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.
