Today first flight of Leonardo AW169B for Austrian Armed Forceswith Italian test registration CSX82072 (construction number 72014), first one to be delivered to Bundesheer (Austrian Armed Forces).
It was photographed by Tiziano Capenti, with full livery, during a test flight from the Leonardo factory airfield Venegono near Varese, in northern Italy.
The same helicopter was photographed in early october, wering the primer livery.
On 20 December 2021, the Austrian government signed a government-to-government (G2G) agreement with Italy for the purchase of eighteen Leonardo AW169M
Light Utility Helicopters (LUH) to replace the Bundesheer obsolete 21 strong fleet of Alouette 3 helicopters.
As stated in Scramble magazine article, the purchase will be divided in six AW169Bs training variant and 12 AW169MAs advanced multirole variant with integrated mission equipment and weapon systems.