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Jay Ortiz
Campaign Director
International Military Sales |
American helicopter manufacturer, Bell
Helicopter expects the Indian helicopter
market for both military and
civil helicopters to double every five years. The total demand for
choppers could be in excess of 500 by the year 2010.
Bell Helicopter is in a shortlist of two companies for the Indian Army
Aviation’s large order of 207 helicopters of which 60 are to be imported
and the rest license-manufactured in Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL)
over a period of time, progressively increasingly the indigenous content.
Bell Helicopter’s Campaign Director (International Military Sales) Jay
Ortiz said during a select media briefing that his company was considering
India a priority market and was looking beyond the Indian army order to
form a lasting relationship. “We may be new to this market but we see a
lot of potential here both for civilian and military choppers. We are
looking beyond the Indian Army aviation deal to form lasting relationships
with our customers in India. Our civil helicopter business is well
established here and growing fast and we plan to strengthen our military
helicopter business here considerably”, said Ortiz.
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Bell
407 |
“We have responded to the Request for Proposals and the trails for the
Indian army order have been concluded. We believe that the Bell 407 model
which we are offering exceeds the Indian Army Aviation’s quality
requirements”.
He said Bell would supply the 407 in a ‘weapons ready’ configuration with
hard points and the Indian Army would weaponise it as per its
requirements. The order represented one of the biggest for the Bell 407
model and had huge potential for offsets and introduce the latest military
helicopter manufacturing to India. The company would look at potential
Indian partners for components outsourcing. “The management was seized of
the high quality of technical and software skills in India and combined
with the warming Indo-US relations, you can expect a lot of activity in
this sphere in the future. Bell was at the forefront of helicopter
research with its V22 tilt-rotor Osprey and a number of UAV projects.”.
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Greg
Hubbard
Director
Communications |
Commenting on the Indian helicopter market,
Greg Hubbard, Director Communications and Wg. Cdr. (Retd.) B.S. Singh Deo,
MD of Bell Helicopter India Inc. said that there were many areas where
helicopters could be very useful in India. One such was washing of high
tension lines to minimize transmission loss. Tourism offered tremendous
potential for helicopter services and so was road safety in view of the
massive modernization of highways being undertaken in India. Corporate
purchase of helicopters had grown substantially and was expected to
maintain its growth.
Interestingly, helicopter operations had proved to be a lot more
successful than commercial airlines in India. While a number of private
airlines had shut shop during the last 10 years, not a single helicopter
operator was faced with closure. “This proves the diverse applications of
helicopters and that they can be deployed profitably over a period of
time”.
“The oldest helicopter operating in India is a Bell”, said Mr. Deo. “The
chopper is flying with Pushpak Aviation for the past 50 years.
Bell was planning a training centre in India and was fast expanding its
civilian fleet in India with several deliveries scheduled for later this
year, he said.
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