Leonardo Helicopter’s new managing director, Gian Piero Cutillo, shed new light on several of the company’s ongoing programs and his outlook for the company on Monday night at Heli-Expo 2018.
Of prime interest was the AW609 civil tiltrotor, now entering its third decade of development. Offshore operator Era Group is slated to take the first two off the production line, an event now anticipated for 2020. Cutillo said test aircraft one, which first flew in 2003, remains in Italy undergoing load-level testing. Aircraft three, which first flew in February 2017, has accumulated 50 flight test hours to date. Test aircraft four, designated to be fitted with production avionics, remains under construction in Philadelphia and is expected to fly later this year. Aircraft two was destroyed in an accident in 2015.
Under questioning, Cutillo declined to provide a price for the AW609 or state numbers of orders in hand for the aircraft. However, on Tuesday the company said it had identified requirements for 50 aircraft from various customers. According to Cutillo, Leonardo is anticipating FAA certification in 2019 and customer deliveries beginning in 2020. Senior company executives believe that about 500 more test-flight hours are needed to complete the program.
Meanwhile, Cutillo said Leonardo’s decision to offer a second engine choice, the Safran Aneto-1K, on the AW189 super medium twin was driven by market opportunity. While the original GE CT7-2E1 engine is well suited for most applications, the Safran engine provides additional power for high/hot applications such as firefighting.
Flight testing with the Aneto continues and Cutillo said he expected AW189ks to be available with the optional engines next year. Fifty AW189s have been delivered to date, and Cutillo expressed confidence that the market for the aircraft would continue to expand in the current offshore energy environment hungry to maximize efficiency.
“Sixteen is the new nineteen,” he said, referring to the AW189s standard passenger capacity, compared to those of heavy helicopters such as the Airbus H225 or Sikorsky S-92, two heavy-class helicopters that have fallen out of favor with offshore operators in recent years. “We have gained market share in a down market,” he noted, pointing to the success of Leonardo’s family of intermediate-medium twins: the AW169, AW139, and AW189.
While profitable, Leonardo Helicopters is only marginally so, and Cutillo said a priority is restoring double-digit profitability by 2020, insisting that this was an attainable goal because the company now has 30 percent of the civil helicopter market share and is “well positioned for future growth.” He said the company would continue to pursue U.S. military opportunities, including supplying potential replacements for U.S. Navy helicopter trainers and the Air Force’s aging UH-1N fleet.
Despite being focused on profitability and future technologies, including a next-generation tiltrotor, Cutillo said the company would be dispassionate about capital allocation. While the AW009 light single, an aircraft based on the PZL SW-4, has not been officially dropped, its business case is being reviewed as far as pursuing FAA certification.
Leonardo had announced its intention to import and assemble the AW009 in the U.S. in 2016 in partnership with AAL. However, company executives pointed to the current market and noted that making money required selling a high volume of helicopters in the light-single category.
“In the near term, this will not be productive for us in terms of investment,” Cutillo said. Leonardo continues to support the SW-4 in service with the Polish military and is using the platform for its Solo UAV technology demonstrator.