From breaking the sound barrier with incredible pilot Chuck Yeager and the Bell X-1 plane to developing the world’s first tiltrotor, Bell has always found ways to uncover revolutionary solutions. We’ve created flying rocket belts or jet packs and assisted with a lunar landing. But it’s not about one department, one invention or even one person. It’s about a culture and mindset to find new solutions that benefit our customers and ultimately, better lives throughout the world.

Now, we’re continuing this movement through a renewed focus on innovation. Our Innovation team combines creative approaches with their engineering expertise to test unmanned vehicles, develop intelligent systems and bring conceptual designs to life to support urban air mobility (UAM), commercial business and military business. At CES 2020, we unveiled the city of the future and showed how Bell AerOS will allow fleet managers to track all future aircraft during passenger flights and logistics operations. With the eyes of the world on the evolving UAM market, Bell is already leading the way for the future of cities and communities.

However, our innovation isn’t concentrated to only our Innovation team. It takes all functions of our business to pave the way for pioneering inventions. Recently, our Commercial teams patented the first ever tail rotor of its kind in the civil rotorcraft market. Bell’s Electrically Distributed Anti-Torque (EDAT) demonstrator shocked the world earlier in 2020 as it redefined norms for aircraft noise output, safety and electrical distribution.

We’re also using virtual reality and modern technology to create engaging experiences for customers. We’ve incorporated suggestions from a Customer Advisory Board through a VR aircraft experience and even made suggested changes on the spot. While advancing the development of the Bell V-280 Valor and Bell 360 Invictus, we’ve harnessed the power of digital thread technology to build and adjust an aircraft virtually before committing to a final design. Each new way to create an engaging experience, solve an industry issue or streamline our processes is a new victory for our legacy – to go above and beyond flight.