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Helicopters Made in Italy
Rome - (Ign) - The first person to realise that it would one day be possible to fly by using a vertical rotating mechanism was Leonardo da Vinci, with his famous design, probably never realised, of the helicopter's ancestor. And almost four centuries later it was Enrico Forlanini from Milan, after whom the city airport was also named, who further developed that initial idea. Then, in 1930, the first entirely Italian helicopter was built, designed entirely by the same man responsible for one of the Italian inventions which have had greatest success in the world: Corradino D'Ascanio, the father of the Vespa. He was chief engineer at Piaggio, a company that long before moving into the production of scooters had been a leading name in Italian aeronautics. The passion for flying, and in particular for helicopters, thus spans half a millennium of the nation's history. And perhaps there is also a certain amount of pride in being able to confirm today that the world's leading helicopter manufacturer is Italian.
The story of Agusta began in 1907, when Giovanni Agusta set up a factory for the production of small aeroplanes near Varese, not far from Milan. But traditional flying, with fixed wings, didn't entirely satisfy him. He had the idea of using a rotating wing, i.e. the helicopter. This was the beginning of a long journey, which would take Agusta, on the eve of the Second World War, to designing and realising the first prototypes. Bombing however razed the factories to the ground and, once the war was over, there were not the resources to start over. But rather than give in, he decided to follow a different route. In 1952 he made an agreement with the American Bell and began to produce under licence the AB47, the first helicopter produced on a wide scale in Europe, whilst continuing to develop the company's independent capacity for research and experimentation. In the early 1970s his efforts finally paid off, with the launch of the A109, the first modern Italian helicopter, equipped with two turbine engines and able to hold its own on international markets. After another 10 years of intense effort and research the A129 Mangusta was born, the first combat helicopter designed and built entirely in Europe.
In the following years Agusta implemented new strategies of international collaboration. They made an agreement with the English Westland to realise a new aircraft, the EH101, which in the space of a few years became the most appreciated and widely sold helicopter on international markets. Together with a group of French, German and Dutch constructors the NH90 was then built, while in the facilities in Varese, new and more modern versions of the A129 and A109 were developed along with the new single-engine A119 and BA609 tiltrotor.
In 1994 Agusta became part of the Finmeccanica group, the great Italian company in the Aeronautics, space and military electronics sector, which started a joint-venture with the British GKN, leading to the setting-up of a new company, AgustaWestland. Agusta subsequently took this over completely, thus becoming the world's leading helicopter manufacturer. Today, Agusta has a turnover of around € 2.5 billion, with almost 9000 employees and orders worth over € 6 billion. The long list of Agusta's successes, then, comes as no surprise. The most impressive was on 28 January 2005, when the U.S. Navy decided to use Agusta US101 helicopters as part of the complex security system for the US President. But other results achieved in recent months also confirm the supremacy of Italian helicopters, with orders from Chevron Texaco, the Evergreen Marine Corp. and Seacor Marine, who together have ordered 26 aircraft. Moreover, after Oman and Ireland, also the United Arab Emirates have chosen the AB139 for their civil emergency and security systems.
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