AgustaWestland AW109

The AgustaWestland AW109, formerly known as the Agusta A109, is a lightweight, twin-engine, eight-seat multi-purpose helicopter manufactured by the Italian company Leonardo S.p.A. (formerly AgustaWestland, merged into the new Finmeccanica since 2016). It was the first mass-produced all-Italian helicopter.

It was developed by Agusta as the A109 and first entered service in 1976, serving in a variety of roles such as light transport, medevac, search-and-rescue, and military roles. For the past 40 years, the AW109 has been in continuous production. The AgustaWestland AW119 is a variant of the AW109 series, with the main difference being that it only has one engine.

The AW109 Power features a three-axis autopilot, an auto-coupled Instrument Landing System, integrated GPS, a Moving Map Display, weather radar, and a Traffic Alerting System, according to AgustaWestland. These systems are intended to reduce pilot workload (the AW109 can be flown under single or dual-pilot instrument flight rules (IFR)) and allow the use of night vision goggles (NVG) for day and night operations. The AW109 has a forced trim system that the controlling pilot can easily and selectively activate by using triggers located on the cyclic and collective, which hold the control inputs at the last set position if activated. The hydraulic system, hydraulic actuators, and electrical system are all dual-redundant, while the power inverters are triple-redundant for fail-safe operation. The AW109 also has lower maintenance requirements as a result of an emphasis on reliability across the entire range of components used.

Price: $6.3 Million