Military helicopter model H145M is gaining strength against older brothers Airbus As the NH90 and the Tiger. The multifunction device, which the manufacturer has offered to Spain to complement precisely the other two models mentioned, is the one chosen by Belgium to acquire 15 units. He Minister council of the country has agreed to attend to the request of the defense minister, Ludivine Dedonder, to buy these devices, along with two more for the Police. So the total order will amount to 17 units.
Future helicopters will replace their outdated ones in the Belgian armed forces A109 already the NH90 TTH that the country began receiving a little over a decade ago, and that it decided to replace with other devices, citing problems in keeping them operational as planned.
The purchase of new helicopters to replace the NH90 TTH and Agusta A109 Belgians transcended at the beginning of 2022. At that time the acquisition of 18 aircraft was targeted, financed through an additional injection of 3,000 million euros, with this operation as the main objective.
Deliveries of the new helicopters should be completed in 2027. The H145M It has also been acquired to equip the armed forces of Germany, Brunei, Cyprus, Hungary, Luxembourg, Serbia and Thailand. It is an aircraft powered by two engines. safran Arriel 2Eand equipped with digital engine control with full authority (Fadec). In addition, it is equipped with the digital avionics suite Helionix which, “along with innovative flight data management, includes a high-performance four-axis autopilot, which considerably reduces pilot workload during missions.”
More than seven million flight hours
He H145M, claims the manufacturer, has a particularly low acoustic footprint, to the point of being considered “the quietest helicopter in its class.” The source describes it as “a multi-role military helicopter that offers a wide range of mission capabilities.” The global fleet of the H145 family of aircraft has accumulated more than seven million flight hours in service for various armed and police forces.
At the beginning of last year, Airbus presented this aircraft as a complementary platform in the Famet to the Tiger and the multipurpose device NH90. Director of Airbus Helicopters Spain, Fernando Lombohe then detailed Infodefense his conviction that “a helicopter type H145M can be very complementary to the Army; fulfills the reconnaissance missions for which the Tiger “It is very large and can also have multi-mission capabilities.”
Germany ordered 62
Six months ago, Germany became the main buyer of this model, ordering a fleet of 62 units, with the option of another 20 more. This purchase includes HForce weapons management systems, which turns these devices into attack helicopters, equipped with missiles, laser-guided rockets, cannons and machine guns. In this way, the future German H145M could partially cover the gap that is expected to be left by the Tiger in their armed forces.
