A small Southern town 100 mi. from anywhere, Columbus, Mississippi's matters of historical note include a graveyard full of Confederate and Union soldiers felled at the Battle of Shi-loh, the boyhood home of playwright Tennessee Williams, and a company, now bankrupt, that once turned out more toilet seats than any other in the world. So it came as a surprise to many in the aerospace community when in 2003, Eurocopter-now Airbus Helicopters-chose Columbus as a site for light final assembly work involving its AS350 AStar helicopter. But the Europeans had grander aspirations. Three years later, the company won a U.S. Army contract to build the UH-72 Lakota, a militarized version of the twin-engine EC145; the Mississippi facility (center photo) will produce some 300. Last year, the plant began full assembly of the AStar (right photo), the first of which is to be delivered right about now. The facility could eventually produce 60 annually. To date, the Mississippi unit-which employs 230, almost half of them military veterans-has delivered more than 800 aircraft.
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