Italian Army Takes Delivery Of Its 60th And Final UH-90A Helicopter

Italian Military’s UH-90A helicopter fleet handover full.

The Esercito Italiano took supply of the the sixtieth and closing UH-90A (NATO designation for the Italian Military NH90 TTH) multirole helicopter. The plane, assembled at Leonardo’s Venice Tessera facility, was handed over the service on Nov. 25, 2022, throughout an official ceremony attended by representatives from the Italian Military and its Aviation unit, Italian Secretariat Common of Defence / Nationwide Armaments Directorate, NAHEMA (NATO Helicopter Administration Company), NHIndustries, and Leonardo.

The completion of the deliveries to the Esercito is fascinating, thought of that the Italian Military is among the sort’s first and largest operators: the UH-90A helicopters have logged greater than 31,096 flight hours throughout operations carried out each at residence and overseas, together with Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Italian Military fleet is distributed over three predominant bases (Casarsa, Rimini and Viterbo) from the place the UH-90As conduct a variety of missions, resembling tactical troop transport, logistics assist, particular operations, cargo resupply and hoist operations, MEDEVAC (Medical Evacuation) and lightweight tactical automobile transport. The plane has additionally supported catastrophe aid and emergency response operations in years.

Because of the expertise grown by the service with the sort and the collaboration with Leonardo, the Italian Military, that has been the primary operator to fly the NH90 in fight (in Afghanistan), additionally delivers NH90 crew coaching to different operators. General, the Italian Military has been one of many operators that has been extra vocal about their satisfaction within the helicopter.

The NH90 is largest navy helicopter programme in Europe. Out there in two predominant variants, one specified for naval operations, the NH90 NFH (NATO Frigate Helicopter), and the TTH (Tactical Transport Helicopter) for land based mostly operations, the NH90 is manufactured by NHIndustries is the biggest rotorcraft Joint Enterprise in European historical past owned by Airbus Helicopters (62.5%), Leonardo (32%) and GKN Fokker (5.5%). General, round 490 NH90 helicopters, a mix of each variants, are in service worldwide.

Regardless of its business success this system has additionally had some setbacks, primarily as a result of certification holdups and technical difficulties that slowed the worldwide program particularly originally. On the finish of 2021, the Australian Defence Pressure introduced that it might retire its whole fleet of MRH90 Taipan helicopters a decade earlier than scheduled. In June 2022, the Norwegian authorities decided to immediately halt all operations with the NH90 helicopters and to terminate the contract mentioning “delays, errors and time-consuming upkeep” as the reason for the abrupt determination to place an finish to the programme after 20 years.

David Cenciotti is a journalist based mostly in Rome, Italy. He’s the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of many world’s most well-known and skim navy aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for main worldwide magazines, together with Air Forces Month-to-month, Fight Plane, and lots of others, masking aviation, protection, battle, business, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown a number of fight planes with totally different air forces. He’s a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Pressure, a personal pilot and a graduate in Pc Engineering. He has written 5 books and contributed to many extra ones.