Rotorcraft
A grand day out
At Farnborough, AgustaWestland unveiled yet another, long-anticipated evolution of the A109–a stretched and higher-power model dubbed the A109S Grand.

At Farnborough, AgustaWestland unveiled yet another, long-anticipated evolution of the A109–a stretched and higher-power model dubbed the A109S Grand. Leonardo Monti, who leads the company’s civil marketing effort, described the eight-seat, 7,000-pound aircraft as “an intermediate twin with light-twin economics.”

The new variant, which fills the performance gap between the A109 Power and AB139, is pitched to compete with Eurocopter’s EC 145 and Bell’s new 427i, as well as larger machines such as the N3 Dauphin and Bell 430. According to AgustaWestland, it offers 90 percent of the capacity of those helicopters at a much lower cost.

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