Special Forces NH90
The French General Directorate of Armaments (DGA) has ordered ten NH90s for special forces operations on 29 September 2020. The helicopters will not be new-build ones from NHIndustries, but they will be converted from already operational NH90s into NH90FS. Besides NHIndustries, Thales and Safran are avionica partners in the conversion programme.
The NH90FS will be realized to provide the French special forces with new intervention capabilities suited to their missions in all types of theaters. Five helicopters will be delivered by in 2025 and the following five in 2026. The modification will take place at Marignane site (Bouches du Rhône) of Airbus Helicopters France where besides Airbus itself, Leonardo Helicopters and Fokker Aerostructures will work on the programme too.
The NH90FS is developed in eighteen months and is supported by NAHEMA (NATO HElicopter Management Agency) in which France, Belgium and Australia took part. It is not clear if these two will continue their process in buying the NH90FS too. The French helicopters will be assigned to the Aviation Légère de l'Armée de Terre (ALAT, French Army Aviation) 4e Régiment d'Hélicoptères des Forces Spéciales (4 RHFS) based at Pau/Pyrénées (France). The NH90FS features a new optronic observation FLIR system and it has the possibility of using the rear ramp of the NH90 Tactical Transport Helicopter (TTH) for fast roping operations as well as improvements so special forces can rear-exit ramp in flight. The cabin side doors will be equipped with a tri-pod for machine guns. The pilots will get a Thales TopOwl helmet (switching from analog to digital display with a high-resolution video display of piloting and mission sensors, the development and display of augmented reality (synthetic terrain and obstacles) and the display of “tactical” 3D symbols. This equipment will also be installed in the Tiger attack helicopter standard III. Safran will improve piloting conditions in degraded environments (such as landing at night or in a sandy environment) by offering independent fields of vision to the pilot and the co-pilot.
Some Special Forces developments of the NH90FS will see implementiation in TTH helicopters too, as these will improve overall operations. The NH90 is currently operated by fourteen countries (Australia, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Spain, Qatar and Sweden). A total of 566 NH90 helicopters have been ordered to date. France is currently operating 24 NFH within its Naval Aviation and 45 TTH for the within the ALAT. France has ordered in total 74 NH90-TTH and 27 NH90-Naval Frigate Helicopters.
Photo: Airbus / NHIndustries