A single helicopter arriving at a mountain airfield in Styria is not usually news. This one is, because it is the twelfth, and twelve is a third of the way through the largest helicopter recapitalisation the Austrian armed forces have ever attempted.

The aircraft flew in to Aigen im Ennstal directly from the Leonardo factory in Italy, completing the first stage of a programme that will eventually put 36 AW169 Lions into Austrian service and finally retire the Alouette III.

Replacing a helicopter designed in the 1950s

The Alouette III is a remarkable machine and it has served Austria for a very long time, but it is a product of a different era of rotary-wing design and the performance gap is not subtle.

The AW169 has a cabin for up to ten occupants, which among other things allows a patient to be carried in isolation on a medical flight — something simply not possible in the older aircraft. For firefighting, which matters more in Austria every year, the Lion carries two to three times as much water as the Alouette III, and Austrian figures suggest it does that job more cheaply than a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk would.

It also has the power reserves to work at altitude, which for an air arm whose operating area is largely vertical is the single most important number on the sheet.

Why Aigen im Ennstal matters

Fliegerhorst Fiala Fernbrugg at Aigen im Ennstal has had a helicopter squadron since 1960, and its value is entirely geographic. It sits in the mountains, which makes it one of the better places in Europe to teach pilots how to fly in high terrain.

Austria has been training foreign crews there since 2000. In 2006 the German Bundeswehr’s army aviation school used Aigen to prepare aircrew for high-mountain operations in Afghanistan — which tells you what other air arms think of the place.

When the programme is complete at the end of 2028, twelve Lions will be based at Aigen and twenty-four at Langenlebarn, with all deep maintenance for the type centralised at the Aigen depot. Simulators are already in place at both sites.

A walkaround of the Austrian AW169 Lion.

The armed version is next

The twelve aircraft delivered so far complete the first tranche. The 24 that follow include the AW169 MA, for Multirole Advanced — a military configuration that can be armed and fitted with specialised electronics and sensors.

The first MA is currently planned to arrive in December. That is the more significant milestone of the two, because it moves the fleet from transport, rescue and firefighting into a genuinely tactical role for the first time.

There is a pleasing continuity in the supplier. Austria has flown the AB-212 since 1980, along with the AB-204 and AB-206, all of which came from the Agusta lineage that is now Leonardo Helicopters. Buying Italian helicopters is not a new habit in Vienna — it is a forty-five-year one.

Sources: Austrian Bundesheer and Ministry of Defence statements; aeroTELEGRAPH.