Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) and AgustaWestland test pilots have successfully flown the first prototype of the T129 attack helicopter at the latter’s Cascina Costa facility in Italy.

A version of the Italian army’s AgustaWestland A129 anti-tank helicopter, the aircraft is being developed by the companies in partnership with Turkish firm Aselsan under the ATAK programme.

 T129 firstflight 2
© ATAK

Four additional LHTEC T800-powered prototypes will be built for the test programme, including two at TAI's facilities.

T129 firstflight 1 
© ATAK

The ATAK team intends to provide 50 firm and 41 optional attack and tactical reconnaissance helicopters for the Turkish land forces command with locally supplied avionics, hardware and software.

Source: FlightGlobal.com