LAFAYETTE, La. - The Bell Helicopter Lafayette Assembly Centeris is officially open for business in Lafayette, Louisiana. The company will assemble the new light commercial helicopter, the Model 505 Jet Ranger X at the new facility.
Louisiana Economic Development (LED) Secretary Steven Grissom and other state, regional and local officials joined Bell Helicopter’s president and CEO, John Garrison, to commemorate the occasion on August 27 at the Lafayette Regional Airport.
The new 82,300-square-foot, $26.3 million hangar facility is built on a 14.5-acre site and Bell Helicopter will lease the facility from the Lafayette Regional Airport. The project was funded by the State of Louisiana and the company plans to invest $11.4 million in equipment and tooling. Bell Helicopter is ramping up the hiring process for the facility, and assembly operations are expected to start early this year with deliveries to follow in 2016 after certification of the aircraft. The facility is expected to create 115 new jobs in Lafayette.
The grand opening marks the one year anniversary of the facility’s groundbreaking. At the ceremony, guests were able to tour the facility - getting up close with the Bell 505 flight simulator, and view the first Bell 505 engine delivered to the facility - the Turbomeca Arrius 2R.
To date, Bell Helicopter has received more than 350 letters of intent from around the globe for the five-seat, single-engine turbine helicopter. With a cruise speed of 125 knots (232 km/h), range of 360 nautical miles (667 km) and useful load of 1,500 pounds (608 kg), the Bell 505 is designed to be safe and easy to fly while remaining affordably priced. The Garmin G1000H Integrated Avionics Suite provides pilots critical flight information at a glance to maximize situational awareness. Pilot workload is further reduced by the Turbomeca Arrius 2R engine with dual channel Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC).
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