Leonardo Helicopters is hoping to complete all activities required for certification of its long-awaited AW609 tiltrotor by early 2025, the company has said.
Speaking to media during HAI Heli-Expo 2024, Gian Piero Cutillo, the company’s managing director, said the aircraft entered the “final stage” of certification testing activities in 2023, with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also issuing its certification basis in the year.
“We have a certification basis with the [FAA], [and] the authority is taking this quite prudently,” he said. “We’re also quite satisfied on how we are improving the way we finish the program.”
While the manufacturer is targeting completion of its responsibilities for certification by the beginning of next year, Cutillo said both it and the regulator have been taking a conservative approach.
“There is inevitably a certain level of uncertainty on everything we do, because of this prudent approach that we’re taking on both sides,” said Cutillo. “It’s a new technology [but] we continue to believe a lot in this technology.”
Giovanni Cecchelli, SVP product lines management at Leonardo Helicopters, said the production configuration has now been frozen, with the second production aircraft due to join the test program this year.
“We’re aiming that we will enter into service with aircraft number six, which is the second production configuration aircraft,” he said. “That is part of the program to basically achieve the flight hours this year, to complete the whole package for certification.”
Cutillo said demo flights for customers from the U.S., Japan and Dubai have been “clearly very successful,” adding that the airframer has seen “an increased interest” in the platform from governments and the parapublic sector.
“The demo flights that we had with all the pilots in the U.S. and Japan are exceeding expectations,” he said. “[When] you fly a tiltrotor, you can really understand the difference between this kind of flight and the standard helicopter flight, in terms of … speed and how soon the machine can perform the mission.”
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed Giovanni Cecchelli’s remarks to Matteo Ragazzi, Leonardo’s engineering and innovation director.
