Peter La Franchi in London & Brendan Sobie in Singapore
New Zealand’s defence ministry plans to finalise contracts for the purchase of up to eight NH Industries (NHI) NH90 helicopters during June-July. Negotiations have dragged on for more than a year principally due to the weakness of the New Zealand dollar against the euro.
“We’re moving towards some resolution in this project,” says New Zealand deputy secretary of defence for acquisition Bruce Green, who adds that the defence ministry will shortly ask the New Zealand government for approval to enter into a contract. Green says expectations of a contract within two months are realistic, but will not confirm that the order will involve eight aircraft.
NHI sales and marketing director Alain Gauthier says the deal will be for standard production NH90s, with the only changes being to the aircraft communication suite to better interface with existing New Zealand equipment. “We’re an off-the-shelf buyer...we don’t buy specific things for New Zealand,” Green says.
Logistics support arrangements are likely to include Eurocopter’s Brisbane subsidiary Australian Aerospace, in addition to New Zealand companies. The defence ministers for both countries reiterated plans to co-operate on in-service support arrangements for their respective MRH90 and NH90 aircraft during defence co-operation talks last week.
Source: Flight International
