Italy reveals Leonardo helo sales to Egypt

[Amun]

The Italian government has revealed a hitherto-unconfirmed Leonardo military helicopter sale to Egypt, according to documents disclosed in late May.

Seen in Italian military markings, the Italian government has confirmed that the AW149 has now been sold to Egypt.

According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Leonardo has sold 24 AW149 and eight AW189 helicopters to the Egyptian military for approximately EUR871 million (USD957 million). The sales were recorded in the ministry’s 2019 arms exports report to the Italian Senate of the Republic.

The documents do not disclose any further information pertaining to production or delivery timelines, aircraft roles, or which branch of the Egyptian military will field them.

While the Italian government report provided no details as to the intended role of the helicopters within the Egyptian military, it did note that the AW149s would be configured with eight seats (it can normally carry up to 18 passengers), while the similarly-sized AW189s will be configured with the maximum 19 seats. These configurations suggest that the AW149s will perform a specialist military task that requires the fitting of bespoke mission equipment, while the AW189s will be used for general passenger transport.

Seen here in UK coastguard service, the AW189 is the civil variant of the military AW149 and has also now been sold to Egypt.

Leonardo has not commented on the report nor the sales contained within it.


https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/d5aedf0d-aa74-4763-9e77-52d09c89dd92

 

[Amun]

@Gomig-21 @The SC
Now it is revealed...

what do you think about their missions....?!

 

[Ahmet Pasha]

AW149 it was pitched to Turkey against S70 Blackhawks.

 

[The SC]

@Gomig-21 @The SC
Now it is revealed...

what do you think about their missions....?!

The AW149s would be configured with eight seats (it can normally carry up to 18 passengers)..this suggest that the AW149s will perform a specialist military task that requires the fitting of bespoke mission equipment..

The mystery is what kind of equipment!??

 

[8 pass charlie]

is there anything left which egypt is not buying???I am.amazed as well as jealous.but still happy for them

 

[The SC]

is there anything left which egypt is not buying???I am.amazed as well as jealous.but still happy for them

At least you are honest..

 

[Gomig-21]

@Gomig-21 @The SC
Now it is revealed...

what do you think about their missions....?!

I think many of them will be positioned on the Mistrals. With the rapid modernization of the navy, the one main thing that has been lacking and I think they're starting to take it a lot more seriously is SAR missions for the coming years and moving forward, even on-land, they need to move away from and not depend on the civilian ambulatory service anymore and make it a military mission only to do search and rescue.

I think they will also perform maritime military transport which is badly needed so they don't have to take away from the duties of the Chinooks or the Mi-17s more than they need to and leave those to their on-land duties. I think it's a great decision because they don't really need to follow the Russian example that the LHDs were originally designed for, which was mostly & strictly attack & ASW missions with the Katrans and the Ka-27 which was to take on the role of both, ASW and troop transport. We have different needs as you know and ASW is relegated to other platforms already. We need to protect our maritime borders, all the gas fields and increase our naval SAR mission capable units. We have plenty of maritime attack capabilities that I don't think we should just have the majority of the aircraft on the mistrals be attack helos and a few doing the other missions which are more frequently needed and important missions. So I think they made the right decisions, if indeed they'll be using a lot of these on both, the Mistrals as well as the FREMM and the 4 Gowinds and future ships coming that will also need transport helos on them. If they end up purchasing Katrans also, then we'll all be very happy!