Originally Posted by
nowherespecial
I put this to some senior Leonardo people at an event recently. The senior people were suitably non commital as you would expect from a listed company. The rest of their sales team were..... less inhibited.
Based on the more junior team members the plan is for:
- More composite to try and reduce the amount of corrosion issues
- More aligned maintenance schedules (like AH have done with the H175/ H160)
- More future proof/ cheaper/ in house avionics
- Strangely power was not mentioned, it's not really an underpowered aircraft at the moment to the best of my knowledge
- Unlikely an increase in MTOW, but possibly a little. If some of the aircraft can be made of composite, you do not need to go above 7T, the lighter EEW takes care of more payload anyway.
I assess it's still a little while away before it breaks cover, like AH's new H135.
I like tracking prototypes on flight radar and it seems that the AW139 MKII has already performed around 50 to 80 fh. I’m quite impatient the discover all the improvments integrated in the AW139.
Maybe some news will come at HAI.