Power, payload, range, and advanced avionics: What’s needed in multi-role helicopters

The AW149 helicopter is Leonardo’s medium-sized rotary wing solution for the modern battlefield. Designed to meet evolving operational needs driven by the current geopolitical state of affairs and the necessity for interoperability among different military assets and domains, the twin-engine multi-role helicopter is adaptable for a wide range of missions. They include troop transport, special operations, air assault, search and rescue, combat SAR, cargo resupply, close air support, and medical evacuation.

The AW149 is a modern platform designed for interoperability and future growth, and Breaking Defense discussed its attributes with Giacomo Zampetti, vice president of marketing for Leonardo Helicopters, and Carlo Sacco, head of product marketing and sales engineering for Leonardo Helicopters.

Breaking Defense: Leonardo is targeting the AW149 at what threat scenario, and what are the demand signals you’re hearing from the UK and European Union about the need for a multi-role helicopter?

Zampetti: This is being driven by the current geopolitical situation and the fact that NATO members and other militaries are in, let’s say, an expansive mode from a military capability perspective.

In this geopolitical context, the need for interoperations and capability of interoperating assets belonging to different domains or different armies is becoming a must. This capability to interoperate will require new platforms and assets coming onto the scene.

This is the context, but apart from that is that aging fleets are coming to a point in their service where they’ve reached their operational life.

To address those two factors, we have embarked on a strategic path to provide solutions that answer those needs. That’s not only from a pure platform perspective and the size-related capabilities that the -149 can deliver that are more related, let’s say, to the muscles that the aircraft can deliver, but also in terms of interoperations and therefore internal avionics capability to adapt to this operational scenario in which it’s important to connect and cooperate with different assets among different domains.

We are adapting to the requirements that are coming not only from NATO countries but also from those coming from other armies and other parts of the world. The AW149 has been certified/qualified meeting the most modern standards and allows for interoperability between both NATO and non-NATO operators.

This is possible thanks to the investments that Leonardo has been doing and continues to do in developing avionics solutions.

To your minds, what are the key attributes of the AW149 that address the requirements you mentioned?

Zampetti: There are key, distinctive features that make this aircraft the solution for current and future operations for armies and ministries of defense. The -149 has true multi-role capabilities. It has an excellent power-to-weight ratio, and a modern and open avionics architecture and philosophy that allows the aircraft to easily adapt and evolve. Those are the main three elements: power, muscles, and brain that make the platform a concrete answer to what future military needs will be.

Also, the commonalities in terms of shared design, support and training approach, several components and maintenance tooling among the AW149, the AW139M and AW169M allow those operators who need fleets featuring types in different weight/size categories to access levels of efficient fleet management that are unprecedented in the reference markets.

Last but not least, the AW149 has been designed with a modern approach to technical support and training and is offered with comprehensive, digital and tailored solutions designed around the platform and the customer. This is key to ensure operators are provided with total capabilities, not just an aircraft.

Sacco: I’ll add an additional point about this multi-role helicopter. Our design philosophy for the wide regular-shaped cabin gives us the capability for different cabin layouts that can be reconfigured for each mission and different roles in a short time.

The machine is able to bring on board up to 16 fully equipped troops in accord with standard NATO requirements. We are talking about more than 130 kilograms each of personnel fully equipped in this cabin.

The avionics capability and the brain of the design philosophy is single- or dual-pilot capable, IFR day and night capable, and also NVG ready as this machine is also able to conduct tactical formation flight at night. It’s an all weather platform with a wide range of kits for multi-role capability.

 

What are those multi roles?

Sacco: Different mission operations that can be embedded onboard the machine. That means it is designed to be fully provisioned to be adapted and reconfigured for critical missions such as troop transport for special forces operations or air assault, as well as search and rescue, combat SAR, cargo resupply, aerial delivery, close air support with an external weapon mounting system, and medical evacuation.

How can we bring all these onboard? Because we have designed the cabin, the fuselage and the brain – the avionics – to be reconfigured. The machine itself has all the provision means, all the structural attachment points and the electrical attachment points, in order to be reconfigured in the field for different roles.

Militaries also want their rotary wing aircraft to fly farther and faster. Describe the AW149’s attributes in this respect.

Sacco: Leonardo Helicopter’s philosophy for our machine is very high speed capability with respect to the other competitors. To give you a number, the VNE of this helicopter is up to 167 knots. So you can imagine 167 knots as VNE with a maximum speed at MCP that is around 160 notes. This high speed is top of the weight class in terms of power, and is part of the DNA of Leonardo Helicopters because it’s combined with what Giacomo identified at the beginning of our conversation – high power-to-weight ratio.

Another of the top features embedded in the design of this machine is the run-dry capability. The machine has the capability to operate without oil in the main transmission for 50 minutes. We are proud of this because I believe that we are the only OEM on the market that have put this procedure in the flight manual. We take all the responsibility for the number that we have put in the flight manual.

Zampetti: The pilots following the procedure embedded in the emergency procedure of the flight manual can fly for nearly an hour. If you are in an enemy area or contested area you don’t need to land. By reducing the torque, those 50 minutes give you about 100 nautical miles of range to reach safety and land.

This is another capability that is part of our DNA. We are proud of this, which is a concept that is common to other platforms in our portfolio.