WELLINGTON, New Zealand \u2014 Two Royal New Zealand Air Force NH90 helicopters have flown from Australia to New Zealand on a two-day, record-breaking journey for the aircraft, which each carried two 1,100lb external fuel tanks, according to the service.<\/p>\n
The aircraft flew from Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley, near Brisbane, via Norfolk Island, to RNZAF Base Auckland, a distance of 1,765 miles over water. The longest leg of the trip, 660 miles, took around four and a half hours.<\/p>\n
Both of the 3 Squadron aircraft landed safely home at RNZAF Base Ohakea Sept. 30.<\/p>\n
The flight broke the RNZAF NH90s\u2019 previous over-water record, achieved at the end of last month, of 521 miles across the Coral Sea Basin between Australia and Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s air component commander, Air Commodore Andy Scott, said the long-distance flight was important because it demonstrated the utility of the aircraft and the ability for it to self-deploy over a vast area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese types of flights give our crews confidence in the system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The squadron\u2019s commanding officer, Wing Commander Chris Ross, said the flight gave crews the opportunity to gain valuable long-distance flying skills: \u201cIt\u2019s a terrific achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The marathon flight had been a long time coming, with the capability signed off in 2023, but the opportunity hadn\u2019t arisen until this year, said Squadron Leader Lachie Johnston, the NH90 flight commander.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew the aircraft could do it and we knew the crews were appropriately trained,\u201d Johnston said. \u201cIt\u2019s not unheard of for helicopters to fly long trips, but this is a unique capability in the context of doing such long legs over large bodies of water.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Zealand defense leaders selected the European-designed NH90 in 2005 to replace the RNZAF\u2019s UH-1 Iroquois, and eight have been in service since 2015, with a ninth serving as an extra.<\/p>\n
Nick Lee-Frampton is the New Zealand correspondent for Defense News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WELLINGTON, New Zealand \u2014 Two Royal New Zealand Air Force NH90 helicopters have flown from Australia to New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,17492,17494,17491,27513,111,43,139,45932,69,8812],"class_list":{"0":"post-54051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-circulated-defense-news","10":"tag-defense-news","11":"tag-dn-dnr","12":"tag-helicopters","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nh90","17":"tag-nz","18":"tag-training"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}