Bell Wins US Navy’s $815M H-1 Upgrade Program Contract

The US Navy has awarded Bell Textron a contract worth $815 million involving repair, upgrade and replacement of components under its H-1 Upgrade Program.

“Bell Textron is awarded $815 million for an indefinite-delivery, performance-based logistics requirements contract for the repair, upgrade or replacement of 35 items used on the UH-1Y and AH-1Z helicopter, along with inventory management, warehousing and establishing supply response time metrics,” the US Department of Defense said in a statement Wednesday.

The H-1 upgrade program involves development of AH-1Z Viper and UH-1Y Venom military helicopters to replace US’ ageing fleet of AH-1W Super Cobras and UH-1N Twin Hueys. The contract was awarded in 1996 to Bell Helicopter, the original manufacturer of both aircraft, to design the new airframes as modernized attack and utility helicopters with considerable design commonality, to reduce operating costs.

Work for the current contract is expected to be completed by December 2024.