Bell Wins $300 Million Contract to Upgrade 49 USMC H-1 Helicopters

Bell Textron will overhaul 49 Marine Corps H-1 helicopters under a $300 million Navy contract, adding new power, data and defense systems designed to keep the aircraft combat-ready into the 2040s.

Bell Textron won an estimated $300 million U.S. Navy contract to upgrade 49 Marine Corps H-1 helicopters, the company announced Monday, launching the third phase of a fleet-wide modernization program.

The Department of the Navy awarded the contract to apply Bell’s Structural and Power Improvements for NextGen Effects, or SPINE, upgrade to 28 AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters and 21 UH-1Y Venom utility helicopters flown by the U.S. Marine Corps. The hybrid deal combines firm-fixed-price, fixed-price incentive and cost-plus-fixed-fee arrangements, spanning a base period and three option years.

Modification work on the 49 aircraft will begin at Bell’s Amarillo Assembly Center in mid-2027, with the first upgraded helicopters scheduled for delivery to Marine squadrons in 2028.

The Naval Air Systems Command, known as NAVAIR, issued the award as a sole-source procurement, citing Bell’s role as the H-1’s original designer and the only source with the proprietary technical data needed to safely modify the airframe. It was unclear late Tuesday whether any competing contractors had filed objections to the sole-source justification.

The contract marks a shift from prototype testing to full-rate production for the program, which was previously named the Structural Improvement and Electrical Power Upgrade, or SIEPU, before being rebranded to emphasize its focus on next-generation combat capability.

“Beginning SPINE Phase 3.0 emphasizes the importance of this essential modernization effort and enables the USMC H-1 fleet to remain competitive with current and future capabilities,” said Danielle Markham, a Bell Textron program manager.

“SPINE will enable H-1 operators and maintainers to implement the equipment and technology needed to keep the aircraft as a fully interoperable member of the modern joint force throughout the lifetime of the H-1 fleet,” Markham said.

Col. Jason Duke, program manager for NAVAIR’s H-1 office, designated PMA-276, said the aircraft remain central to Marine aviation.

“H-1s are essential to maintaining attack, strike, and utility capabilities within the Marine Corps and they do this while providing a large volume of fires. We are very pleased to see this modernization effort take another leap forward,” Duke said.

“The SPINE program will provide a significant increase to overall H-1 electrical capability to optimize advanced battlefield technology and ensure the H-1 fleet will continue to be relevant into the 2040s,” he said.

The upgrade rebuilds the helicopters’ electrical architecture to support a new “Series A” configuration, including an advanced data bus and integration of Link 16, a secure tactical data-sharing network used across the U.S. military and NATO forces.

That connectivity allows the helicopters to receive targeting coordinates from other aircraft — such as the F-35B Lightning II, which can detect threats from long range — while flying low enough to stay hidden from enemy radar. Bell says the arrangement lets AH-1Z crews acquire a firing solution and launch long-range, networked weapons such as the Joint Air-to-Ground Missile without activating their own radar.

The added electrical capacity also powers upgraded defensive systems, including the AAQ-45 Department of the Navy Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasure system and the APR-39D(V)2 Radar Warning Receiver, which detect hostile fire or radar locks and automatically deploy countermeasures.

The UH-1Y Venom will additionally receive structural upgrades to its fast-rope insertion rig, rescue hoist and litter mounting kits, reflecting the Marine Corps’ emphasis on personnel recovery and medical evacuation from austere locations without runway access.

The Marine Corps has framed the upgrade as part of a broader strategic shift. The 2026 Marine Aviation Plan, known as Project Eagle, and the service’s Force Design strategy call for aircraft that can operate inside contested airspace defended by advanced enemy radar and missile networks, under concepts the Marine Corps calls Stand-In Force and Distributed Aviation Operations. Those documents designate SPINE as central to keeping the H-1 fleet relevant as the military shifts its focus toward the Indo-Pacific region.

The Marine Corps currently operates 186 AH-1Z Vipers and 131 UH-1Y Venoms, according to Bell and Marine Corps program data.

The two aircraft share roughly 84% of their major mechanical components, including identical General Electric T700-GE-401C turboshaft engines and a four-bladed, hingeless, bearingless composite rotor system — a design intended to simplify maintenance and logistics for Marine mechanics servicing both variants side by side.

The H-1 upgrade lineage dates to 1996, when the Marine Corps launched a program to replace its Vietnam-era UH-1N Twin Huey and AH-1W SuperCobra fleets with the current Viper and Venom models.

Bell has previously received other Navy contracts tied to sustaining the H-1 fleet, including a $228 million award in September 2022 for hardware and software updates and a $557 million, five-year logistics contract in December 2024 covering spare parts and rotor components through 2029.

In the fall of 2025 and into March 2026, Bell completed pathfinder SPINE modifications on a single UH-1Y and AH-1Z, which were sent to Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland for flight testing ahead of the Phase 3.0 award.

“To have these first two aircraft completed under the SPINE program is a huge moment for us,” Scott Sims, Bell’s H-1 program director, said in March. “At Bell, crew safety and aircraft effectiveness remain the number one priority on everything we do. These upgrades will ensure that our H-1 aircraft remain the most capable aircraft available, while operating at the forefront of modern missions. They will continue to excel at the job they were designed to do for many years to come.”