AgustaWestland and the UK government will jointly invest more than £100 million ($161 million) in the Anglo-Italian airframer's factory in Yeovil, the UK, to turn it into a centre of excellence for civil helicopter research, development and production.

The company sees the move as necessary to diversify the plant away from its traditional defence roots in an era of reduced spending on military programmes.

Yeovil is already due to begin production of the AW169 light intermediate helicopter, which will enter service in 2014. However, the new funding, which sees up to £46 million pledged by the UK government from its Regional Growth Fund, will see AgustaWestland add another civil helicopter assembly line to the factory and focus the site's research on technologies to support its AW609 civil tiltrotor, due for certification in 2016.

AgustaWestland is so far undecided as to precisely which type will be produced at Yeovil. If the company is selected to provide helicopters for the UK's ongoing search and rescue (SAR) contest - a decision is due next March - then it will dedicate the line to producing SAR-configured variants of its AW189 medium-twin for the global market. However, should none of the UK SAR bidders pick the AW189 then the company could add another AW169 line at the factory.

The new assembly line will be capable of producing around 30 helicopters per year, says AgustaWestland.

Research at the site, to be carried out in partnership with the UK's National Composites Centre and the University of Liverpool, will initially focus on advanced fly-by-wire flight controls for its civil types, including a future application on the AW189. This will enter service in mid-2013 with a standard control system, with a fly-by-wire replacement added at a later date.

Later research projects will include systems integration on the AW609 and advanced rotor blade designs for the tiltrotor.

Despite the increasing emphasis on the civil market, company executives were at pains to stress the continued importance of the defence sector to the plant's future. "It is vital that we secure a number of important military contracts across the world," says chief executive Bruno Spagnolini. "No-one should imagine that these contracts are any less important than they have been.

"They will remain the big chunk of work for Yeovil, but the more we diversify and push our civil expertise the more it changes the mentality."

Source: Flight International