Story ID: 361AW609EMS_A
Finmeccanica Teams with Era on EMS AW609
By: Mark Huber
Caption: The two companies will engage in joint activities in support of development of the AW609 for the EMS market.
Word Count: 217
Finmeccanica Helicopters and Era Group signed a memorandum of understanding at Heli-Expo 2016 on Wednesday to develop an EMS variant of the AW609 civil tiltrotor. Under the MoU, Finmeccanica and Era will engage in joint activities in support of development of the AW609 for the EMS market including regulations, operations, maintenance, configuration optimization and identifying possible areas of enhancement or modifications.

The partners would provide contributions to flying activities toward aircraft maturity and address commercial aspects for potential future AW609 acquisitions. Era already is the largest civil global operator of AgustaWestland (now Finmeccanica) helicopters.

The AW609 has a 275-knot maximum forward speed and a maximum range of 750 nm. Finmeccanica holds orders from 60 customers.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday at the show, AW609 program manager Clive Scott revealed that the company knows the cause of the fatal crash of the second commercial tiltrotor prototype on October 30, but he did not disclose the information. He added that the third prototype, which will be used mainly for icing testing, will begin flying soon. A fourth prototype is under construction and will begin flying in 2017. Prototype 2 will not be replaced. Rather, the first prototype, that began flying in 2003, will be modified to make it more conformal for flight-testing purposes. Scott said certification remains on track for 2018.