Leonardo

As of October 2026 – A rescue helicopter touches down on the apron, five rotor blades, a wide cabin, and a simple lettering on the tail boom: Leonardo. Anyone who follows helicopters can’t get around this name. But the Italian group is far more than a helicopter builder. It holds half of the turboprop manufacturer ATR, builds jet trainers and military transports and supplies large fuselage parts for the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A321. So even if you only photograph airliners, you have almost certainly already had Leonardo technology in front of your lens.

From Finmeccanica to Leonardo

The group’s roots lie in the Italian state capitalism of the postwar era. In 1948 the state industrial holding IRI founded Finmeccanica as an umbrella for its mechanical engineering holdings. Over the decades more and more aviation and defense companies were added. In the early 1990s, Finmeccanica took over the helicopter builder Agusta, among others, and in 1993 the group was partly floated on the Milan stock exchange.

For a long time Finmeccanica was more of a holding with many well-known brands: Agusta for helicopters, Alenia and Aermacchi for aircraft, Selex for electronics. In 2000 the British Westland of Yeovil joined – at first as a joint venture with the industrial group GKN under the name AgustaWestland, and from 2004 fully in Italian hands. In 2010 the Polish helicopter builder PZL-Świdnik followed.

The big overhaul came in 2016. On January 1, AgustaWestland, Alenia Aermacchi, Selex ES and other subsidiaries were merged into a single company, initially called Leonardo-Finmeccanica. Since January 1, 2017, the group has been called simply Leonardo – after Leonardo da Vinci, who sketched flying machines as early as the 15th century. Its headquarters are in Rome. The largest shareholder is the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance with around 30 percent.

Today Leonardo is organized into divisions for helicopters, aircraft, aerostructures, electronics and cybersecurity. For you as a spotter, the first three matter most. Add holdings that you see more often in everyday life than you realize – above all ATR.

Helicopters: the flagship

The history of the helicopter division begins in 1923, when Count Giovanni Agusta founded his aircraft company in northern Italy. From 1952 Agusta built Bell helicopters under license, later also types from Sikorsky and Boeing. In the 1970s the A109 emerged as the first major in-house design, a fast twin-engine helicopter that still exists today in further developed form. With Westland, British know-how came in 2000, including from the Lynx and Sea King.

Today Leonardo Helicopters is based in Cascina Costa di Samarate, right on the edge of Milan-Malpensa Airport. Other important sites are Vergiate and Sesto Calende in the same region, Yeovil in England, Philadelphia in the US and Świdnik in Poland. According to the company, Leonardo helicopters fly in over 150 countries.

The type designations follow a clear pattern: AW plus a number. For everyday spotting, it is worth a look at the most important families.

The star of the lineup is the AW139. Agusta started the program in 1997, and from 1998 it ran jointly with Bell under the name AB139. The first flight took place on February 3, 2001 in Vergiate. After Bell withdrew, the helicopter received its current name, AW139. By mid-2024, more than 1,200 units had been built – a huge success in this class. In Italy the AW139 flies with nearly every state agency: air force, coast guard, Guardia di Finanza, Polizia di Stato, Carabinieri and fire service. The 31° Stormo of the Italian Air Force, responsible for government and state flights, also has the AW139 in a VIP version in its inventory.

The AW169 first flew on May 10, 2012 and received European certification in 2015. It is especially interesting for the German-speaking region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland): The Austrian Armed Forces (Bundesheer) have ordered a total of 36 machines in several versions, and the Swiss Rega agreed with the manufacturer in 2015 to develop its own search-and-rescue version. In Germany, Heli Service International is among the operators.

At the top of the lineup stands the three-engine AW101, known in British service as the Merlin. It is the result of the Westland tradition and flies with navies, rescue services and for government transport. The portfolio also includes the AW159 Wildcat naval helicopter as the successor to the Westland Lynx, the AW249 attack helicopter for the Italian Army and the AW609 tiltrotor, which flies like an airplane and lands like a helicopter. Through the joint venture NHIndustries, Leonardo is also involved in the NH90, together with Airbus Helicopters.

How to recognize Leonardo helicopters

The AW models of the newer generation share a common design language. That makes it easy to assign them to the manufacturer, but trickier to tell the types apart. These steps will get you further.

If you want to dig deeper, the guide Identifying helicopter types covers the key features of all common types – including the competition from Airbus Helicopters and Bell. Practical tips on location and camera settings are in the article Helicopter spotting.

Aircraft: trainers, transports and fighter jets

The aircraft division goes back to two storied names. Aermacchi of Varese has been known for jet trainers for decades. The MB-339 is still the workhorse of the Italian aerobatic team Frecce Tricolori; as its successor, the air force chose the M-346 in 2024. Its modern successor in advanced training is the M-346, which flew for the first time on July 15, 2004. It grew out of a collaboration with the Russian manufacturer Yakovlev that ended in 2000. It is built in Venegono Superiore near Varese. Besides Italy, it is flown by Israel, Singapore, Poland and Greece, among others, and Austria has ordered it. Leonardo cites more than 2,000 trainer aircraft sold in over 40 countries.

