New Zealand Receives Its First NH90 Helicopters

NH90 TTH heli­copters to the New Zealand MoD  Source: NHIn­dus­tries Click to enlarge

NHI has char­tered an Antonov AN 124 car­go air­craft to freight the two heli­copters and a range of spares and oth­er equip­ment from Mar­seille Air­port to Ohakea Air Base, where it land­ed on Decem­ber 6th local New Zealand time. The heli­copters have been pro­duced at the Euro­copter facil­i­ties in Marig­nane, France.
This ear­ly deliv­ery is moti­vat­ed by the planned tem­po­rary clo­sure of Mar­seille Marig­nane air­port to heavy car­go fly­ing activ­i­ty for main­te­nance activ­i­ties in Jan­u­ary.
NHI remains respon­si­ble for those heli­copters until the start of test and eval­u­a­tion fly­ing, which will take place after reassem­bly of the heli­copters and when the required sup­port ele­ments will be avail­able and oper­a­tional in New Zealand, under NHI super­vi­sion.
It is planned that NH90 flights will com­mence in Jan­u­ary 2012.
The NH90 TTH is a new gen­er­a­tion medi­um class tac­ti­cal trans­port heli­copter. 8 heli­copters of this type will be deliv­ered to New Zealand.

The NH90 is the most suc­cess­ful Euro­pean heli­copter pro­gramme ever. Firm orders have been placed by 14 coun­tries includ­ing France, Ger­many, Italy, The Nether­lands, Por­tu­gal, Swe­den, Fin­land, Nor­way, Greece, Spain and Bel­gium in Europe, as well as Aus­tralia, New Zealand and Oman over­seas. The NH90, devel­oped in the TTH util­i­ty trans­port and NFH naval ver­sions, proves the ide­al solu­tion to meet require­ments from many poten­tial addi­tion­al cus­tomers world­wide for a num­ber of duties. The NH90 pro­gramme is man­aged by NAHEMA (NATO Heli­copter Man­age­ment Agency) rep­re­sent­ing France, Ger­many, Italy, The Nether­lands and Por­tu­gal, and by the NHIn­dus­tries indus­tri­al con­sor­tium com­pris­ing AgustaWest­land (32%), Euro­copter (62.5%), Fokker (5.5%).

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:
Mr. Julien Negrel
NHIn­dus­tries Busi­ness Direc­tor
Tel.: +33 (0)4 42 95 97 02
Fax: +33 (0)4 42 95 97 49
www.nhindustries.com