Airbus Helicopters UK has received the first of 32 new rotorcraft which will eventually be used to deliver training to Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and Army Air Corps crews under a £1.1 billion ($1.36 billion) deal.
Registered in the UK as G-CJIV on 11 November, the H145 previously bore the German test registration D-HADT following assembly at the manufacturer’s site in Donauwörth near Munich.
Airbus Helicopters
It will now be fitted with UK-specific mission equipment at Airbus Helicopters UK in Oxford, and will subsequently be handed over to Ascent Flight Training, the Babcock-Lockheed Martin joint venture, in the first quarter of 2017.
Ascent holds the contract to deliver instruction for all the UK armed forces’ pilots under the Military Flight Training System framework.
Under the rotary-wing element of MFTS, Airbus Helicopters will supply three H145 medium twins as well as 29 light-twin H135s to replace a current fleet of 34 AS350 Squirrel HT1s and 15 Bell Helicopter 412 Griffin HT1s.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
