Bell’s Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter Prepares for First Flight

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HAI, Dallas, TX — In July of 2005, Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. company was awarded the contract to build the 368 Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters (ARH) for the United States Army. The new ARH will replace the venerable OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. Based on Bell’s commercial 407 helicopter, the ARH will provide the warfighter a helicopter with unmatched reliability, survivability, speed and payload capability.

“It is amazing what the integrated Bell, Army development and design team has accomplished with the ARH program since the awarding of the contract last year,” said Bell ARH Program Manager Bill Leonard. “The ARH program has achieved significant Army confidence milestones in the last six months including key component deliveries and four major reviews all within a very compressed timeline.”

Between September and December of 2005, the ARH successfully completed a system requirement review, an integrated baseline review, a systems functional review and a preliminary design review.

“Our first four systems design and development, or SDD, aircraft are being designed and built as we speak at our Bell XWorx facility in Arlington, Texas,” Leonard said. “We are on an extremely aggressive schedule to get this aircraft in the hands of the warfighter as quickly as possible, and we are working diligently to meet our commitment to the Army.”

Twenty-nine OH-58D Kiowa Warriors have been lost since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That leaves 347 OH-58Ds currently in operation, placing Army Aviation 21 aircraft below their requirement.