Helicopter manufacturer AgustaWestland has rebranded again! Yes, again. Last year the company changed it's name to reflect that of its parent company, Finmeccanica. Apparently branding as Finmeccanica was simply temporary strategy as the company has now announced it is swapping again to be called Leonardo Helicopters. Okay so maybe you are now all very confused? The decision was taken to rebrand with this name to pay tribute to 15th and 16th Century Italian artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci who is widely credited with devising the first concept for the helicopter. So we all don't continue as confused readers, the company states that the full rebranding will take place at the start of next year, in January 2017. For now though, they will be called Leonardo-Finmeccanica until the year finishes. It is expected that moving forward all their aircraft model designations will remain 'AW'.
Leonardo-Finmeccanica's AW609 tiltrotor prototype AC1 arrived at the Leonardo-Finmeccanica Philadelphia plant yesterday after resuming flight-testing regime in Arlington, Texas. Of course many of you will remember the crash that happened to the AC2 prototype in Italy back in October last year. That crash caused a grounding of the testing of the program to this point. good to see the AW609 back in the air testing. The tilt-rotor is expected to be on track for certification in 2018 barring no further delays.
