AgustaWestland is pleased to announce that it has signed a cooperation agreement with the Italian Air Force for training services aimed at further strengthening their already well-established cooperation through the future set up of joint training services. The agreement follows the Letter of Intent signed earlier this year in March.

The partners intend to co-develop rotary-wing training servicesby leveraging on the capabilities and synergies between the AgustaWestland Training Organization facility located at Frosinone and the Italian Air Force’s 72nd Wing (72° Stormo) which is also located at Frosinone. Through this mutually beneficial cooperation, AgustaWestland will further expand the range of servicesit can offer in the training sector, while the Italian Air Force will enhance the level of training for its personnel.

This agreement in the training fieldopens up a new era in the longstanding partnership between AgustaWestland and the Italian Air Force, allowing the parties to meet evolving requirements, rationalize costs, maximize the effective and efficient use of the available resources and assets as well as enhance the scope of the services, from basic to advanced training. This unprecedented range of services will not only be made available to Italian Air Force personnel, but also to foreign armed forces’ crews under international agreements as well as to AgustaWestland military and government customers. All of this will be made possible by pooling and sharing expertise, know-how, infrastructure and training devices to offer national and international operators high quality training solutions.

The partners envisage the development of an integrated training solution based, on the one hand, on the state-of-the-art AW139 helicopter model for twin engine/IFR/NVG conversion training for crews of the Italian Air Force’s HH-139A and VH-139 helicopters, used for search and rescue and government transport duties respectively, and the HH-101A which will primarily be used for personnel recovery and special forces operations. On the other hand,the Italian Air Force shall provide its extensive experience and assets for ab initio training.

Through the training academies in Italy, UK, USA and Malaysia, AgustaWestland enjoys an enviable track record in successfully training both military and commercial pilots and maintainers from all over the world. Training programmes are tailored to meet a customer’s individual needs and operational requirements using established analytical processes. Training solutions and services are designed, developed and delivered through the entire lifecycle of the product to meet the demands of long-term operational support. Extensive use is made of multi-media tools and an expanding range of synthetic training devices ranging from e-learning, part-task maintenance and procedures trainers through to full mission and flight simulators.