Australian Aerospace Delivers 15th MRH90 Helicopter

Local defence man­u­fac­tur­er, Aus­tralian Aero­space, deliv­ered the 15th MRH90 (Mul­ti-Role Heli­copter), tail num­ber 014, to the Aus­tralian Defence Force (ADF) – the sec­ond such han­dover in two weeks fol­low­ing sign­ing of an agree­ment to over­come Pro­gram issues and ensure time­ly deliv­ery of the world’s most advanced heli­copters.

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MRH90d (© Copy­right Aus­tralian Aerospace).

Aus­tralian Aerospace’s pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty on Bris­bane Air­port is assem­bling and deliv­er­ing 46 MRH90s to replace Army and Navy Black Hawk and Sea King heli­copters. Since the helicopter’s entry to ser­vice, Aus­tralian Aero­space, its indus­try part­ners and the Defence Materiel Organ­i­sa­tion (DMO), have been work­ing to intro­duce the new capa­bil­i­ty into ser­vice. On 23 Novem­ber, Aus­tralian Aero­space and the Com­mon­wealth of Aus­tralia signed a Deed of Agree­ment, encom­pass­ing a reme­di­a­tion plan to over­come a num­ber of iden­ti­fied issues, includ­ing an engine fail­ure and oil cool­er fan issues, and ensure time­ly deliv­er­ies of the MRH90s. One week lat­er, Defence accept­ed the 14th helicopter. 

“The deliv­ery of the 15th MRH90, just two weeks after sign­ing the Deed of Agree­ment is very encour­ag­ing indeed,” said Dr. Jens Goen­ne­mann, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Aus­tralian Aero­space. “It augurs well for the Program’s future and is a strong sign of our com­mit­ment to deliv­er­ing the capa­bil­i­ty to Defence”. 

Capa­ble of car­ry­ing 2 pilots, 2 load­mas­ters and 18 com­bat troops up to 900km at speeds in excess of 300 km/h, the MRH90 is a fly-by-wire, all-com­pos­ite con­struc­tion, medi­um-lift heli­copter with the high­est crash-wor­thi­ness stan­dards. Cho­sen by Aus­tralia over com­pet­ing types as part of a pro­gram to mod­ernise and ratio­nalise its mil­i­tary heli­copter fleet, the MRH90 is the world’s most advanced heli­copter in the ten-tonne class. 

About Aus­tralian Aero­space:

With more than 1100 staff in Aus­tralia and New Zealand, Aus­tralian Aero­space has access to the finan­cial strength and exper­tise of Euro­copter and the EADS Group. At its pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty on Bris­bane Air­port, Aus­tralian Aero­space cur­rent­ly is sup­port­ing 22 Tiger ARH armed recon­nais­sance heli­copters to the Aus­tralian Army and assem­bling and deliv­er­ing 46 MRH90 Mul­ti-Role Heli­copters to the Army and Navy. In addi­tion to its heli­copter capa­bil­i­ties, Aus­tralian Aero­space sup­ports the Roy­al Aus­tralian Air Force’s (RAAF) AP-3C Ori­on recon­nais­sance air­craft and C‑130J Her­cules trans­ports. The com­pa­ny is also involved in sup­port­ing the RAAF’s new Air­bus A330-based Mul­ti-Role Tanker-Trans­port (MRTT) air­craft and F/A18 (Clas­sic) Hor­net fighters. 

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