Overview

• Leonardo says the AW09-based demonstrator is fully built with ground runs due in the coming weeks and a first flight planned this year, with Phase 3A testing likely to run through about Christmas.
• The £60 million Royal Navy activity initially targets anti-submarine warfare, with the aircraft to deploy sonobuoys after Leonardo was asked to examine 16 mission sets.
• Company leaders emphasize Proteus as an autonomy-first project, describing the software as the “brains” and the current airframe as a low-risk testbed rather than a final shipborne design.
• Synthetic demonstrations featured three Proteus systems detecting a submarine threat, sharing data, and allocating tasks collaboratively, a capability shown to senior Royal Navy audiences.
• Leonardo highlights palletized, swappable payloads for roles including ASW, anti-surface, ISR, airborne early warning, and search and rescue, while positioning the capability as sovereign and exportable without ITAR constraints.