Governor Greg Abbott arrives at Bell Manufacturing Technology Center in Fort Worth to announce that Bell Textron has chosen Fort Worth for major expansion to build V-280 Valor military aircraft on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024. (Amanda McCoy)
(Tribune News Service) — Bell Textron Inc., already one the largest employers in the Metroplex, has chosen its hometown of Fort Worth to build components for the next generation of military assault helicopters.
The news, announced Tuesday by Bell CEO Lisa Artherton and Gov. Greg Abbott at a Bell facility in northern Fort Worth, represents an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in North Texas. The company’s new facility in Alliance is expected to create more than 500 high-paying jobs.
“We are truly a Texas company,” Artherton said.
Bell considered at least two other locations in other states for its $632 million plant. It will produce parts for the company’s V-280 Valor to replace the Army’s fleet of UH-60 Black Hawks, developed in the 1970s by the Lockheed Martin company Sikorsky.
Bell won the coveted defense contract in 2022 for its design of the V-280, a tiltrotor aircraft that can take off or land vertically and fly at over 300 mph. The contract could be worth up to $70 billion over many years, depending on how many aircraft the Army and foreign governments purchase. Lockheed Martin and Boeing had competed during the Army’s years-long selection process.
The 34-acre site that Bell chose is at 15100 N. Beach St., off Interstate 35W across the Denton County line but within the Fort Worth city limits. The site was formerly home to a Stanley Black & Decker facility.
Bell was offered a sizeable economic incentives package from the state and local governments. The Fort Worth City Council approved over $47 million in incentives on Dec. 10. Bell applied for tax breaks from the state through Texas’ Jobs, Energy, Technology and Innovation Act program, or JETI.
Bell will need to invest at least $632 million into the Fort Worth site to receive incentives from the city. The company must also create a minimum of 520 full-time jobs with minimum average annual salaries of $85,000 at the site by the end of 2039.
Robert Allen, head of the Fort Worth Economic Development Partnership, said Bell’s decision reinforces the city’s status as an “aviation and defense leader.” The timing of the announcement is particularly welcome as Fort Worth’s other aviation giant, Lockheed Martin, has been thrust in the news by Elon Musk’s recent criticism of government spending on its F-35 program.
“Here in Fort Worth, we build defense projects that change the world,” Allen said, “and thanks to this project, we will be doing that for a very, very long time.”
Abbott was joined by Mayor Mattie Parker and other dignitaries for the announcement at the company’s Manufacturing Technology Center at I-35W and Loop 820.
“This is truly a Texas-sized investment in Fort Worth and in the future of our great state,” Abbott said.
Demonstration flight of Bells new tiltrotor V-280 Valor is touted as having twice the speed and twice the range of conventional military helicopters. (Steve Wilson)
What is Bell’s V-280 Valor?
Bell named its prototype the V-280 Valor, but its technical military name is the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft, or FLRAA. Eventually, the aircraft could be named after a Native American tribe as the Army has traditionally done with helicopters, such as the Apache, Comanche and Black Hawk.
In November, Bell announced the FLRAA’s fuselage will be assembled at a site in Wichita, Kansas. Bell is building a $20 million facility in Grand Prairie, where the FLRAA will be tested.
Though it acts like a traditional helicopter during take off and landing, the FLRAA is designed to reconfigure itself in the air to fly faster than other helicopters.
“Combining the speed and range of the turboprop with advanced agility greater than a traditional helicopter, FLRAA offers better flight performance and lifecycle sustainability,” Bell says on its V-280 website. “This weapon system was purpose built to revolutionize U.S. Army overmatch in multi-domain operations.
Bell Aircraft Corp. was founded in Buffalo, New York, in 1935 by industrialist Larry Bell. He moved his helicopter company to Fort Worth in 1951.
Four years after Bell’s death in 1956, Textron purchased the company. Hundreds of UH-1s Iroquois helicopters, nicknamed “Hueys,” were assembled at the Fort Worth plant and sent overseas during the Vietnam War.
Eventually, the original headquarters building was demolished to make way for a new four-story headquarters, which opened in 2014 in far east Fort Worth near Hurst.
Bell Textron was Tarrant County’s third largest industrial taxpayer in 2022.
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