Bell’s Commercial Helicopter Deliveries Slide in Q3

Bell’s third-quarter revenues climbed 10% year over year, to $1 billion, driven by accelerating work on the U.S. Army’s MV-75 tiltrotor program, though commercial helicopter deliveries dropped and segment profit declined slightly, parent company Textron reported on Thursday.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based helicopter manufacturer delivered 30 commercial helicopters in the third quarter, down from 44 units in the same period last year. Despite the delivery decline, Textron chairman and CEO Scott Donnelly emphasized strong underlying demand across Bell’s commercial portfolio.

“Bell continues to see strong demand across its commercial product portfolio,” Donnelly said during an earnings call. He pointed to a recently announced purchase agreement with Global Medical Response for seven 429s and options for eight more, with deliveries expected to begin in 2026. Lisa Atherton, currently president and CEO of Bell, will become Textron’s president and CEO effective January 4, with Donnelly transitioning to executive chairman.

The revenue increase of $97 million compared to third-quarter 2024 was driven by higher military revenues of $128 million, primarily reflecting increased volume from the MV-75 program, which partially offset the $31 million erosion in commercial revenues due to lower delivery volume.

Bell’s segment profit for the quarter was $92 million, down $6 million from a year ago. However, the company’s backlog surged to $8.2 billion at the end of the quarter, up $1.3 billion from the previous quarter, primarily reflecting the award for the prototype, testing, and evaluation phase of the MV-75 program.

MV-75 Making Progress

Donnelly provided extensive details on the MV-75 program’s progress, addressing what he characterized as misconceptions about the program’s structure and risk profile.

“In the quarter, Bell exceeded their 90% engineering release milestone, enabling continued fabrication and procurement activity for the prototype aircraft,” Donnelly said. He noted that fabrication and assembly work is continuing across numerous sites, including wing assembly at the Amarillo, Texas facility, fuselage assembly at the Wichita site, and ongoing fabrication of critical rotor and drive system components in Fort Worth.

Donnelly clarified that unlike some problematic fixed-price development programs at other defense contractors, the MV-75 program is “mostly cost-plus development. There are some fixed-price elements. I think the program as it’s laid out today covers all of that development, which is largely cost-plus.”

Addressing questions about the Army’s plans to accelerate fielding of the aircraft, Donnelly said the near-term work remains unchanged. “Our focus obviously right now is very much around the acceleration, getting the first prototype aircraft going,” he said, adding that the modular open systems architecture (MOSA) approach enables future variants without affecting current development work.

The program will produce six engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) aircraft, followed by two limited user test (LUT) aircraft, before entering low-rate initial production (LRIP). Donnelly noted that with the original V-280 demonstrator having accumulated more than 200 flight hours, “the risk of bringing that LRIP in rather than having a big gap is pretty minimal.”

“The team is doing a great job on executing,” Donnelly said. "We’re building wings, we’re building fuselages, we’re building gearboxes. It’s all going quite well.”

For the first nine months of 2025, Bell delivered a total of seven military helicopters—two V-22s in the first quarter, three in the second quarter, and two in the third quarter. Commercial deliveries totaled 91 helicopters through three quarters: 84 light helicopters across the 505, 407, and 429 models, and seven medium 412 helicopters.

This compares to 18 military helicopters and 88 commercial deliveries in the first three quarters of 2024, including four H-1 helicopters and 14 V-22s on the military side.

The commercial delivery breakdown for the third quarter of 2025 showed fifteen 505s, eight 407s, six 429s, and one 412, compared to twenty-four 505s, thirteen 407s, four 429s, and three 412s in the third quarter of 2024.

eAviation

During the earnings call on Thursday, Donnelly mentioned that Textron will eliminate the Textron eAviation segment as a separate reporting unit, effective at the beginning of fiscal 2026. The eAviation business activities will be realigned across Textron Aviation and Textron Systems “to leverage our existing sales and business development capabilities.”

The eAviation segment reported $5 million in revenues for the third quarter of 2025 and a segment loss of $15 million, compared to $6 million in revenues and an $18 million loss in third-quarter 2024. Donnelly noted that the team completed the hover flight test envelope for the Nuuva V300 uncrewed cargo aircraft, setting the stage for a second air vehicle to enter flight testing.