2018
1 March: Babcock became the global launch customer for the H160 after signing a five year frame agreement for the purchase of a fleet of H160s. This fleet of H160s is destined for EMS and other critical services missions starting in Europe and to be deployed progressively across Babcock’s bases worldwide.
18 June: Hong Kong based Government Flying Service (GFS) received three H175s in public services configuration, becoming the world’s first operator of this new variant which enlarges the H175 mission capacity to search and rescue (SAR), emergency medical services, law enforcement, firefighting as well as land and maritime border control operations.
14 December: The first serial H160 performed a flight demonstration on the 17 December in front of the H160 team in an end-of-the-year celebration of the programme’s achievements in 2018. The helicopter, which will be delivered to launch customer Babcock in 2020, had already performed its first flight on the 14 December.
20 December: The Airbus Helicopters VSR700 demonstrator took off for a fully unmanned autonomous flight at the military airbase in Istres in the south of France. The purpose of the flight was to establish compliance with the demanding regulatory and safety systems necessary for future unmanned flight in France. During the exercise the demonstrator performed a 30 minute flight successfully executing a variety of flight patterns before landing in an autonomous mode. The unmanned air vehicle was piloted and monitored from the ground station located at the base.