Bell Chariman & CEO Terry Stinson

On the Record with
TERRY STINSON, CHAIRMAN AND CEO,
BELL HELICOPTER TEXTRON

.coms and Other High Rollers Like Bells

The business jet business isn't the only sector doing well these days. Rotary wings are flying too.
"The U.S. market has been incredibly strong," says Terry Stinson, chairman and CEO of Bell Helicopter Textron. "The strength of the U.S. market more than counterbalanced the falloff in the Pacific Rim, and now the Pacific Rim is coming back."

In Taiwan, in Thailand, everywhere perhaps but Indonesia, "We are seeing recovery," says Stinson.
"People had written off the Pacific Rim," he says. That was a mistake.

Stinson sees strong interest in helicopters from what he calls "high wealth" people, too. He names the actor Harrison Ford, the golfer Greg Norman, the mystery novelist Patricia Cornwell, and Budweiser scion Augie Busch, who according to Stinson has a pair of Bell 412s.

"There's really a terrific interest among e-commerce people" too, Stinson says -- an area where the money (still) is.

"Textron is investing both a lot of energy as well as a lot of capital" in e-commerce, he notes. A chief focus of Bell's NBAA New Orleans exhibit is a new program called Vista, which stands for Virtual Internet Support and Technical Assistance. Live demonstrations of Bell's Vista Internet system are available here, showing how the program benefits Bell customers by affording them quicker access to service and parts, and to such information as when a difficult-to-get part will actually be delivered. "It's giving them access they've not had before," Stinson says.

The Bell 430 (shown) and the new 427 are the centerpieces of Bell's NBAA presentation.

For Bell, the Vista program means customer service costs will be reduced by an expected $350,000 per year.

"We're also doing a lot of e-procurement," Stinson notes.

Bell is making increasing use of the web as a sales tool, with continuous upgrades of its main site (www.bellhelicopter.textron.com), and a big new Bell/Agusta website (www.bellagusta.com) in place now as well.

Stinson's high on his firm's flagship 430 and new 427 helicopters, opting this year to highlight the twins on Bell's NBAA stand. (Bell's still got its BA609 tiltrotor mock-up but is saving it for the HAI Heli-Expo in Anaheim this coming February.)

Partnerships are a big part of Bell's gameplan, with composite 427 fuselages built by Samsung of Korea, and the BA609's fuselage built by Fuji Heavy Industries of Japan. The BA609 is to see final assembly in both Texas and in Italy, by Bell partner Agusta.

The Bell/Agusta joint venture, owned 60% by the American firm, is headquartered at Alliance Airport in Fort Worth. There the partners have bought new land, bringing their total to 30 acres, where a 27,000-foot headquarters facility will be augmented with a new BA609 training and delivery center, which is to include a Level D simulator for the new tiltrotor.

Bell continues to notch BA609 sales despite no longer divulging a firm price. A deposit of $150,000 secures a delivery position, likely for new buyers to be no earlier than 2005. The first 77 BA609s were sold at between $8 million and $10 million, in 1996 dollars. For new orders, the final price will be divulged 18 months prior to delivery, at which time the deposit may be refunded.
First flight of the BA609 is to take place in mid-summer 2001, with certification and first deliveries in late 2003 or early 2004. More than 80 have been sold, with recent sales, Stinson notes, of two aircraft to Pittsburgh-based Stat MedEvac, for EMS.

Also in the works is the AB139, a twin helicopter which, like the BA609, is being developed in league with partner Agusta. First flight of the AB139 is slated for the first quarter of the coming year.