First five-bladed H145 arrives in the Middle East

Airbus Helicopters has delivered the first five-bladed H145 to Milestone Aviation and Al-Sharqiya Aviation, which will operate the helicopter in the Sultanate of Oman for HEMS missions. It is the first five-bladed H145 in the Middle East region.

“AL-Sharqiya Aviation is very proud to be the first operator of the five-bladed H145 variant in the Middle East.” said Tariq Al Barwani, CEO of Al-Sharqiya Aviation.

Axel Humpert, Head of the H145 programme at Airbus Helicopters, said: “Especially the excellent hot and high performance and the increased useful load the new five-bladed version offers make it the perfect choice for those missions in the Middle East.”

The new version of Airbus’ successful H145 light twin-engine helicopter was unveiled at Heli-Expo 2019 in Atlanta in March. This latest upgrade adds a new, innovative five-bladed rotor to the multi-mission H145, increasing the useful load of the helicopter by 150 kg.

Claire Brugirard, Vice President Commercial Africa & Middle East at Milestone, said:“We are extremely grateful for the confidence that ASA has in the Milestone team, and for the hard work by the Airbus team to ensure the timely delivery of the aircraft.”

Airbus has more than 1,515 H145 helicopters in service around the world, logging a total of more than six million flight hours. For EMS alone, there are more than 470 helicopters of the H145 family conducting air rescue missions worldwide.