A glider in Capua

Giovanni Agusta was a Parma-born aviator of Sicilian stock, and his first aircraft had no engine at all. In 1907 he built a glider, the AG-1, and the next year a second one that was towed into the air behind a motor car on the parade ground at Capua. He flew in the Italo-Turkish war in Libya, invented a parachute-style brake for falling aircraft, and joined Caproni as an inspector of bombers during the First World War.

Workshops in Libya, a field at Cascina Costa

Peace turned him into a mechanic. In 1919 his firm became Costruzioni Aeronautiche Giovanni Agusta, repairing military Fiats, Macchis and Savoia-Marchettis, first in workshops in Tripoli and Benghazi. On 23 December 1923 he signed a contract with the army to run the airfield at Cascina Costa, next to the Malpensa field, in return for a 20 per cent discount on repairs and a rent of 5,000 lire a year. That is the date Agusta counts as its start. Giovanni had only four years left; he died in 1927, and his widow Giuseppina and their sons took over.

Banned from the sky, kings of the racetrack

The eldest, Count Domenico Agusta, ran the business with his brother Vincenzo through the Second World War. Then the peace terms banned Italy from building aircraft, and the family made boats and buses to keep the workers employed. In 1945 they founded Meccanica Verghera Agusta: MV Agusta. The motorcycles, built with aircraft-grade engineering, went on to win 63 world championships, including 17 consecutive 500cc titles from the 1960s into the early 1970s. Just as usefully, the motorcycles kept the Agusta workforce together until aircraft work could resume.

The Bell licence

When the ban lifted in 1950, Domenico went looking for the next thing. In 1952, through the journalist Leone Concato, Agusta took the first European licence to build the Bell 47. Test pilot Ottorino Lancia flew the first Italian-built 47G on 22 May 1954, and 108 followed by 1959. The AB 204B came in 1961, and from then on the Agusta-Bell name stood on Hueys, JetRangers and twin-engine 212s across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Count Domenico’s last tour

Domenico wanted his own designs too. The big three-engine A101 flew on 19 October 1964, an all-Italian heavy helicopter that convinced Sikorsky to sign a licence deal for the Sea King in 1967, which promptly killed the A101 itself. SIAI-Marchetti, the old Savoia-Marchetti of seaplane fame, was bought in 1969. On 29 January 1971, while showing the Finnish president Urho Kekkonen round the works, Domenico suffered a heart attack; he died four days later.

The A109 and the Mangusta

His last big project saved and nearly sank the firm. The A109, a sleek twin-engine helicopter first flown on 4 August 1971 and briefly marketed as the Hirundo, the swallow, cost so much to develop that in 1973 the family sold 51 per cent to the state holding EFIM. It became Agusta’s best seller and is still built today. In 1983 came the A129 Mangusta, the first attack helicopter designed and built entirely in Western Europe.

Bribes in Brussels, a merger in London

Success had a price. In 1988 Belgium ordered 46 A109s, and the inquiry into the 1991 murder of the politician André Cools later uncovered bribes paid to both Belgian Socialist parties. NATO Secretary General Willy Claes resigned in October 1995 and was convicted in 1998. By then Agusta belonged to Finmeccanica, and in July 2000 it agreed to merge with GKN’s Westland. The name lived on in AgustaWestland and, since 2021, as Leonardo’s VIP helicopter brand.

Factories

• Cascina Costa works · Cascina Costa di Samarate, Varese — Airfield taken over 23 December 1923; headquarters and flight test site; A109 first flew here
• Libyan workshops · Tripoli (1920) and Benghazi (1922) — First repair workshops of the 1919 company
• Vergiate plant · Vergiate, Varese — Original A119 final assembly line
• Frosinone plant · Frosinone, Lazio — Elicotteri Meridionali factory opened 1967; Chinook licence production

People

• Giovanni Agusta · founder, aviator (1879–1927) — Built the AG-1 glider in 1907
• Domenico Agusta · head of the company 1927–1971 (1907–1971) — Founded MV Agusta in 1945 and took the Bell licence in 1952; Cavaliere del Lavoro 1958
• Vincenzo Agusta · co-director with Domenico — Died 1958
• Corrado Agusta · president 1971–1982 — Last family head; oversaw the sale to EFIM
• Ottorino Lancia · chief test pilot (1915–1977) — Flew the first Italian-built Bell 47G (1954) and AB 204B (1961)

Records and firsts

• First European licence to build the Bell 47, 1952
• A129 Mangusta: first attack helicopter designed and produced wholly in Western Europe, and the first helicopter with a fully computerised integrated management system
• AW109S Grand set a round-the-world helicopter speed record of 11 days, 7 hours and 2 minutes in August 2008 (post-merger, A109 family)
• MV Agusta, the company’s motorcycle offshoot, won 63 world championships