The NGCTR demonstrator is designed to mature key novel applied sciences that would assist the event of a bigger civil tiltrotor with decrease emissions.
Leonardo has introduced the primary flight of the Subsequent Technology Civil Tiltrotor – Expertise Demonstrator (NGCTR-TD), which came about on Dec. 19, 2025, on the firm’s Cascina Costa facility in northern Italy. The flight marks a serious milestone for one among Europe’s most superior civil rotorcraft analysis applications, developed beneath the EU-funded Clear Sky 2 initiative.
The occasion formally opens the flight check part for the demonstrator, which is meant to mature key applied sciences for use for a future technology of high-speed, long-range civil tiltrotors. The NGCTR program goals to mix the vertical take-off and touchdown (VTOL) flexibility usually proven by helicopters with the cruise efficiency just like that of fixed-wing turboprop plane, whereas considerably decreasing environmental affect.
#Leonardo and the EU @clean_aviation JU (Joint Endeavor) are happy to announce the primary flight of the Subsequent Technology Civil Tiltrotor – Expertise Demonstrator (NGCTR-TD), which came about on 19 December at Leonardo’s Cascina Costa di Samarate facility (Varese, Italy).… pic.twitter.com/rGzNBnp4tU
— Leonardo Helicopters (@LDO_Helicopters) December 19, 2025
First Flight
In response to a video launched by Leonardo, the primary flight consisted solely of a short hovering sortie, meant to confirm plane stability and general system performance earlier than shifting to longer assessments. The flight was carried out by Leonardo check pilot Gianfranco Cito on the Cascina Costa web site, the identical web site the place the plane was assembled and underwent floor testing.
Leonardo mentioned that the primary flight marks the beginning of a progressive flight-test marketing campaign, throughout which the demonstrator’s flight envelope can be steadily expanded. Subsequent sorties will then deal with validating particular person subsystems and, afterward, extra complicated flight profiles, together with transitions between helicopter and airplane modes, that are notoriously among the many most crucial flight phases for tiltrotors.
The NGCTR program reached one other key milestone in July 2024, when the demonstrator efficiently accomplished its first floor run assessments. These actions paved the way in which for flight clearance and in the end led to the plane’s first flight in December 2025.
“Constructing on our well-established expertise within the tiltrotor sector, bringing this know-how demonstrator into the air for the primary time represents an vital milestone in our journey to make a key contribution towards an much more superior, efficient, and sustainable use of helicopter applied sciences in Europe. Vertical raise continues to ship invaluable advantages to operators and communities throughout a variety of missions worldwide; for that reason, we’re dedicated to creating and delivering options that uniquely mix the most effective of each worlds – rotary-wing and fixed-wing architectures – unlocking solely new capabilities.”
— Gian Piero Cutillo, Managing Director of Leonardo Helicopters
Clear Sky 2 Framework
The NGCTR-TD was developed inside Clear Sky 2, the European Union’s large-scale aeronautical analysis program beneath the Horizon 2020 framework. Clear Sky 2 was designed to scale back aviation emissions, noise, and working prices whereas strengthening Europe’s aerospace industrial base. Its successor, Clear Aviation, continues to construct on the applied sciences matured beneath this system.
Launched in 2015, the NGCTR initiative introduced collectively business, analysis facilities, and educational establishments throughout Europe. In response to Clear Aviation, this system concerned greater than 85 organizations from 15 international locations, supported by over €100 million in EU funding distributed throughout a number of grant agreements.
Clear Sky 2 additionally positioned explicit deal with cross-border industrial collaboration and supply-chain growth, utilizing demonstrators corresponding to NGCTR to create widespread design, manufacturing, and testing practices throughout Europe, explains Clear Aviation’s web site. This method was meant to make sure that the advantages of know-how maturation prolonged past a single airframer, strengthening Europe’s long-term competitiveness in superior rotorcraft and VTOL techniques.
“The NGCTR demonstrates how Europe can flip ambition and imaginative and prescient into affect. The programme introduced collectively greater than 85 organisations from 15 international locations round a shared goal: creating quicker and extra sustainable rotorcraft primarily based on the tiltrotor structure. With €116 million in EU funding distributed throughout greater than 30 grant agreements, the outcomes lengthen properly past the venture itself. Greater than 20 patents have emerged from the NGCTR, and the programme has helped foster abilities, industrial capabilities, and new European provide chains. This makes the NGCTR – launched beneath Clear Aviation’s predecessor programme, Clear Sky 2 – a key component in strengthening Europe’s strategic management in sustainable air transport.”
— Axel Krein, Govt Director of the Clear Aviation Joint Endeavor
Demonstrator Constructed on the AW609 Platform
The NGCTR builds instantly on Leonardo’s a long time of tiltrotor expertise embodied by the AW609 program. The AW609 is presently thought-about one of the crucial important technological improvements within the international aviation business and would possibly pave the way in which for a large-scale diffusion of the tiltrotor platforms, changing into the primary business tiltrotor.
Due to this, moderately than counting on a completely new airframe, the NGCTR-TD makes use of a Leonardo AW609 fuselage as its baseline, permitting this system as a substitute to focus assets on the validation of latest applied sciences whereas decreasing value and technical danger. The plane is powered by GE Aerospace CT7 turboshaft engines.
Constructing on the AW609, the demonstrator intends to advance 5 core know-how areas: a sophisticated wing structure, an modern tail format, a non-tilting engine set up with a high-efficiency nacelle structure and split-gearbox transmission, in addition to a sophisticated, modular, distributed, and scalable Flight Management System (FCS). The modern options developed and built-in into the NGCTR-TD contribute to decreasing aerodynamic drag, optimizing engine set up, and mitigating the consequences of emissions.
The truth is, past designing and constructing the plane itself, the NGCTR was structured to boost key applied sciences to Expertise Readiness Degree 5–6 at whole-aircraft stage. These outcomes are meant to feed instantly into future civil tiltrotor designs and to assist evolving European certification frameworks for high-speed VTOL plane.
Efficiency targets
The NGCTR idea targets a cruise pace of round 280 kt (520 km/h) and a spread of roughly 1,000 nautical miles (1,850 km). These figures place it properly past typical helicopters and nearer to regional turboprop plane, whereas retaining VTOL functionality.
Such efficiency is seen as notably related for passenger transport, cargo operations, and search and rescue missions. In these conditions, the flexibility to mix pace, vary, and vertical entry may considerably broaden operational flexibility. Leonardo and Clear Aviation additionally emphasize the potential to function with out the necessity for in depth floor infrastructure.
This system additionally focuses on the environmental features, aiming to show reductions in CO₂ emissions, NOx emissions, and noise footprint in comparison with helicopters of comparable measurement and payload. This aligns with the European Union’s local weather and sustainable mobility targets.
Lengthy Growth
Whereas the primary flight represents a serious achievement, it follows a prolonged and sophisticated growth path. The NGCTR demonstrator’s maiden flight had initially been deliberate for 2020, earlier than being delayed as a result of technical challenges and program restructuring.
Plane meeting was accomplished in June 2024, following a multi-year design and validation part that included a vital design overview at plane stage in 2021. Floor testing culminated with the profitable power-on milestone achieved in July 2024, enabling flight clearance for the December 2025 first flight.
The continued flight-test marketing campaign is anticipated to build up as much as 200 flight hours, progressively validating the demonstrator’s applied sciences.
