AW609
ATLANTA–Malaysia’s Weststar Aviation Group has become the latest partner to sign up to develop capabilities for Leonardo’s AW609 commercial tiltrotor.
The operator signed an agreement with the OEM at Helicopter Association International’s Heli-Expo here on March 8. The accord will see Weststar operate one of the aircraft under an arrangement that has yet to be defined. Delivery of an aircraft to the operator will depend on its type certification.
“They will be the first in Southeast Asia to examine the application of the tiltrotor,” Gian Piero Cutillo, managing director of Leonardo Helicopters, told Aerospace DAILY. The initiative was described by Leonardo officials as a “maturity development program.” It will see Weststar exploring potential missions and roles with the AW609 to help the OEM understand how to provide support and market the aircraft in the region.
“It will be joint investment in the maturity process,” Cutillo added.
Weststar is already familiar with Leonardo’s products, claiming to be one of the largest operators in the world of the AW139 medium-twin.
The initiative is analogous with agreements made with Bristow, the United Arab Emirates Joint Aviation Command and Era Group to explore different mission sets for the tiltrotor. Such an arrangement led to Era Group becoming a formal customer for the aircraft in 2018.
Era has since merged with Bristow to become Bristow Group, which will be the launch customer with an order for two aircraft.
Cutillo also confirmed there is significant domestic interest from Italy in the AW609 and that a joint Leonardo Helicopters and government team was working on how to take that forward.
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