Middle East Group to buy Bell Helicopter?

Now it is getting even weirder, a group of United Arab Emirates companies want to buy Bell Helicopter, at least the commercial division.

For those who don't know, all commercial Bell Helicopters now came from Mirabel, Quebec. Bell Helicopter Fort Worth has been doing only military (V-22, Cobra, etc.) since around 1985-86.

And Mirabel plant rely on Fort Worth for transmission and rotor technologies.

So if U.A.E. get only the commercial side, how could this work???

www.forbes.com...

They'd have a military side that's a separate company, without being a separate company. Like with Boeing, they have Boeing military, and Boeing civilian. They work on separate projects, but are part of the same company.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
They'd have a military side that's a separate company, without being a separate company. Like with Boeing, they have Boeing military, and Boeing civilian. They work on separate projects, but are part of the same company.

Except the commercial side of Bell Helicopter (Mirabel Plant) cannot work on it's own, they have NO (read zero) capacity for transmission & rotor (that expertise only exist at their mother company in Fort Worth).

So if you split them up, the commercial side cannot create a new helicopter tomorrow, so how good is that for U.A.E. if they want to only buy the commercial side.

So it is not simple as you suggested it.

Then they'll either get transmissions and rotors from the other plant, or subcontract it out. Building an aircraft (just about any aircraft) isn't just done by one place anymore. The F-22 was built over 40+ states. The 787 over something like 11 COUNTRIES. The VH-71 was built by AugustaWestland (main rotorblades and main fuselage) in the UK, gearbox in Cascina Costa Italy, Lockheed Martin, Bell, and others.