation Hueys - the UH-1Y - was unveiled Thursday at the company's flight test facility at Arlington Municipal Airport.
"This is a very important milestone for ... us as we continue to transform Marine aviation," said Lt. Gen. William "Spider" Nyland, the deputy commandant overseeing the Marine Corps' air arm.
Rather than buy new helicopters, the Marines decided several years ago to save money and have Bell rebuild their aging fleet of Hueys and Super Cobra attack helicopters.
Already over budget and behind schedule, the program is an important one for the Marines and for Bell. The Fort Worth manufacturer has changed top executives and cut jobs in recent months because of delays in the troubled V-22 Osprey program and slow sales of commercial helicopters.
Over the next 10 to 12 years, the Marines plan to spend an estimated $4.5 billion to give 100 Hueys AND 180 Super Cobras a new lease on life.
Bell will strip the old helicopters down to their frames, make necessary repairs and then modernize them by adding new high- performance engines, transmissions and rotor systems, high-tech electronics and other state-of-the art components.
The result, Nyland said, will be helicopters that can fly faster and carry twice the troops and equipment twice as far as the existing helicopters.
Just as important, Nyland said, the rebuilt Huey and Super Cobras will share 85 percent of their parts. That means the aircraft will be easier to maintain and repair. And the Marines will have to buy and stock fewer spare parts, saving money and freeing up space aboard the Navy's amphibious ships that transport the Marine expeditionary units.
Fulfilling those promises, however, is proving harder and more expensive than planned.
The program is about a year behind schedule. And the estimated cost of rebuilding 280 helicopters has grown to $4.5 billion from $4 billion in the past year.
Bell has had to share in the pain of the cost increases. Textron, Bell's parent, reported in October that it was taking a $73 million write-off because of cost overruns at Bell, largely on the H-1 program.
Those overruns, as well as numerous other problems, led to the firing by Textron in late September of Terry Stinson as Bell's chairman and chief executive.
Col. Doug Isleib, the Marine program manager overseeing the Huey and Super Cobra rebuilding, said he believes that the major problems have been resolved and that the program is making good progress.
The task of tearing down the old helicopters and repairing and modifying the airframes proved more challenging than expected, Isleib said.
Bell expects to fly the new Huey for the first time in the next few days and to turn it over to the Marines for flight tests early next year.
"I'm a Huey pilot, so I'm really excited by this airplane," Isleib said.
The first rebuilt Super Cobra was delivered to the Marines a year ago. It has since been undergoing flight testing at the Patuxent Naval Air Test Center in Maryland and has logged more than 176 flight hours to date.
"We've been flying for over a year without any real technical problems," Isleib said.
In the next few months, Bell will deliver two more Super Cobras and a second Huey to the Marines for the flight testing which, if all goes well, will continue into 2004. At that time, the program is expected to begin operational evaluation testing, which means flying the aircraft in missions and conditions designed to simulate how the Marines will use them.
Even if all the technical and operational obstacles are surmounted, Isleib said the Marines will continue to face budget battles, in the Pentagon and in Congress. The helicopter program will be competing for funding at a time when the armed forces are also trying to buy new aircraft like the V-22 Osprey and the Joint Strike Fighter, which will be built in Fort Worth by Lockheed Martin.
But Terry Dake, Bell's senior vice president and a retired Marine general, said at the rollout ceremony, "There is no group that can fight more tenaciously for funding" than the Marines.