The Ministry of Interior of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate has ordered two five-bladed Airbus H145s for its police force, following a European tender launched earlier this year. The helicopters will replace the state’s current H135 fleet. The new aircraft will be the five bladed bearing less rotor system first revealed at 2019’s Heli Expo which boosts the payload by 150Kg, while at the same time, reducing maintenance and improving ride comfort. The first delivery is planned for Q1 2024.
“We’d like to thank the Rhineland-Palatinate government for its continued trust in our helicopters”, says Wolfgang Schoder, Managing Director of Airbus Helicopters in Germany. “These five-bladed H145s will be outfitted with highly sophisticated equipment in order to further enhance the mission capabilities of the police force. We have seen with the flooding last year that law enforcement operators need to be able to rely on helicopters that can perform these demanding and essential missions and the H145 does just that.”
According to Airbus, there are over 1,500 H145 family helicopters in service worldwide, 200 of which are deployed on police and parapublic missions.
