AgustaWestland AW189 unveiled at Paris Le Bourget

Dear all,

Midweek at Paris Le Bourget I was drenched on the wednesday anyhow, slightly remiss of me not to post up my pics anyhow to start off with this new 8 tonne mockup of AW189



I'd see it as a rival to the EC-225 / AS-332 for the offshore marketplace as their smaller AW139 is already a competitor against the S-76 in that range and the AW169 against the EC-155/AS-365.

Cheers

Seems that at least one of the two remaining bidders in the U.K.'s current SAR competition has put forward the AW189 as part of their tender:
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/uk-sar-contest-down-to-two-bidders-380907/

I think it's somewhat ironic how this 'new' AW189 reminds me so much of the abandoned 'enlarged' Westland 30 design - Itself an enlarged development of the Lynx, which was promoted and flown in the 1980's, but sadly failed to gain orders and production.

Regards
Pioneer

At the risk of having the asthetics discussion roll onto this thread, it and the Bell 525 seem very similar.