Aeronautical Accessories holds more than 370 STCs and has a 40-year legacy of providing parts and accessories to the rotorcraft industry, while its ownership by Bell provides huge benefits to both companies.

A little over 40 years ago, two Vietnam veterans expanded their growing helicopter business with a new a sister company: Aeronautical Accessories. With an entrepreneurial spirit and the grit to jump when opportunity knocked, that sister company is today one of the industry’s leading specialized helicopter parts and accessories companies. Much has changed at Aeronautical Accessories over the years — including its ownership — but the company’s reputation has only grown.

The company, based in Piney Flats, Tennessee, first opened its doors in 1979 as the accessory sales side of Edwards and Associates, a two-year-old company focused on Bell 206 refurbishment and sales. Aeronautical Accessories provided two immediate benefits to its sister company. First, it offered a direct line to key aftermarket aircraft equipment for the Bell 206 line that enhanced Edwards’ offerings. It also created an opportunity to bring new accessories to market or expand their availability by purchasing smaller aftermarket manufacturing companies and supplemental type certificates (STCs).

One of the first products Aeronautical Accessories sold — and continues to sell to this day — was Bristol Aerospace’s (now Magellan Aerospace’s) revolutionary Wire Strike Protection System (WSPS) for the Bell 206 line. Long-time attendees of HAI Heli-Expo will remember the company’s large display with a swing boom that activated every so often and demonstrated the cutting power of the system on horizontally strung cables. The WSPS proved to be a major success, with more than 20,000 sales to date across most helicopter makes and models, thanks in no small part to Aeronautical Accessories.

Not long after its founding, Aeronautical Accessories began purchasing STCs to expand its offerings. One of these products was the popular Spacemaker for Bell 206, Bell 407, and Bell OH-58 helicopters. It was the brainchild of two electronic news gathering camera operators, who sought a way to free space in the cabin by carrying extra equipment in the baggage compartment. The Spacemaker – a molded fiberglass accessory that snaps into the baggage compartment — was the result, expanding capacity by 50 percent.

“Edwards and Associates was expanding helicopter refurbishment and then moved into new aircraft customizations, which is where Aeronautical Accessories really played a big role,” said David Galik, general manager of Bell’s Piney Flats facility, where Bell’s Aeronautical Accessories brand is located. “They saw all kinds of opportunities to purchase STCs they saw as having potential of being distributed beyond new helicopters.”

Other early and very successful products included sliding door kits, hoist provision kits, automatic door opener kits, night scanner kits, and hi-vis door conversions to larger windows.

As Aeronautical purchased STCs and identified needs it could fill, it also worked toward creating accessories it knew it could market. The company initially partnered with a boat manufacturer to help set up a fiberglass design, engineering, and manufacturing business: Aeronautical Plastics.

“You know those moving companies that are two guys and a truck? That’s what we were, two guys and a machine,” says 39-year employee Allen Tate, one of Aeronautical’s fabricators. “When we started, it was just one engineer and one draftsman drawing all the drawings by hand. We would make our patterns and take them over to the boat manufacturer to create fiberglass tools, then bring them back and mount them on boxes and run out parts. That first year was all about tooling set up, so by the end of it we had a complete set of windows and interior plastic for the Bell 206A and B models we could take to HAI [Heli-Expo].”

Aeronautical Accessories also grew through acquiring companies. In 1990, the company purchased Heli Plex Inc. out of Hurst, Texas, truly expanding the company with a whole catalog of accessories for different helicopters. The purchase also opened the door to military contracts.

Bell Takes Notice

By the mid-1990s, Edwards and its scrappy set of companies, which included a third company, Rotor Blades Inc., had developed a strong reputation and built a number of relationships. Edwards was an FAA Repair Station and a Bell Customer Service Facility. Its refurbishments and customizations were supported by Aeronautical Accessories, and that company’s products were either options or standard on many new Bell aircraft.

In 1999, Bell and Textron purchased Edwards and its companies, including Aeronautical Accessories. When announcing the acquisition, then-Bell CEO Terry Stinson recognized how the companies had partnered with Bell for more than 20 years as both the premier supplier of customization kits and accessories to Bell customers, as well as a member of Bell’s family of worldwide customer service centers.

“Bringing the manufacture and sale of customization kits and accessories in-house allows Bell to offer these products and services directly to our customers,” Stinson said at the time. “In addition, Edwards & Associates’ strength in the used helicopter market, where the ratio of used to new helicopter sales is currently five to one, extends our direct after-market sales opportunities.”

While all of Edwards’ companies were acquired by Bell, only one kept its name. While now considered a Bell brand, Aeronautical Accessories operates under its original name as the accessory arm of Bell.

