A129 Mangusta

A129 Mangusta Cockpit

The A129 Mangusta is an attack helicopter originally designed and produced by Agusta in Italy. It was the latest variant of the A129 Mangusta (Mongoose) helicopter in service with the Italian Army. The TAI/AgustaWestland T-129 ATAK is an enhanced version of the A129, and its development is now the responsibility of Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), with AgustaWestland as the primary partner.

A129 Mangusta Landing

The AW129 is a multirole helicopter for armed reconnaissance and surveillance, high-value ground-target engagement, escort, fire support, and air-threat suppression. It is armed with new powerful air-to-ground and air-to-air missiles, an off-axis cannon and an increased weapon payload. The five-bladed A129 International also has more powerful engines than the four-bladed Mangusta.

Inside the Cockpit, the pilot and gunner cockpits are in a stepped tandem configuration. Both cockpits are equipped with multifunction displays, which present information from the integrated management system and provide a synthetic waypoint map, navigation data, weapon status, weapon selection, communications and aircraft / flight data. The displays are equipped with multifunction keyboards.

Specifications of A129 Mangusta:
Crew: 2: pilot and weapon systems officer
Length: 12.28 m (40 ft 3 in)
Rotor diameter: 11.90 m (39 ft 1 in)
Height: 3.35 m (11 ft 0 in)
Disc area: 111.22 m² (1,197.25 ft²)
Empty weight: 2,530 kg (5,575 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 4,600 kg (10,140 lb)
Powerplant: 2 × Rolls-Royce Gem 2-1004D (license built by Piaggio) turboshafts, 664 kW (890 shp) each
Rotor systems: 4 blades on main rotor
Maximum speed: 278 km/h (148 knots, 170 mph)
Cruise speed: 229 km/h (135 knots, 155 mph)
Range: 510 km (275 nm, 320 mi)
Ferry range: 1,000 km (540 nm, 620 mi)
Service ceiling: 4,725 m (15,500 ft)
Rate of climb: 10.2 m/s (2,025 ft/min)

Armament
Guns: 1× 20 mm (0.787 in) three-barrel gatling-type cannon (500 rounds) (only CBT version)
Rockets: 4 pods with 38× 81 mm (3.19 in) unguided rockets or 76× 70 mm (2.75 in) unguided rockets or 12.7 mm machine gun-pod
Missiles: 8× AGM-114 Hellfire or BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles, 4-8× AIM-92 Stinger or Mistral anti-aircraft missiles