Airbus Helicopters, Inc. (AHI) is a

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a s ...

Airbus Group, Inc. Airbus Group, Inc. (formerly EADS North America) represents the North American activities of European multinational aerospace company Airbus. Headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, this American arm of the company participates in U.S. Department o ...

, the United States subsidiary of

Airbus Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European Multinational corporation, multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace manufacturer, aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft througho ...

. Airbus Helicopters manufactures and markets a broad range of

civil Civil may refer to: *Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit * Civil affairs *Civil and political rights *Civil disobedience *Civil engineering *Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a membe ...

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

s. With large facilities in Texas and Mississippi and service centers throughout the country, Airbus Helicopters, Inc. has a U.S. footprint of over 860,000 square feet (79,900 m²) and controls over 50% of the U.S. market.

History

The company's history goes back to the now-defunct

LTV Corporation Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) was a large American Conglomerate (company), conglomerate which existed from 1961 to 2000. At its peak, it was involved in aerospace industry, aerospace, airline industry, airlines, electronics industry, electronics, stee ...

. In 1968, Vought Helicopter Inc. (VHI), a subsidiary of LTV, built a facility at the

Grand Prairie Municipal Airport Grand Prairie Municipal Airport is five miles southwest of Grand Prairie, a city largely in Dallas County, Texas. Most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, but Grand Prairie Municipal Airport is G ...

Grand Prairie, Texas Grand Prairie is a city in Dallas, Tarrant, and Ellis counties of Texas, in the United States. It is part of the Mid-Cities region in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It had a population of 175,396 according to the 2010 census, making it t ...

, for the purpose of marketing helicopters to North America built by

Aérospatiale Aérospatiale (), sometimes styled Aerospatiale, was a French state-owned aerospace manufacturer that built both civilian and military aircraft, rockets and satellites. It was originally known as Société nationale industrielle aérospatiale ( ...

, the French helicopter manufacturer. However, six years later Aérospatiale bought out VHI and took over its own marketing; two years later it changed VHI's name to Aérospatiale Helicopter Corporation (AHC). In 1980, AHC built its current Grand Prairie facility. In 1992,

DASA ''Dasa'' ( sa, दास, Dāsa) is a Sanskrit word found in ancient Indian texts such as the ''Rigveda'' and ''Arthasastra''. It usually means "enemy" or "servant" but ''dasa'', or ''das'', also means a "servant of God", "devotee," "votary" or "o ...

of Germany and Aérospatiale merged to form

Eurocopter Airbus Helicopters SAS (formerly Eurocopter Group) is the helicopter manufacturing division of Airbus. It is the largest in the industry in terms of revenues and turbine helicopter deliveries. Its head office is located at Marseille Provence Ai ...

; AHC would become American Eurocopter. In 2004, the facility in Columbus, Mississippi was opened and in 2006, became the manufacturing facility and home for the U.S. Army's

UH-72A Lakota The Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters) UH-72 Lakota is a twin-engine helicopter with a single, four-bladed main rotor. The UH-72 is a militarized version of the Eurocopter EC145, built by American Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters, Inc.), a ...

helicopter. The company was renamed Airbus Helicopters, Inc. on January 2, 2014.

US production plants

Airbus Helicopters produces helicopters at two production plants in the US. *

** Grand Prairie serves as the headquarters and main facility for Airbus Helicopters. It is adjacent to

. ** Grand Prairie also serves as the Airbus Helicopters Training facility for North America with classrooms and full-motion simulators. *

Columbus, Mississippi Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Lowndes County, on the eastern border of Mississippi, United States, located primarily east, but also north and northeast of the Tombigbee River, which is also part of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterwa ...

** The recently constructed Columbus plant handles repairs, upgrades and customizations of all Airbus Helicopters models. It is located on the

Golden Triangle Regional Airport Golden Triangle Regional Airport is a public use airport in Lowndes County, Mississippi. The airport is located approximately midway between the cities of Starkville, Columbus, and West Point, Mississippi, and serves the surrounding Golden Tria ...

. ** The Columbus facility is also the home of the

(military EC145), the new Army helicopter. **Beginning in 2014, Airbus Helicopters will upgrade the Columbus Plant to a final assembly and test site for AS350 helicopters. The plant plans to produce up to 60 additional AS350 helicopters annually by 2016.Eurocopter Upgrades U.S. Production Operations
” Aviation International News Online, October 2013.

References

External links

{{Portal, Companies, Aviation
Airbus Helicopters

Companies based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex Manufacturing companies based in Texas Helicopter manufacturers of the United States Airbus subsidiaries and divisions Airbus Helicopters Grand Prairie, Texas