The Ministry of Interior of Bavaria has ordered eight 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 and will be operated by the two bases of the Bavarian helicopters squadron at the airport in Munich and in Roth, close to Nuremberg. The first delivery is planned for 2023.

“We’d like to thank the Bavarian government for its continued trust in our helicopters. This is good news for the employees at our Donauwörth site”, says Wolfgang Schoder, Managing Director of Airbus Helicopters in Germany. “The five-bladed H145s will further enhance the mission capabilities of the Bavarian Police. The flood in Germany and the pandemic have clearly demonstrated how important helicopters are for our society.”

There are more than 200 helicopters from the H145 helicopter family deployed for public services and law enforcement missions around the world.

The new version of Airbus’ best-selling H145 light twin-engine helicopter was unveiled at Heli-Expo 2019 in Atlanta. 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. The simplicity of the new bearingless main rotor design will also ease maintenance operations, further improving the benchmark serviceability and reliability of the H145, while improving ride comfort for both passengers and crew.

In total, there are more than 1,500 H145 family helicopters in service, logging a total of more than six million flight hours. Powered by two Safran Arriel 2E engines, the H145 is equipped with full authority digital engine control (FADEC) and the Helionix digital avionics suite. It includes a high performance 4-axis autopilot, increasing safety and reducing pilot workload. Its particularly low acoustic footprint makes the H145 the quietest helicopter in its class.