Philippine Navy Gets AW109 Power Naval Helicopters

The Philippine Navy (PN) commissions its first 3 AgustaWestland AW109 Power multipurpose naval helicopters as part of the AFP 78th Anniversary and Thanksgiving celebrations at AFP's headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City.

On March 2010, the Philippines' Department of National Defense (DND) released an invitation to bid for the procurement of 2 multipurpose helicopters including Intergrated Logistics Support (ILS) and air and ground crew training with an Approved Budget for the Contract (ABC) amounting to Php 850.91 million. Award should have been to PZL Swidnik of Poland for a navalized W-3 Sokol variant, but this was deferred after reports of collusion between PZL Swidnik and a joint group from the Philippine Air Force and Navy was made public.

Another attempt was made in 2012 now under the Naval Helicopter Acquisition Program, and the PN planned to embark these helicopters on the Gregorio del Pilar-class frigates. The DND decided to negotiate with AgustaWestland for navalized AW109 Power helicopters, and was found to be the single calculated and responsive proponent. With the help of the Italian Ministry of Defense upon their review, the notice of award was provided to AgustaWestland S.p.A. and a contract was signed on December 20, 2012 for 3 helicopters worth Php 1,337,176,584.00 (US$32.544 million), to be financed by the AFP Modernization Program with assistance from the Department of Energy. An option for 2 more is also included in the contract, which was realized later on for a total budget for the 5 helicopters plus ILS for probably less than Php 2.2 billion. Expected delivery is around early 2014.

The first batch of avionics and maintenance crew were sent to Sesto Calende, Italy for training on May 2013, while the 1st batch of pilots for training were sent to Italy on June 2013 while the last batch were sent on November 2013. The training for different crews vary between 2 to 4 months which will enable them to maintain and operate the helicopters with minimal or no help from AgustaWestland specialists.