AgustaWestland, a Finmeccanica company, is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a contract for nine T129 combat helicopters. The contract is valued at EUR 150 million also including a spare parts package.
The nine T129 helicopters will be assembled by Turkish Aerospace Industries, Inc. (TAI) and delivered by mid 2012 in a basic configuration, one year earlier [than] the 51 T129s already on order.
This contract increases the total ordered by the Turkish Land Forces Command to 60. TAI is the Prime Contractor for the overall ATAK Programme, with ASELSAN as the supplier of avionics and mission equipments while AgustaWestland is acting as subcontractor to TAI.
As the Prime Contractor of the ATAK Program, TAI is responsible for ensuring the T129 ATAK helicopter meets all the operational requirements of the Turkish Land Forces Command.
“I am delighted that the order for nine additional T129 helicopters has been executed today at SSM,” Giuseppe Orsi, CEO, AgustaWestland said. “The announcement at this stage of the programme confirms again customer’s confidence in the capabilities of the platform as well as the ability of the ATAK Team to manage on schedule the development of the most important Turkish aerospace programme ever.
“Moreover it confirms how the partnership between AgustaWestland and its partners is able to effectively respond to customer’s urgent requirements allowing the Turkish Land Forces to achieved T129 operational readiness one year earlier”.
The T129 programme continues to the planned schedule with both the System Requirements Review and Preliminary Design Review completed in 2009. The Critical Design Review will be completed shortly, with significant improvements introduced to add additional sophisticated mission equipments specified by the Turkish Land Force Command and SSM, including the new indigenously design and develop UMTAS missile.
Prototypes are being assembled in both Italy and Turkey starting their flight test program in January 2011.
