Leonardo invests £604m in UK helicopter ops and supply chain
Above: AW149.
Courtesy Leonardo
Leonardo in Yeovil has secured £322 million of export orders since September 2023. This includes contracts with Japan and South Korea in the past few weeks. In Japan, Leonardo and Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) agreed a contract for additional MCH-101 naval helicopters kits for the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF). Meanwhile, Leonardo has signed a five-year support services contract with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration to support the AW159 Maritime Operations Helicopters in-service with the Republic of Korea Navy.
Since 2013, Leonardo has generated almost £6.8 billion in helicopter exports from the UK to customers across North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe and North Africa. This includes over £500 million of export sales in 2023.
The strong export performance is allowing Leonardo to support a thriving UK-wide helicopters supply chain and invest to future proof its Somerset-based manufacturing facilities, with the company spending £604 million in 2023.
Around 20% of this, in the region of £120 million, was with more than 250 SMEs. Furthermore, it included an investment of about £4 million to equip Leonardo’s helicopter transmissions factory and the company’s centres, including the Dynamic Composites Centre, in Yeovil, with the latest equipment, including new cutting machines, gear checkers and grinders. The investment on-site ensures that Leonardo continues to be AW149-ready.
Decades of investment have empowered Leonardo to build a UK workforce comprising 430 design-focused engineers proficient in 87 essential skill sets for executing high-value helicopter design work. These skills have previously been employed in support of the UK’s Armed Forces on operations, including the delivery of 57 Urgent Operational Requirements relating to helicopters during Operations Telic and Herrick.
The Department for International Trade has independently confirmed that the addressable export market for medium-sized military helicopters is 500 aircraft, worth tens of billions in UK exports. Recent sales of the AW149 have been to international armed forces, including NATO members Poland and North Macedonia.
In line with Leonardo’s 2024-2028 Industrial Plan, Leonardo is making targeted investments in research and development, including a transformative approach to digitalisation across the whole business. At its UK-based helicopter business, this includes investment in the next generation of uncrewed rotorcraft technologies.
First in this domain is the Proteus Airborne Collaborative Platform (ACP), which Leonardo is developing under the Rotary Wing Uncrewed Air System (RWUAS) Technology Demonstration Programme (TDP) in partnership with the UK Ministry of Defence's Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) Future Capability Innovation and the Royal Navy. Uncrewed systems are part of the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm 2040 vision for Anti-Submarine Warfare support.
The programme is proceeding at pace and testing in Yeovil’s specialist helicopter wind tunnel is now underway with a 3D printed 2:13 scale Proteus model. This is the first model of an uncrewed rotorcraft to be tested onsite, and it will provide critical aerodynamic data to assist the UK-based design team in producing an accurate flight profile of the aircraft. The wind tunnel helps replicate the actions of the aircraft in flight and will help engineers and designers in Yeovil understand the platform’s aerodynamic performance.
Following testing, further design and development work will take place before the first flight of the Proteus test aircraft, which is on-track to fly in Q1 2025. The approximately 3t prototype will have modularity at its core and will be able to be adapted to deliver a wide range of roles on behalf of military operators.
Adam Clarke, Managing Director of Leonardo Helicopters UK, commented: “In the UK, Leonardo is investing hundreds of millions to sustain our nation’s position at the forefront of rotorcraft research, design, and manufacture. We’re developing and designing advanced new helicopter technologies for our own Armed Forces, we’re exporting helicopter products all over the world and we continue to invest in our people and infrastructure in order to meet the emerging multidomain and digital requirements of the most sophisticated military customers.”
Leonardo’s offer delivers social mobility around the UK through jobs, investment in skills and top-rated apprenticeship and graduate schemes. AW149 work in the UK will directly create or sustain 1,500 highly skilled jobs nationwide and support more than 12,000 helicopters jobs across Leonardo’s established UK supply chain.
Leonardo in Yeovil is one of a select few companies in the world able to design, develop, test and manufacture highly complex transmissions for large helicopters, including main rotor, intermediate and tail rotor gearboxes and it is the only company in the UK with this capability, helping make it the sole OEM capable of end-to-end helicopter production in the UK.
