Bell''s Murphey on Foreign aircraft in USA Gov ops

[407 Driver]

from rotorhub...

http://www.rotorhub.com/news/0303/bell3.htm

 

[downwash]

Whoo-hee! Took John a while to get wound up, but when he did, he waved the tattered tilt-rotor flag wearily, then really SHAT on the French, didn''t he? Those boys in Ft. Worth How Much must REALLY be hurtin'', 407, to launch that kind of assault. Maybe when they''ve licked Saddam they''ll go right after Chirac?

 

[407 Driver]

This little tussle has already reached Congress, Mr Murphy is rolling heads at why 65% of all US government aircraft are from offshore contries/companies, and a fair majority are from France, and France is not a favorible buzzword in Washington DC right now is it?.
Regardless if the Overseas aircraft are better (NOT) cheaper (YES) or whatever, the USA has always had a "buy USA" national pride attitude. Murphy suggests that EC has a huge advantage with French government support, where Bell is not seeing big government help. Most of this info is on rotorhub.com.

Let the political fighting begin....Great timing on French bashing by Murphy hey

 

[Randy_G]

He really got wound up, didn''t he. Mind you, other than the 407, what has Bell done lately for the market ?? The 609 is still awhile from real production, although it is getting there slowly. I feel Bell''s somewhat brought this on themselves. Eurocopter has spent quite a bit (of French tax money) on updating older models, and creating new ones. It''s time for Bell to start looking at some new aircraft. The UH-1Y is a bigger 412 with GE engines hung on the side. The 206 design is almost 40. Nothing on the drawing board is even close to replacing it. If they would have been on the ball the ubiquitous Jetranger would have been replaced before the EC120 was introduced. They were great aircraft, but the design is really lagging behind the times.

The mediums are utilizing an airframe designed in the 50''s. Heck, our 204 will be 40 next year, and our oldest 205 will be 35 this year !! Will they ever come up with something that will actually replace the 204/205/212 ??

Cheers

 

[downwash]

Yo, Ref, I think they missed the boat when they let the AB139 go all Italian. It looks like being what you''re talking about in the ''wide-body'' Bell replacement line, don''t you think?

 

[CTD]

A little history lesson for Mr. Murphey:

- Bell did not pioneer tilt-rotor technology, Canadair did.
- 100%, that''s 100% of all Bell commercial helicopters, and all military helicopters other than the AH1-Z and OH-58D are now manufactured in Canada, albeit with some US manufactured parts.

I wonder if we are in better standing in Washington that France?

 

[VERTICAL REF]

robinson builds the little ones,
aerospetial, er arrow special, ah aerospetal, eah eurocopter builds the intermediate ones,
bell builds the medium ones,
and siickorcky, sir corsy, uh sacorcy, er igor builds the big ones!!!

has it not always been this way?