The acquisition opened a number of doors for Aeronautical Accessories. In addition to an infusion of capital to develop products and add buildings to its Piney Flats location, it also gave Bell and Aeronautical Accessories engineers direct access to each other. This allowed them to partner on aftermarket accessories for existing aircraft at very competitive rates, and also develop accessories for aircraft under development to ensure customized products would be available when the new aircraft came to market.

“Now we have a truly symbiotic relationship that gives Aeronautical an edge in the marketplace,” said Galik. “We are embedded on site with Bell’s planning, engineering, customizing, maintenance, repair, and overhaul teams, giving Aeronautical access to a regular flow of customers.”

This relationship has exceptional benefits for customers. For example, not too long ago, a customer in his 90s bought a Bell 505 on high skid gear. He made an offhand comment to the maintenance team while in Piney Flats that it was tough for him to climb up into the aircraft.

The Aeronautical engineering team jumped into action. Within a couple of weeks, the engineering team had developed and tested a removable four-step solution called the 505 External Passenger Step. Able to connect to the pilot or co-pilot side of the aircraft, the step allows someone to easily climb into the aircraft, then remove the step and store it before flight.

“This is a real example of this symbiotic relationship and why Bell was interested in Aeronautical,” Galik says. “There is nowhere that I know of in the industry that has this scale of customer exposure, interaction, and service with an engineering prototyping manufacturing business behind it. It’s a really powerful way to come up with, refine, and launch new products into the marketplace.”

Leaders within the Aeronautical Accessories brand also attribute the survival of the company’s name to its exceptionally high level of customer service. Sales representatives travel the globe visiting with customers, going the extra mile to support them.

“Visit after visit, our customers are really complimentary of Aeronautical, how we always have inventory on the shelf, more than any other aftermarket provider, and that we just have top notch customer service,” said Jennifer Lunceford, director of aftermarket sales at Bell. “At Aeronautical, there is always ‘their person’ that is available 24/7 to answer questions. They have our cell phone numbers and we answer email at all hours.”

Customer service extends beyond responding to needs for parts. Just as they did for the Bell 505 owner, Aeronautical helps solve customer challenges when it can by partnering with them directly.

Life Flight Network’s Bell 429 door access is one example. The helicopter EMS operator found access to the cabin limited with the current automatic door openers on the front passenger doors. The company asked Bell if it was possible to design and install a kit configuration that would open those doors wider to allow for better access and patient loading.

Bell’s Aeronautical Accessories engineering team brainstormed solutions and designed protypes. The first viable solution they shared with Life Flight was not financially feasible for the whole fleet. The engineers took the customer feedback and made changes, eventually developing a cost-effective passenger door extender kit. The kit relocates the helicopter’s floor bracket, creating a longer door strut to overextend the forward door from 90 degrees to roughly 120 degrees.

Bell’s relationship and eventual ownership of Aeronautical has also allowed the OEM to provide more complete aircraft right off the line. Many Aeronautical products, like automatic door openers, high skid gear, skid shoes, the company’s new polycarbonate windshields, and the like are offered either as an option or standard equipment on new aircraft.

“The Bell 505 was designed to have a lot more of the configuration complete through the build process on the manufacturing line,” Galik said. “Especially for the 505, there is little customization needed now, as we can do most of it on the line with Aeronautical products.”

Today and Beyond

Aeronautical Accessories continues to support customizations, particularly for law enforcement, parapublic agencies, air medical, and VIP operations. These include modifications for special equipment and operations, including search-and-rescue (SAR).

One of Aeronautical’s largest engineering support projects in the last decade was a seven-ship Bell 429 completion for the Swedish National Police. Its customization package included equipment for police work, air medical, and SAR. Each aircraft was fully loaded with lights, a camera, police radios, a litter, hoist, and more.

“These helicopters were everything in one,” Galik explained. “It was a massive integration and build, requiring specialized customization. It took longer to do the customization than it took to build the aircraft. The 429 is an amazing aircraft capable of doing so much. It’s mind blowing. Knowing its potential, it is very satisfying that Aeronautical could support this build and see it be successful in the field.”

Today Aeronautical Accessories owns more than 370 STCs. Given its ownership, the company’s focus is mainly on Bell aircraft, both creating and supplying aftermarket products and developing new solutions for current and future aircraft. That said, its many STCs for accessories that support other OEMs are not going anywhere.

“Most of our future work will be for Bell, but ‘most’ is the keyword there,” Galik said. “We have some work for other OEMs in the pipeline I’m not ready to release, but there are definitely products similar to what we use on Bell that belong on other aircraft. We will look to supplying for other makes if that makes sense for our customers and it is what they want. It goes hand in hand with our entrepreneurial spirit that goes all the way back to the beginning.”