It has been talked about since January, but it is now confirmed: the Italian army will acquire the latest addition to Leonardo's range of helicopters, the AW169. If it was already established that the device would be used in its civil variant for the training of Italian military pilots, the declaration of purchase published by the Italian Ministry of Defense also mentions the development of an armed variant of the device, the AW169 Multi-role Advanced, or AW169MA.
At the beginning of the year, the Italian armies had announced their purchase intentions in order to modernize their equipment. The Esercito Italiano (Italian Army) had then mentioned the acquisition in the years to come of AW169 helicopters in order to replace its disparate fleet of old generation helicopters, mainly Agusta-Bell AB212 and AB412. At the time, the acquisition program was named Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) and aimed to rationalize the logistics and support helicopter fleets around a single aircraft. This fleet of light helicopters would then support the medium NH90 helicopters and the heavy CH-47 Chinook helicopters.
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