The long-suffering Leonardo AW609 commercial tiltrotor, formerly known as the AgustaWestland AW609, has passed the first stage of certification by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the so-called Type Inspection Authorization. This was announced by Leonardo's official LinkedIn account.
The Leonardo AW609 has the same configuration as the American military tiltrotor Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, i.e. it is a tilt rotor rotorcraft. Unlike the V-22 Osprey, the AgustaWestland/Leonardo development is primarily aimed at the commercial sector, the AW609 is intended to serve as a fast charter for VIP clients, medical and rescue transport, etc., i.e. to operate where vertical take-off and landing are required, but the speed of conventional helicopters is not enough.
The problem is that the AW609 has been in development for over 25 years, since 1998, after Bell and Boeing pulled out of the civil tiltrotor project. The first test flight of the then AgustaWestland AW609 took place on March 7, 2003, but testing, as with the military Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, dragged on for a decade, and on October 30, 2015, one of the prototypes crashed.
In addition, the AW609 certification faced a number of problems. Among them were a lack of FAA funds, an unregulated certification process for such unusual aircraft, the non-compliance of some parameters with ICAO requirements, etc. Initially, it was planned that the certification should be completed by 2007, then by 2014, but only in February 2023 were FAA pilots able to make the first demonstration flight on the Leonardo AW609. Leonardo hopes that this time the process will finally go better.
Leonardo AW609 has a maximum take-off weight of 7620 kg with a payload of up to 2721 kg. The tiltrotor crew is 2 people, plus 9 passengers. The maximum cruising speed is unattainable for helicopters 500 km/h, the flight range is up to 1389 km (up to 1852 km with additional tanks), the operating ceiling is 7620 m.
We remind you that on our website there is a large article about different types of rotorcraft, which also mentions the Leonardo AW609.