Federal Aviation Administration pilots have begun Type Inspection Authorization (TIA) flights of the Leonardo Helicopters AW609 tiltrotor from the manufacturer’s US plant in Philadelphia.
A sign of clear progress for the serially delayed programme, the milestone took place in early March, says Matteo Ragazzi, senior vice-president of engineering and innovation at Leonardo Helicopters.
“The FAA is now flying the aircraft for the final steps of certification,” he told journalists in Dallas on 10 March.
TIA flights are being performed with the programme’s Aircraft 5, while AC4 remains in Italy for testing by the manufacturer.
A sixth example has been built and was powered on last year. Ground runs have since commenced and Ragazzi anticipates a first flight during the second quarter.
He says that AW609 will be used for the 150 flight hours of function and reliability testing required by the FAA’s certification process.
Three additional customer aircraft are also in various stages of production at the airframer’s facilities in the USA and Italy.
While Ragazzi declines to say whether the AW609 might finally secure certification this year, he is pleased with the company’s current interactions with the US regulator: “I’m optimistic based on the fact that the FAA is really pushing to help.”
Certification basis for the AW609 was agreed with the agency on 31 October last year. “That gave me the idea that the FAA was not playing,” he says.
Separately, Ragazzi says the maiden sortie of Leonardo’s in-development Next Generation Civil Tiltrotor (NGCTR) demonstrator will take place “in the autumn”.
Initial ground runs took place last summer, leading to full-power ground testing before the end of 2024.
Before the NGCTR can be flown, multiple components only intended for ground testing must be replaced, he says, a process now under way.
But the “pacing item” is qualification of the fly-by-wire flight-control system.
An additional series of ground runs will take place before the summer, followed by a second phase ahead of first flight “using the latest software”, he adds.
The NGCTR is a demonstrator aircraft part funded by the EU’s Clean Sky 2 programme.
