Finmeccanica Helicopter Division’s new AgustaWestland AW109 Trekker made a successful first flight with the Genesys Aerosystems glass cockpit. The new twin-engine, single-pilot IFR helicopter is the latest in the AW109 line of helicopters.
The Genesys glass cockpit is already in service on the Sikorsky S-61T, Embraer Tucano, Textron Scorpion, and Grob G-120TP. It features next-generation synthetic vision, Highway-in-the-Sky navigation, embedded TAWS and HTAWS, embedded FMS, integrated audio/radio management, built-in digital flight recorder, all Level-A software, and is MIL-STD NVIS ‘A’ & ‘B’ compatible.
“The Finmeccanica Helicopter Division and Genesys teams have worked extremely hard to achieve this milestone in a very short time,” says Ricardo Price, VP of Technology at Genesys Aerosystems. “The aircraft and avionics are performing extremely well.”
The Trekker avionics system includes three IDU-680 flight displays, dual VHF com, dual VHF nav, ADF, integrated radio management, dual audio controllers, radar altimeter, transponder with ADS-B out, helicopter TAWS, hover vector display, redundant flight management systems with GPS/SBAS, autopilot and stability augmentation system, and complete engine/systems monitoring. The IDU-680 has built-in interfaces for EO/IR sensors, DF, DME/TACAN, Datalink, and other special-mission equipment to easily accommodate future upgrades.