V-22 operational successes with the
US Marine Corps and US Air Force Special Operations
Command have converted many tiltrotor skeptics.
Here, an AFSOC 8th Special Operations Squadron CV-22 trains in air-to-air
evasive maneuvers and fighter escort
tactics. (USAF Photo/ Airman Bailey Wyman)
Challenges aside, “we’re looking forward to a big year,”
Sunick says. “Te AW609 has strong interest around the world in all five mission sets: VIP, corporate, offshore, EMS, and SAR.” Leonardo has two prototypes flying at its Cascina Costa,
Italy, headquarters and another flying in Philadelphia, along with its first production AW609 there. Tree customer tilt- rotors are on the Philadelphia production line, including Bristow’s first. Te program is racking up flight test hours: 200 or so were logged in 2022’s second half, pushing the total to 1,900-plus, attesting to Sunick’s sentiment that “these are very, very exciting times.” (In addition to its AW609 activities, the Philadelphia plant
assembles the medium twin AW139 and FAA-certificated, multimission MH-139A Grey Wolf that Leonardo is providing, with Boeing, to the US Air Force. Te facility also produces the single-engine AW119Kx and the IFR TH-73A navy trainer based on it.) With COVID’s deadliness fading, the AW609 team has
been back on the road. In 2021, Aircraft 4 (N609PH) self- deployed 2,550 nm from Cascina Costa to visit Expo Dubai and the Dubai Airshow. Last October, Aircraft 3 (N609PA) made the AW609’s National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) debut in Orlando, Florida, with a VIP interior mock-up on exhibit. Te team then went to the Association
32 ROTOR MARCH 2023
of Air Medical Services conference in Tampa, Florida, exhib- iting an air ambulance interior mock-up and meeting with air ambulance operators. And the team is headed to Atlanta, Georgia, for HAI
HELI-EXPO 2023, Mar. 6–9 (exhibits are open Mar. 7–9). At Booth #B1005 at Expo, Leonardo will feature its AW139 and twin-engine AW169, as well as the single-engine AW09. (Te company took over the latter aircraft in 2020 when it acquired Kopter AG.) Regarding an AW609 certification date, Sunick says he
“most certainly would scream it from the rooftops” if he could provide one. “We’re having the same challenges every other OEM is: certification throughput challenges with our partners at the FAA, supply chain, and things like that. With the FAA, it’s been a marriage; we’re walking hand in hand, being the first to go down the aisle with the FAA on powered lift.”
Regulatory Criteria in Process FAA officials caused a stir last May, stating their intention to change how eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft would be certificated to carry passengers or freight for hire. eVTOL makers believed, based on earlier FAA guidance, that they could pursue type certificates under Part 23 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFRs).
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