Bell Helicopter (Chalet L3-7) here in a press conference yesterday strongly hinted the company is about to transfer more work to partner AgustaWestland in the protracted BA609 Tiltrotor program. “We are looking for the most efficient way to get the aircraft certified and we’ll possibly find some efficiencies in Italy,” Mike Blake, executive v-p for customer solutions, said. While one test aircraft resides
in Texas and another in Italy, Bell has earmarked the next two for Europe. Bell’s and AgustaWestland’s respective shares in the program are believed to be 60/40, despite conflicting numbers given by the two companies.
It seems Bell/Agusta Aerospace delays the BA609 program by one year every year.
This year, it has postponed its certification target from “2010/2011,” as announced in June 2007, to “2011/early 2012,” according to a new development schedule released by AgustaWestland. Blake only referred to 2011, an “unchanged” schedule. Last year at the Paris Airshow, CEO Giuseppe Orsi had even pledged to exhibit a customer-delivered aircraft at the 2011 event. A BA609 is performing daily flying displays here in Farnborough.
