While Bell Helicopter and program partner Agusta Aerospace are pondering their next moves in the ongoing saga of tiltrotor development (see page 1), both parties were recently informed by the U.S military that they must find space to store 19 military
V-22s while the U.S. Navy and Marines ready a handful of Ospreys for a return to test at the Navy’s Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland. Bell officials plan to use an old hangar known as Building 3000 at the Amarillo (Texas) International Airport as a warehouse for the world’s largest fleet of fly-like-an-airplane, land-and-takeoff-like-a-helicopter convertiplanes in storage anywhere. The military’s existing V-22s and ones that are set to come off the assembly line will be stored in Amarillo under a new $5.72 million contract. Building 3000 will be extensively modified with improved security and firefighting capabilities.