Bell Boeing Wins $20 Million MV-22 Conversion Area Harness Retrofit Kit Order

Bell Boeing Joint Project Office of Amarillo, Texas, has received a $19.6 million firm-fixed-price delivery order from Naval Air Systems Command for 59 Conversion Area Harness base and supplemental retrofit kits for Marine Corps MV-22 aircraft. The kits will upgrade aircraft wiring and associated components to improve reliability and readiness. Work will take place in Simpsonville, South Carolina, and Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be completed in May 2029.

Conversion Area Harness Retrofit Details

Bell Boeing will provide the 59 kits for conversion-area wiring retrofits. The award notice assigns 72% of the work to Simpsonville and 28% to Fort Worth. It covers kit procurement; it does not describe aircraft installations as part of this order.

The delivery order falls under the Navy’s V-22 ordering agreement for production and retrofit support. That agreement covers a broad range of aircraft changes, including retrofit kits, engineering changes and reliability improvements. The harness order is a specific kit purchase within that broader framework.

MV-22 Modernization Background

The Marine Corps received its 359th and final MV-22B in July 2026, completing its aircraft program of record. The service said it is shifting emphasis from fielding new aircraft to sustaining and modernizing the fleet, which it aims to operate through 2055. It identified wiring improvements intended to reduce maintenance hours among its readiness efforts.

The 2026 Marine Aviation Plan describes a broader nacelle-improvement approach that goes beyond wiring-bundle changes, alongside work to standardize aircraft configurations and address component obsolescence. Separately, the Navy’s aircraft-procurement budget justification identified Conversion Area Harness engineering and planned kit-related modification support as MV-22 readiness work.

Award and Contractor Background

The order was not competitively procured. In its justification for V-22 orders to Bell Boeing, the Navy cited the team’s role as the aircraft’s designer, developer and integrator, as well as its engineering data, tooling and knowledge needed for retrofit work. The V-22 basic ordering agreement began in February 2022. Bell Boeing has performed other harness-related work, including an earlier Conversion Area Harness order with a potential value of $29.9 million that covered engineering, retrofit kits and interim spares and had a scheduled end date of March 2026.

Other related Bell Boeing awards include a nacelle-improvements order with a potential value of $348.5 million that includes conversion-area harness work and is scheduled through December 2027. Under the current ordering agreement, a separate $157 million retrofit-kit order covers 10 nacelle-improvement kits and three shipsets of pylon support assemblies for MV-22 and CMV-22 aircraft, according to its award notice.

This award was disclosed by the DoW in its daily press release. Additional contract details will be available on HigherGov in approximately 90 days under N0001926F0015 after the contract is formally disclosed by the government.