Bell Helicopter Logs Record Number of Orders Over Past 14 Days.

DALLAS -- The Helicopter Association International (HAI) wrapped up its Annual Convention today in Dallas, Texas and for Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company it was a record breaking show for helicopter orders. The success of Bell Helicopter at HAI is indicative of the positive growth Bell has experienced recently. Bell Helicopter took orders for 100 aircraft during the three-days of HAI, nearly tripling its number from last year. Coupled with the recent Asian Aerospace show held in Singapore, during the past 14 days, Bell has booked 140 helicopter orders.

"To put this in perspective, at HAI 2005, we had our best show in decades and took orders for 34 helicopters," explained Bell Chief Executive Officer Mike Redenbaugh. "This year we significantly increased that number, continuing to build our backlog. This validates our growth forecast as well as Textron's capital investment in the Bell business."

The success of Bell Helicopter at HAI and Asian Aerospace is illustrative of the success Bell has enjoyed all year across the entire spectrum of our helicopter products.

"Whatever the need whether corporate, offshore, firefighting or law enforcement, tourism, utility or any other mission, we have a helicopter that will meet the need," said Bob Fitzpatrick, Senior Vice President for Marketing and Sales at Bell Helicopter. "This versatility of our product capabilities coupled with our award winning customer support network is clearly the right answer for our customers because they have definitely responded."

At Asian Aerospace Bell took orders for 40 aircraft including 9 of Bell's newly unveiled 417s and 13 Bell 429s unveiled last year at HAI.

Bell's HAI order intake includes 100 aircraft including 46 Bell 417s and 33 Bell 429s.

"What was so fantastic about these two aviation shows was the spectrum of customers who purchased our products," Fitzpatrick said. "We took orders from major corporations, emergency medical service providers as well as individuals. And the orders came from all of our geographic regions around the world. We have a healthy backlog with customers taking delivery positions into 2010"

"We have sound, reliable, dependable products and the excellent customer support to back them up," Redenbaugh said. "We continue to strive for balance in our business and we are on the right track with expansion in the commercial market paralleling the growth we have experienced in our military products."

Bell Helicopter is an industry-leading producer of commercial and military, manned and unmanned vertical lift aircraft and the pioneer of the revolutionary tilt rotor aircraft. Globally recognized for world-class customer service, innovation and superior quality, Bell's global workforce serves customers flying Bell aircraft in more than 120 countries.

Textron Inc. is a $10 billion multi-industry company with 46,000 employees operating in 36 countries. The company leverages its global network of aircraft, industrial and finance businesses to provide customers with innovative solutions and services. Textron is known around the world for its powerful brands such as Bell Helicopter, Cessna Aircraft, Jacobsen, Kautex, Lycoming, E-Z-GO and Greenlee, among others. More information is available at www.textron.com.

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