I-POWR

Information

This aircraft was leased by the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration between the years 2002-2006 while waiting for the first of the 20 ordered Agusta 109 LUH helicopters to arrive.


I-POWR was constructed at the Italian Agusta plant in Vergiate, near Milan, in 2001. It is different from the ordinary "Power" version of the A109 as it is equipped with Turbomeca Arrius engines instead of regular Pratt & Whitney engines. The helicopter was owned by Agusta Elicotteri and used for marketing and VIP purposes.

The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration signed a contract to lease the helicopter as an initial training- and evaluation platform before its 20 ordered Agusta 109 LUH helicopters would start to arrive (late-2003 and forward). I-POWR was leased as a provisional helicopter together with the sister ship I-PAWR from 10th of September 2002. I-POWR came to Sweden on 12th of December 2002.

The helicopters were used by the Defence Materiel Administration and the "Initial Fielding Team", belonging to the Swedish Armed Forces Helicopter Wing. They were mostly based at the Malmen Helicopter Base in Linköping, but paid frequent visits to the other bases throughout the country to perform various mission evaluations.

The delivery of the HKP 15 helicopter (Swedish title for the Agusta 109 LUH) was delayed, and the two provisional helicopters were kept in the meantime. The first production HKP 15A (15022) was delivered in February of 2006, followed by the second one (15024) shortly thereafter.

I-POWR and I-PAWR was returned to Agusta Elicotteri in mid-2006. The helicopters then continued their career to Australia where they entered service with the Royal Australian Navy.