Honeywell’s 12th annual turbine-powered civil helicopter purchase outlook, which was released today, projects flat overall deliveries of new civil-use helicopters for the next five years compared with the 2005 to 2009 period. “Continued soft economic growth prospects in key markets, lingering tight credit conditions, high inventories of used current production models for sale and weak new order intake are still constraining growth,” the company said in the outlook. New OEM order intake remained weak throughout last year, but Honeywell said use of turbine-powered helicopters has risen in the past few months. Even more encouraging news came from Europe, where usage rates turned positive in the last two months of last year and the inventory growth of current production helicopters for sale has stabilized since July. Overall, helicopter deliveries last year fell below peak 2008 levels and are expected to decline further this year and next as backlogs depleted over the past year will not support sustained deliveries until order rates recover significantly, Honeywell said. Five-year purchase plans fell 8 percent in the new outlook, after declining more than 20 percent last year.