Boeing Defense will begin production of the AH-6i Little Bird light attack and reconnaissance helicopter in Mesa, Ariz., by the end of the year. The manufacturer declined to name the first buyer, which the U.S. Army has previously identified as the Saudi Arabia National Guard. The latter agency will acquire 24 international Little Birds through a foreign military sale (FMS).

“We are starting up a production line this year…and this aircraft will be in production,” Bradley Rounding, Boeing manager of attack helicopter business development, told reporters in Philadelphia on May 22. “So that’s a significant event for our team.” Boeing expects to build two helicopters per month and complete deliveries to the launch customer by December 2017.

Mesa-based MD Helicopters, formed from the former McDonnell Douglas commercial helicopter division, will supply the fuselages for the first 24 helicopters, Rounding said. Boeing will perform final assembly, flight test and delivery.

The Army awarded Boeing a $234 million FMS contract last year to supply AH-6is to Saudi Arabia. The Little Bird international variant was contained in a huge arms deal the U.S. and Saudi governments negotiated in 2010. “So far we have one (customer),” Rounding said. “We have a number of others we are working with and we’re excited about future opportunities.”

The AH-6i borrows from Boeing’s development of the AH-64E Apache Guardian attack helicopter and the A/MH-6M Little Bird used by U.S. special forces. Its integrated digital cockpit is Apache-derived, with a “state of the art” mission computer that manages weapons systems and sights, Rounding said. The production aircraft is fitted with an L-3 Wescam MX-15Di imaging turret with laser rangefinder and designator, but its open systems architecture supports different sensors.

There are two weapons stores on each side of aircraft, allowing for a weapons mix that includes an M-134 minigun, .50 caliber GAU-19B machine gun, M260 seven-shot rocket pods and up to four semi-active laser Hellfire missiles. These were derived from special forces helicopters. “They’ve developed and qualified all of the weapons on the aircraft,” Rounding said. “When we developed this program, we reached back to those weapons that were already qualified for special operations and we pulled them forward to the airframe we ultimately called the AH-6i.”

The wing stores also support 30-gallon conformal fuel tanks on each side, providing an additional 60 gallons of fuel, or about two and a half hours of endurance. Another option the AH-6i accommodates is a 63-gallon "Goliath" internal auxiliary fuel tank.

Boeing was conducting development testing on an AH-6X production standard helicopter in advance of starting the production line. The first production-configuration AH-6 made its maiden flight on April 18, 2014.