Bell/Agusta Hopes USCG Buys In
Don Barbour looks both ways before he speaks. He's going to tell
us a secret.
"We've got the recommendation. In 40 years, the Coast Guard will
have picked more than a hundred AB-139s."
But it's not a lock and Bell/Agusta's Executive Marketing
Director is the first to admit it. Still, his company's helicopter
is in the lead for the Coast Guard contract, part of the Deepwater
Initiative. It's a planning process that attempts to see 40 years
into the future. Barbour is convinced that, 40 years from now, the
USCG's future will be chock-full of the yet-to-be-certified
aircraft.
But Can It Beat Inertia?
Barbour ticks off the advantages of the AB-139 over its
competition (mostly Eurocopter Pumas and Sikorsky Blackhawks).
"More capacity. More engine power. The best lift-to-weight ratio in
the industry."
The problem is, he admits, the Coast Guard lusts after equipment
it already has. "God bless 'em," he says. "They're trying to figure
out how to take their walking shoes and run 200 miles in them. But
we've shown them they can spend roughly the same money and have an
entirely new fleet of helicopters over the same 40 year time
span."
The Coast Guard hasn't even flown this bird yet. Still, Barbour
says, look at the advantages.

The AB-139 (above) is a huge helicopter, bigger than the
Blackhawk. In fact, Barbour says some customers wonder about all
that room and lifting power. He's confident, however, that the
addition of coastal interdiction to the Coast Guard's list of
things to do will prove the AB-139 is the right chopper for the
job.
Barbour is vague on Bell/Agusta's target date for aircraft
certification by the FAA. "Sometime around mid-year," he says
confidently.
"Until 9/11, the Coast Guard's primary mission was rescue -
between shore and 50 miles out. Now," says Barbour, "they're
expected to stop an aggressor 200 miles from shore. We need someone
to protect our shores. We need different assets than those used for
Search And Rescue."
The new focus on homeland defense, he says, will
mean an end to the short-range Dolphins, which have been in service
with the USCG for some 22 years now.
"They'll need larger aircraft than the Dolphin (right). It's
good for rescue, but not enough to put six or more people on board
a ship suspected of being a threat. "
Carrying A Big Stick
Barbour has another story to justify the sale of AB-139s to the
Coast Guard. "A couple of years ago, the Coast Guard could use its
(Aerospatial HH-65A) Dolphins to shadow one of those
70-mile-an-hour boats running drugs from the islands to Florida.
But they weren't armed. So what could they do, ask the bad guys to
pull over? The bad guys would just laugh. Then the Coast Guard
leased a couple of (McDonnell-Douglas) MD-900s and armed them with
machine guns."
The Coast Guard can't shoot at people, Barbour says, but they
can fire shots across a suspect's bow. "You'd be amazed at how
effective that is." Now, Barbour says, "the Coast Guard has ten of
these armed MD-900s and they've made such an impact that the drug
runners are shipping their stuff to Canada and trucking it in from
there."
Much-Needed Boost For Helicopter Industry
With a smile, Barbour notes Bell/Agusta beat out
McDonnell-Douglas in the first round of competition for the
Deepwater contract. And such a contract is vitally important to the
American-Italian company.

"We used to make 200 aircraft a month," he says, smiling
wistfully. "Now we make 200 aircraft a year. (The pace of
deployment of new equipment in the Coast Guard) seems a little
slower to us now."
So the nation's new focus on homeland security has been a good
thing for Bell/Agusta? In a sense, says Barbour, the answer is
"yes." But that's not the whole picture.
"It's been a mixed bag," he says. "On the plus side, people see
the more serious missions and say, 'We need better aircraft like
the 139. But on the minus side, corporate and discretionary flight
is down."
Barbour is still confident, however. It's his job. "The AB-139
backlog is higher than for all other competing models... combined."
Barbour believes the helicopter industry will recover from its
economy-driven slump and will make great strides over the next
seven to ten years. Part of that success, he hopes, will be pinned
on the Coast Guard's acceptance of the AB-139 in a mission that has
changed so drastically since the terror attacks on New York and
Washington.