For the helicopter owner, operator or flight program looking to cut costs while simultaneously maintaining or expanding existing levels of service, Agusta’s A119 Koala may be the answer. Certified in 1999, the single-engine Koala has many of the same capabilities of, and in fact is faster than, most light twins. While the A119 is certainly not the cheapest single-engine helicopter on the market (priced at $2.25 million equipped), the fact that the Koala can do the same job as twin-engine ships costing twice as much makes it a relative bargain.
In creating the Koala, the engineers at Agusta essentially took the popular twin-engine A109E, replaced its two Pratt & Whitney Canada W206C engines with a venerable PT6B turboshaft (in this case a beefy PT6B-37A) and attached skids in place of the retractable landing gear. What resulted is a high-speed, high-performance multipurpose helicopter capable of carrying a pilot and seven passengers.
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