The second line comes from Aeritalia, later Alenia. It produced the C-27J Spartan transport, a further development of the G.222. It uses the cockpit and engines from the Lockheed Martin C-130J family and first flew on September 24, 1999. Operators include Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia, and in the US the Coast Guard flies the type as the HC-27J. How to tell it apart from other military transports is covered in the article Identifying military transports.

In fighter aircraft, Leonardo works mainly in partnerships. The company is the Italian partner in the Eurofighter program and, through Aeritalia, was already involved in the Tornado. At Cameri air base in Piedmont, Leonardo runs the European final assembly line for the F-35. For the future there is the GCAP fighter program, which Leonardo is developing in equal parts with BAE Systems and a Japanese industrial consortium.

Invisible in scheduled service: ATR and aerostructures

For airliner spotters, the third pillar is the most exciting, because it is everywhere and written on nothing. The Aerostructures division makes composite and metal components in southern Italy for Airbus, Boeing and ATR.

At ATR, Leonardo is not just a supplier but a co-owner. Its predecessor Aeritalia founded the turboprop manufacturer in 1981 together with the French Aérospatiale; today Leonardo holds 50 percent, and Airbus the other half. The fuselage and tail of the ATR 42 and ATR 72 are made by Leonardo in Campania and taken to Toulouse for final assembly. Every ATR you photograph in the Canary Islands, Greece or Scandinavia therefore has an Italian fuselage.

The numbers behind this are considerable. According to Leonardo, more than 1,300 fuselage parts for the Boeing 787 have been delivered, plus over 2,700 fuselage sections for the A321 and more than 550 tail assemblies for the A220. The 787 fuselage sections are made as closed barrels of carbon fiber in one piece. They are manufactured in Grottaglie in Apulia. The rear A220 fuselages are built at the Nola plant near Naples.

Where to spot Leonardo hardware best

You are most likely to get helicopters in front of your camera where rescue, police and offshore traffic come together. At large airports, rescue and government helicopters often land on separate pads, and on the North Sea coast offshore helicopters shuttle to the wind farms. What rights you have as a photographer there is summarized in the article Is plane spotting allowed?.

The mecca for Leonardo fans, however, lies in northern Italy. Around Milan-Malpensa Airport lie the helicopter plants of Cascina Costa, Vergiate and Sesto Calende. Right at the airport is the aviation museum Volandia, which also works as a spot – information on the location can be found under Volandia at Malpensa Airport. Across Italy, AW139s of the coast guard, police and Guardia di Finanza are an everyday sight at many airports, for example at Rome-Fiumicino. Tips for this airport are in the article Plane spotting at Rome-Fiumicino.

For the history of Italian military aviation, a visit to the Museo Storico dell’Aeronautica Militare in Vigna di Valle on Lake Bracciano is worthwhile. And if you want to see the jets in action, plan an airshow with the Frecce Tricolori – an overview of the most important events is offered by Airshows in Europe for plane spotters.

Photo tips for Leonardo helicopters

Helicopters call for different settings than jets. The biggest issue is the rotor: With too short a shutter speed the blades seem to stand still, and the helicopter looks like a model. Longer speeds show a rotor disc but require a steady hand. The basics are the same as for propeller aircraft, which you can read in the guide Photographing propellers: the right shutter speed.

Leonardo compared with Airbus and Boeing

In civil aviation, Leonardo plays a different role than Airbus and Boeing. The two giants build entire airliners; Leonardo supplies them and cooperates with Airbus through ATR. In helicopters, by contrast, Leonardo competes directly with Airbus Helicopters. To tell the two apart, look at the tail rotor: Many Airbus types have a shrouded Fenestron, while the AW types have an open tail rotor. Militarily, Leonardo is a partner of Eurofighter, Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems.

For your collection, that means: Leonardo is a manufacturer you hunt in several ways. The helicopters are the most visible target, the ATR the most common, the trainers and transports the rarest. The structural parts in Boeing and Airbus remain background knowledge, but they make clear how interconnected European aviation is.

Conclusion

Leonardo is the inconspicuous giant of European aviation. From Finmeccanica, Agusta, Westland, Aermacchi and Aeritalia has come a group that unites helicopters, trainers, transports and aerostructures under one roof. For spotters, the AW helicopters are the most tangible result – from the AW109 to the three-engine AW101.

At the same time, Leonardo is inside many aircraft that don’t carry its name at all: in every ATR, in every Boeing 787, in the A321 and the A220. Once you know that, you see the airport with different eyes. And if you want to collect Leonardo types deliberately, plan a trip to northern Italy or get notified when an AW139 or a C-27J lands at your home airport.