The AgustaWestland AW119 Koala, produced by Leonardo since 2016, is an eight-seat utility helicopter powered by a single turboshaft engine produced for the civil market. Introduced as the Agusta A119 Koala prior to the Agusta-Westland merger, it is targeted at operators favoring lower running costs of a single-engine aircraft over redundancy of a twin. The AW119 is a single-engine multirole helicopter. AgustaWestland promote the type as possessing excellent flight qualities with high levels of controllability, maneuverability and inherent safety. The design of the rotorcraft is derived from Agusta's earlier and highly successful A109 helicopter, differing primarily by being equipped with a single engine (as the A109 was originally designed), a Pratt & Whitney PT6B-37A turboshaft engine, and using fixed skids in place of the A109's retractable wheeled landing gear arrangement. The AW119 shares the same cockpit and cabin of the AW109, along with commonality with various other systems, while costing roughly half of the latter's price tag. According to Flight International, the AW119 is competitively priced and provides good levels of accessibility, maintainability, comfort, noise levels, and speed. The AW119 employs a four-bladed fully articulated main rotor; the composite rotor blades are designed to produce maximum lift with minimum noise, and feature tip caps to reduce noise and elastomeric bearings with no lubrication requirements. Aluminium honeycomb structural panels are used throughout the airframe, which absorb both noise and vibration, thus requiring no additional vibration absorption systems to be employed. The PT6B-37A powerplant of the AW119, located in the same area as the AW109's engines, is capable of providing high power margins along with generous speeds and endurance. According to AgustaWestland, the AW119 retains the system redundancy of dual engine helicopters, such as the hydraulics and the dual independent stability augmentation systems. The gearbox has a 30-minute dry run capability. US FAA certification was awarded in February the following year. Customer deliveries began soon thereafter, the first commercial example was delivered to Australian logistics company Linfox (serial 14007, registration VH-FOX). The AW119 is also operated by the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service. and the NRMA Careflight. For more information on the design,development,operational history and variants, click here.
