Agusta USA Targets the Businessman for
Koala Single & Power Twin Sales
"The Koala and the Power, and the AB139, are all VIP aircraft
and are being sold into the VIP market," says Agusta Aerospace
sales and marketing director Bob Cleland.
Agusta (Booth 3401) touts the $1.95 million A119 Koala light single
as having the largest cabin in its class with no internal obstruction.
It has a Pratt & Whitney PT6-B37 engine rated at 1,002 shp.
Recent sales include ten to Tex-Air Helicopters, a Gulf of Mexico
operator, four to the New York City Police and two, specially assembled
in the U.S. (see box), to the Pennsylvania State Police. The first
Koala in Canada has been placed with J.B. Air (the former Canadian
Territorial Helicopters).
Agusta promotes the $3.2 million A109E Power as affording maximum
operational flexibility. It's available with twin Pratt & Whitney
Canada PW206C or Turbomeca Arrius 2K1 engines. Customers include
Dallas EMS specialist CareFlite, which has purchased eight Powers
(with PW206C engines and certified for single pilot IFR operations),
the University of Virginia's Health System, and government agencies
in China, Japan and Malaysia.
The $7 million AB139 medium twin, built in league with Bell Helicopter
Textron with P&WC PT6C-67C engines, was certified in Italy just
this past June. The partners claim more than two dozen customers
making for a two-year AB139 order backlog. U.S. FAA certification
is expected next year, as is commencement of deliveries here. An
order by Evergreen International for two AB139s was disclosed at
this year's Paris Air Show. The first AB139 delivery, to Italy's
Elilario, is expected to take place late this year.
Corporate customers for the Agusta line don't get the publicity
because all too often they expressly forbid it, Cleland says. He
told Show News that he hopes to be able to publicize a VIP sale
of an AB139 here this week.
-Rich Piellisch
Keystone Koalas
Don't expect Italy-based Agusta Aerospace to commence helicopter
assembly in the U.S. in the wake of building two birds in
Philadelphia for the Pennsylvania State Police.
"We did as they requested," sales chief Bob Cleland
told Show News, terming the U.S. assembly of two A119 Koalas
"an extraordinary event." The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
he explains, has domestic production rules for its motor vehicle
fleet and for this particular purchase decided that helicopters
fell into the motor vehicle category.
"That's not something we typically want to do,"
Cleland says of U.S. helicopter assembly. "We're a completion
facility and a repair center and not a production facility,"
he says of Agusta Aerospace.
Delivery of the two Koalas was announced early this year.
Agusta says that the A119 is not only the "workhorse
for the next generation of police aviation," but that
with its multifunctional interior it "can be changed
from law enforcement, to emergency medical service, to a passenger
transport vehicle in a matter of minutesthe change to medical
configuration in the Koala does not displace the copilot like
it does in all other single-engine helicopters."
