AgustaWestland opened up its booth at Heli-Expo on Tuesday morning with a massive floor-to-ceiling cloth screen blocking about one fifth of its floor-space. Another giant flat-screen banner display at the back of the booth had a countdown timer in anticipation of the unveiling. A large crowd of people gathered to witness a dramatic unveiling, which included a dance performance that most attendees were forced to view on the flat-screen display and beautiful scenery displayed on the cloth screen before it dropped to unveil AgustaWestland’s latest offering — the AW109 Trekker.
Based on the AW109/Grand family of helicopters, the Trekker is the first of AgustaWestland’s light twin helicopters to offer skid landing gear. It boasts a maximum external load takeoff weight of 7,055 pounds and is equipped with two fadec-equipped Pratt & Whitney Canada PW207C engines, each producing 735 horsepower. The Trekker’s cockpit is built around a panel that is becoming more and more common in fixed- and rotary-wing cockpits — Garmin’s G1000 glass panel, in this case the helicopter version of the system. The AW109 is capable of single-pilot operations and comes standard with one PFD and one MFD; however, a third 10.4-inch PFD screen can be added on the co-pilot’s side.
While AgustaWestland says the Trekker, which can accommodate up to eight people including the pilot, could serve a diverse range of missions, one of its primary purposes is emergency medical service. The AW109 on display at the booth is branded with a large 7 inside a circle on the nose, the logo for SevenBar. SevenBar, a company that has provided air medical services in fixed-wing aircraft for more than twenty years, recently ordered its first helicopter – an AgustaWestland GrandNew. EMS is one of many aviation related services SevenBar has dabbled in since it opened its doors in the late 1940s and, according to an AgustaWestland representative, the company intends to expand its helicopter fleet, which will likely include som Trekkers.
AgustaWestland is prepared to produce the AW109 Trekker at its plants in Philadelphia and Italy. Certification and first delivery of the Trekker are expected next year. While a price point has not yet been established, AgustaWestland said it will be lower than the GrandNew.
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