Leonardo and Gulf Helicopters of Qatar are testing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags on the latter’s fleet of AW189 super-medium, twin-engine helicopters. Approximately 60 major components of Gulf Helicopters' AW189 fleet will be RFID tagged, allowing automatic downloading of data when the aircraft returns from a mission via dedicated smart tag readers. The pilot project is planned to be completed by mid-2019.

Once fully available, RFID solutions will be available for all Leonardo Helicopters models and will be retrofitted at customer option. Leonardo said its RFID pilot project is part of the company’s wider digitalized service initiatives that include the Skyflight mission planning mobile service, Helilink product support engineering assistant, training predictive/adaptive learning, and Heliwise/HUMS.