Helicopters for the Mezzogiorno

Elicotteri Meridionali, literally Southern Helicopters, was created by Agusta in 1963 as part of Italy’s drive to bring industry to the poorer south. Its factory at Frosinone, between Rome and Naples, opened in October 1967, and its everyday work was the overhaul and maintenance of helicopters belonging to the Italian state services. That might have been all, had the company not landed a licence that put one of the world’s biggest helicopters on a southern Italian production line.

The Chinook in Frosinone

In April 1968 Elicotteri Meridionali agreed to build the Boeing Vertol CH-47C Chinook under licence, for the Italian Army and for Imperial Iran. By 1970 it was the named manufacturer of the 44-seat CH-47C for both domestic and export customers. In 1969 the company also took a significant stake in the Iranian Helicopter Industry company at Mehrabad airport in Tehran, and a holding in SIAI-Marchetti, tying it into Agusta’s wider web of interests.

A one-off and an absorption

Its one design of its own came with Agusta: the EMA 124, a three-seat light helicopter derived from the Bell 47 that Agusta built under licence. The single prototype first flew on 28 May 1970, registered I-EMAF, but nothing further came of it. Elicotteri Meridionali was gradually folded into the Agusta group, which passed to Finmeccanica in 1994 and joined Westland to form AgustaWestland in 2000.

Заводы

• Frosinone works · Frosinone, Lazio — Opened October 1967