Air Center Helicopters, Inc (ACHI) has signed a set of HCare Smart parts-by-the-hour contracts for 10 of its Airbus H225 helicopters. These aircraft are currently in operation with the US Armed Forces for passenger transport, special operations forces training, vertical replenishment and casualty evacuation missions.

The HCare Smart contracts cover a three-year period and have been customised to meet the material support and spare parts requirements of helicopters flying in demanding theatres of operation, including a dedicated spare parts consignment stock. With this contract, 10 of the 17 H225s in ACHI's fleet are now covered by HCare.

“Our in-service H225 fleet was repurposed from the offshore oil and gas market and retrofitted for new missions in just under one year,” says ACHI CEO Rod Tinney. “Today these 10 civilian helicopters are on contract performing military missions for the US Navy, US Air Force and US Army in three countries and two oceans. In a short amount of time, they have already accumulated more than 3,000 flight hours. Having in-service support we can rely on through HCare is indispensable and will help us continue this momentum, flying an expected 400 to 1000 flight hours per year per aircraft.”

Christoph Zammert, executive vice president of customer support and services at Airbus Helicopters, adds: “Thanks to ACHI's innovative approach, these civil aircraft have been swiftly put back in service for new missions with military customers, making their H225 fleet among the world's largest. “Ensuring aircraft availability through support packages tailored to the unique needs of military operators is an essential requirement, and one that we're honoured to provide ACHI.”

ACHI's remaining seven H225s are currently undergoing retrofit for their new missions and are expected to all enter operation by March 2020. As of today, around 55 former oil and gas H225s have been reconfigured for aerial work, utility, firefighting and search and rescue.