Bell Helicopters

In response to “2 City Purchases Reveal Products’ Hybrid Origins,” Feb. 25:

In reference to Bell Helicopter, it is totally specious for Los Angeles Police Department Air Support Division Capt. Robert Woods to say “to buy American in this case would mean paying for a helicopter produced in Canada by a Canadian work force.”

Bell Helicopter employs some 6,500 people in the United States; 3,000 of whom are directly involved in the manufacture and support of our commercial helicopters. While the aircraft are final assembled at a plant in Canada, fully three-quarters of the work is American.

The Aerospatiale helicopter is produced by the French government in France by French employees. They are then crated and shipped to Grand Prairie, Tex., where they are reassembled by a work force of 300 people.

BOB LEDER, Manager, Media Relations, Bell Helicopter Textron, Fort Worth, Tex.