In the climax of the movie Skyfall, James Bond (played by Daniel Craig) trades simulated bullets in the dark with villains aboard a hovering Leonardo AW101 helicopter.
After some back-and-forth, the villains lay waste to the spy character’s beloved Aston Martin sports car with a high-powered machine gun.
Bond is miffed, but undeterred.
He answers by sparking a bomb so big the explosion hits the helicopter and knocks it out of the sky, creating an even bigger ball of flames.
Bond escapes and saves the day, seemingly without breaking a sweat.
All in a day’s work.
That helicopter, though? It was a real AW101, owned by Leonardo and known within the company as the “Civ1.”
Like Bond, the aircraft lived to die … er, be decommissioned, another day.
Now, in a sprawling Leonardo hangar in Yeovil, U.K., the Civ1 has found a second life as a testbed for the Cormorant Mid-Life Upgrade (CMLU) for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF).
The RCAF has used specialized AW101s, known as CH-149 Cormorants, for search-and-rescue (SAR), since 2001.
In 2022, it awarded Leonardo a C$1.168 billion contract to modernize its fleet of 13 existing Cormorants, plus three new aircraft, and ensure they continue flying for decades into the future.
“As a mock-up, we are using the [Civ1] helicopter to assist with design and develop the CMLU rear cabin and interior layout before this goes onto the customer’s production aircraft,” a Leonardo spokesperson told Vertical.
“It won’t join the [RCAF] fleet.”
Three new Cormorant airframes will be produced in Yeovil and sent to IMP Aerospace in Nova Scotia for completion and final assembly in 2025.
It’s expected these will be delivered to the RCAF in 2026 and sent to 19 Wing Comox, British Columbia.
The remaining 13 upgraded aircraft are set for deliveries starting in 2027 (to 14 Wing Greenwood, Nova Scotia; 9 Wing Gander, Newfoundland, and 8 Wing Trenton, Ontario).
If all goes according to plan, the fleet will be fully operational by 2029, and will continue operating into the 2040s.
As for the Civ1, both its Hollywood tenure and its service life are firmly in the past.
“That specific helicopter has been fully decommissioned and will not fly again,” per the spokesperson. “It has always been used for our developmental activities on the AW101 program over years.”
In aviation, as in prestige spy movies, it turns out you only live twice.
-With files from Chris Thatcher
