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It might be the prettiest factory floor in America. Freshly painted a sleek gray, the shop floors at the Bell plant in Amarillo are immaculate. No scuff marks. No trash. No scratches. The regularly spaced walkways are painted a crisply contrasting navy blue. Everything is new, shiny, and clean as a dentist's canines. The plant operates at a low hum, the quiet occasionally interrupted by a burst from a high-pitched drill. The workers appear happy. They're well paid. Their jobs are challenging and require immense precision and attention to detail.

The economic development guys from Amarillo are in heaven. The Bell plant is their latest coup, another stab at diversification for a city whose largest employers are the Tyson Foods slaughterhouse and the Pantex nuclear weapons plant.

Bell chose Amarillo in the late 1990s. The company wanted to get away from the unions in its Fort Worth-area factories. It also wanted a place where there'd be plenty of room to fly the V-22s it was producing.

Amarillo has plenty of airspace and a long military history. During World War II, the Pentagon built Amarillo Army Airfield to train pilots. It later became a U.S. Air Force base, host to a fleet of B-52s that were part of the Strategic Air Command, the agency in charge of defending the skies during the Cold War. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the B-52s and the Strategic Air Command flew away, leaving behind acres of good hangar space and miles of sturdy runways. From 1968 through 1989, in fact, Bell had operated a helicopter overhaul and modification plant in some of those same hangars, refurbishing Hueys that had been shot up in Vietnam.

An aircraft assembly plant was just what Amarillo needed to boost its image -- a high-profile plant that would not be plagued by striking slaughterhouse workers or protesting environmentalists. Besides the big empty skies, large non-union workforce, and rock-bottom cost of living, the city offered an even bigger plum: a brand-new, $40 million custom-built factory that the city would build without charging Bell a dime. Bell saw that it could move to Amarillo for free -- and did just that.

But the real reason Bell chose Amarillo, it appears, was politics. "The V-22 stayed in Texas because it needed Congressional support," a Bell executive told the Dallas Morning News in late 2000.

The plant has meant 500 new jobs for the city, paying an average of $20 per hour -- good numbers on the high plains of Texas, certainly worthy of local politicians' support. As Spinney sees it, "the plant in Amarillo only increases the momentum behind the V-22" -- momentum the program obviously needs to overcome safety problems, huge costs, and competition that may be gaining.

Two helicopters now in production could easily fill the role the Marines envision for the V-22. They are the S-92, made by Sikorsky, and the larger US-101, made by AgustaWestland.

The twin-engine S-92 weighs about half what the V-22 does, and yet can carry similar payloads. It has a top speed of 175 miles per hour and can travel over 500 miles without refueling. It has a bigger cabin than the V-22 and has proven to be far safer. In late 2002, the S-92 got its federal flight certification, meaning federal authorities have found the helicopter to be safe enough to enter regular commercial service. Sikorsky is selling the S-92 for about $20 million per copy. Thus, for the cost of one V-22, the U.S. military could buy five S-92s.

The US-101 would also fill the Marines' needs. The three-engine aircraft is exactly the type of aircraft that Dick Cheney envisioned in the late 1980s and early 1990s when he was trying to kill the V-22. Now in use in Canada, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom, the US-101 is a military-ready helicopter that has proven to be reliable, easily maintained, and safe. The US-101 is lighter than the V-22, has a far bigger cabin and can fly nearly 800 miles without refueling. And there's another fact that Dick Cheney would love: The US-101 was developed without spending a single dime of American taxpayers' money. In addition, the US-101 is cheaper--a lot cheaper--than the V-22. For the cost of one V-22, the Pentagon could buy four US-101s.

Despite all of their performance, safety, and cost advantages, the S-92 and the US-101 are both fatally flawed. That's right -- they're not from Texas. Sikorsky's plant is in Connecticut. AgustaWestland is a European consortium.

So what does Dick Cheney think about the V-22 these days? Well, Kevin Kellums, the vice president's spokesman, said in a recent email that he is "not aware of any time the VP has taken a position on the V-22 since his tenure as Sec of Def ended."

Hmmm. Imagine that.

Austin writer Robert Bryce's new book is Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America's Superstate. A version of this story first appeared in Texas Observer.

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