Bell UH-1Y Venom

The Bell UH-1Y Venom (also called Super Huey) is a twin-engine, medium-sized utility helicopter, built by Bell Helicopter as part of the United States Marine Corps' H-1 upgrade program. The helicopter is also called Yankee for its variant letter, Y.

The UH-1Y is currently in full-rate production to replace the USMC's aging fleet of UH-1N Twin Huey light utility helicopters first introduced in the early 1970s. The UH-1Y was to have been remanufactured from UH-1Ns, but in 2005, it was approved for the aircraft to be built as new.

Development

In 1996, the United States Marine Corps launched the H-1 upgrade program by signing a contract with Bell Helicopter for upgrading 100 UH-1Ns into UH-1Ys and upgrading 180 AH-1Ws into AH-1Zs. The H-1 program created completely modernized attack and utility helicopters with considerable design commonality to reduce operating costs. The UH-1Y and AH-1Z share a common tail boom, engines, rotor system, drive train, avionics architecture, software, controls and displays for over 84% identical components.