New Milestone Reached with Air Force’s State-of-the-Art Helicopters

The Hungarian military type certification of the Airbus H225M medium transport helicopters has been completed, reported Honvedelem.hu defense news website. Two out of the sixteen multi-purpose helicopters ordered will be delivered in July this year at Airbus Helicopters’ production center in Marignane, France.

The Hungarian Ministry of Defense has ordered a total of sixteen of these helicopters under the Defense and Military Development Program to improve the Hungarian Defense Forces’ transport helicopter capability. Following the conclusion of the contract in December 2018, the State Aviation Department of the Ministry of Defense issued the necessary Hungarian military licenses to the relevant Airbus Helicopters entities, including the company’s training center, where Hungarian military pilots and flight crew can receive the training required to operate the type.

The Hungarian military type certification of the H225M helicopter started in 2021, with a special focus on the specificities of the Hungarian configuration of the helicopter, which is designed and manufactured to meet Hungarian military requirements.

In the context of the procedure, the Ministry’s experts first visited the manufacturer in March 2022, where they held technical discussions with the experts responsible for the design and production of the helicopter type and its operation and maintenance system. At the end of the process, a type certification test flight was carried out with the helicopter with the manufacturer’s identification number IRO 011 between 28 February and 1 March 2023.

The test program was developed by the regulatory inspection team together with the manufacturer’s experts and the flight was carried out with the assistance of Airbus test flight crews in the factory’s test hangar. At the end of the procedure, the Hungarian military type certificate for the H225M medium multi-purpose transport helicopter was issued, which is the primary condition for the aircraft type to enter service in Hungary.

The medium transport helicopters were ordered alongside 22 Airbus H145M light transport helicopters as well. Apart from the modernization the Hungarian Air Forces’ stocks,

the large order has also achieved a tangible melting of previously tense political relationships with French President Emmanuel Macron’s administration.

A capability gap still remains with the Air Force’s helicopter fleet, as plans for a replacement for the aging Soviet Era Mi-28 attack helicopters has not been announced yet. There has been some indication that the Ministry of Defense was eyeing the Italian manufacturer Leonardo’s latest AW249 NEES type of helicopter gunships, but the Hungarian side is only likely to commit to a purchase of these, if defense industrial or technological co-operation can be achieved with the Italian company.

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