Bell is to establish a new component manufacturing facility in support of the US Army’s Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) programme in Fort Worth, Texas.
It has selected a 41,500sq m (447,000sq ft) factory in the Denton County area which it will begin modifying, including equipment installation, to be ready for low-rate initial production by 2028.
“Bell is committed to establishing future manufacturing locations to deliver the first fielded aircraft by the early 2030s and do our part to revolutionise US Army aviation,” says Lisa Atherton, chief executive of Bell.
Final assembly of the FLRAA vehicle will take place in Amarillo, Texas, while Bell’s headquarters are elsewhere in Fort Worth.
Bell was awarded the FLRAA contract in 2022, with its V-280 tiltrotor having seen off the competing Sikorsky-Boeing SB-1 Defiant, a coaxial compound design.
Since then, Bell has established several new state-of-the-art facilities, including a fuselage assembly site in Wichita, Kansas, announced in November.
According to the Forth Worth Star-Telegram, the site in Alliance is a former Stanley Black & Decker factory that closed last year.
