Country of origin:

France/Germany

Description:

General purpose helicopter

Power Plant:

Two 463 kw (621 shp) Pratt & Whitney PW206B turboshafts, or

Two 435 kw (583 shp) Turbomeca Arrius 2B1 turboshafts

Specifications:

History:

The prototype of the Eurocopter EC-135 series D-HECX (c/n 0001) made its first flight at Ottobrunn, Germany on 5 February 1995, this being the first definitive aircraft following the completion of a test flying program with two Messerschmitt-Boelkow-Blohm BO-108 technology demonstrators.

The EC-135 was aimed at emergency medical services (EMS), Police, VIP and general passenger transport roles and, by late 1997, 24 examples had been delivered. Production capacity was increased so that 51 were expected to be built during 1998. From early in the program Eurocopter decided to offer the type with either the Pratt & Whitney PW206B engine, or the Turbomeca Arrius 2B engine. Certification of equipment included items such as cargo hook, sand filters, forward looking infra-red, 1,600 watt searchlight, stability augmentation, etc. Initial production aircraft had analogue flight instrumentation but Sextant Avionique developed a glass cockpit, and this later became available on production machines.

Seating was provided for a pilot and six or seven passengers. An eleven-blade Fenestron shrouded tail rotor was installed in place of the conventional tail rotor. The main rotor was a four-blade rotor head/mast with composite blades. The rear fuselage had clamshell doors for handling bulky items.

The EMS variant could carry one or two pilots with up to two stretcher cases, and up to three seated medical staff. The military variant was known as the Eurocopter EC-635, the first customer being the German Air Force which ordered 15 to replace Aerospatiale Alouettes in the training role. Examples were supplied to France, Spain, Germany and the USA.

First of the type seen in this region was an EC-135T-1 demonstrator F-OHVH (c/n 0039) in February 1998. First of the type registered in New Zealand was ZK-HGF (c/n 0058), an EC-135P-1 registered in June 1999, and first of the type registered in Australia was VH-GKK (c/n 0103), an EC-135T-1.

The Australian Army operated two Eurocopter EC-135s for Eurocopter Tiger armed reconnaissance pilots and battle captains to maintain training and currency pending the full entry into service of the ARH Tiger in 2010. A contract was entered into early in 2008 for these two machines to be leased from June 2008, being civil registered machines operated by a contractor on behalf of Australian Aerospace, this contract being entered into in lieu of Eurocopter paying penalty payments to the Australian Government for the late introduction into service of the Tiger.

An EC-135P-2+ was obtained by the NSW Police Force in mid 2011, delivery being taken for its aviation sub-branch, being fitted with an FLIR HD camera, Nitesun searchlight and a two-person winch. An EC-135P-2+ VH-VJB (c/n 0643) was hired by Australian Aerospace from Moorabbin-based, Microflite in Victoria in November 2010 and made a demonstration tour to the Australian Navy Capability Development Group and Defence Material Organisation (DMO) officials in Nowra, NSW and Canberra, ACT, this type of machine being a contender for the Australian Defence Forces Air 9000 Phase 7 Helicopter Aircrew Training System Project.

The German Air Force operated 14 examples for training at Buckeburg.

On 31 October 2014 Boeing Defence Australia (BDA) and Airbus Helicopters signed a contract for Airbus to provide 15 examples of the Airbus EC-135T2+ helicopters (as it had become known) to meet the Australian Defence Forces AIR 9000 Phase 7 Helicopter Aircrew Training System, a contract also being signed between the Commonwealth of Australia and Boeing & Thales Australia for full-motion EC-135 flight simulators. First of the machines was delivered in 2016, painted in a high-visibility black and yellow scheme, and the fleet received serials N52-001 to N52-015. The first of these machines was test flown for the first time at Donauworth, Germany on 16 January 2015 as D-HECG, subsequently becoming VH-AQG on the civil register before becoming N52-001 (Code 841 – c/n 1179) with the RAN.

These machines joined No 723 Squadron at ‘HMAS Albatross’ at Nowra, this unit becoming the parent for the Joint Helicopter School for training Navy and Army helicopter crews, the aircraft having ‘Army’ titles on their starboard vertical fin and ‘Navy’ on the port side of the fin. The new helicopter replaced the Aerospatiale AS-350 series which had been in service for some years, the latter being retired in 2017 from the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), and it also replaced the Bell 206B-1 Kiowa in Army service. It was expected the Bell 429 would conclude its RAN service when the contract concluded in April 2019, leaving the EC-135T2+ as the sole training helicopter.

In 2017 the Australian Defence Force took delivery of the ‘MV Sycamore’ Multi-role Aviation Training Vessel [MATV], which operates under the flag of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. This is a 94 m (308 ft) long vessel built in Vietnam, which late in 2017 entered service to train the first students operating the EC-135T2+ under the Helicopter Aircrew Training System (HATS). The vessel trains air and deck crews for operations at sea.

The first flight trials of the Airbus EC-135T2+ on board the ship which were conducted by the Navy’s Aircraft Maintenance and Flight Trials Unit commenced in September 2017. The vessel has been used to support a range of training activities, including initial helicopter deck landing qualifications. The vessel was also obtained to support other training activities including at-sea familiarisation training, practice weapon recovery, navigation training, and limited fleet support duties. The vessel has also operated the MRH-90 and the Sikorsky MH-60R first-of-class flight trials for those types which commenced in 2018.