As parent company Textron reports it’s fourth quarter numbers, so they release the quarterly report on production volumes at Bell Helicopter.  While military production continues fairly flat (and is predicted to near halve), so they have been compensated by commercial helicopter deliveries up 13% from 188 to 213 units.  This covers Bell 206L3, 212, 407, 412, 429 models, and Bell have not provided the split between each model.  We would expect the 407 to be more than half of the number, and the 429 the next most popular.

The actual numbers from the last four quarterly financial reports are as follows

FY13
Q1 13 V-22, 6 H-1, 75 commercial
Q2 10 V-22, 7 H-1, 54 commercial
Q3  9 V-22, 6 H-1, 44 commercial
Q4  9 V-22, 6 H-1, 40 commercial

FY12
Q1  9 V-22, 6 H-1, 65 commercial
Q2 11 V-22, 5 H-1, 46 commercial
Q3  9 V-22, 6 H-1, 47 commercial
Q4 10 V-22, 7 H-1, 30 commercial

FY13 41 V-22, 25 H-1, 213 commercial – total 279
FY12 39 V-22, 24 H-1, 188 commercial – total 251

Bell’s turnover, including all the military support contracts that go with the H-1 and V-22 programs, was $4,511B, up 5.5% from $4.274B in the previous year.  Profits did not match this rise, down 10.3% from $639M to $573M.  Useful profits though, for Textron, when sister company Cessna lost $48M in the same period.

Jeremy Parkin – HeliHub.com