AgustaWestland to deliver GrandNew helicopter to Brazilian State of San Paulo

The Government of the State of San Paulo in Brazil has awarded a contract to AgustaWestland, a Finmeccanica company, for a GrandNew new light twin helicopter.

Under the contract, AgustaWestland do Brasil will also provide a comprehensive logistic support and maintenance package for the helicopter.

Scheduled to be delivered in 2014, the GrandNew helicopter will be deployed by State of San Paulo military police to conduct environmental and forest patrols and airborne surveillance missions in the State of San Paulo.

The contract has been awarded under the Programa de Recuperação Socioambiental da Serra do Mar e Sistema de Mosaicos da Mata Atlântica (Social and Environmental Recovery Programme of the Serra do Mar and Atlantic Forest).

The new heliclopter will be fitted with digital avionics for single/dual pilot instrument flight rules (IFR) operation and a four-axis dual duplex digital autopilot coupled with a flight director.

Additional features of the helicopter include the Chelton Flight Systems’ flight-logic electronic flight instrument system (EFIS), synthetic vision and highway in the sky (HITS) embedded functions to provide enhanced situational awareness, high safety and groundbreaking automated flight management capabilities.

In addition to new glass-cockpit with a redesigned layout, the GrandNew aircraft will be integrated with new radio management system (RMS) and the integrated display system (IDS) to offer aircraft/engine data monitoring, crew alert and maintenance data pages.

More than 200 customers in almost 40 countries worldwide have placed orders for over 330 helicopters from the Grand/GrandNew series to support missions including law enforcement, maritime patrol and water pollution monitoring patrol, EMS, SAR, electronic newsgathering, harbour pilot shuttle and offshore transport.

Image: An AgustaWestland GrandNew aircraft during its flight. Photo: AgustaWestland – A Finmeccanica Company.