As Airbus Helicopters continues to press forward with plans for a pan-European next-generation rotorcraft, another customer of the NH Industries (NHI) NH90 – a current multi-national programme – has decided to prematurely retire its fleet.

Working through the European Union Next Generation Rotorcraft Technologies (ENGRT) project – currently in its first phase – Airbus Helicopters and Leonardo Helicopters are leading a consortium drawn from 12 different countries to develop the technologies and configurations for a future rotorcraft to enter service in the 2030s.

Europe’s big two helicopter manufacturers are already partnered in the NHI consortium, along with GKN/Fokker.

The pair were recently selected by the European Defence Fund (EDF), which is bankrolling the ENGRT effort, for the programme’s second phase. A contract is due to be signed later this year leading to the start of work in 2026.

But ahead of that milestone, Airbus Helicopters on 10 July said it was hosting “in the coming days”, delegations from Finland, France, Germany, Greece and Italy as part of the ENGRT project.

“These events are an opportunity to showcase Airbus’s vision for the future of military helicopters and the cutting-edge technologies the company has been developing in the field of maintenance, survivability, open architecture, crewed-uncrewed teaming and connectivity,” it says, writing on LinkedIn.

Additionally, delegates will be shown the Racer high-speed demonstrator in action. While an EU-funded civil programme, Airbus Helicopters views the compound architecture it is maturing through the research and technology effort as offering a solution for a fast military rotorcraft.

Other technologies being developed through ENGRT could also be applied to a mid-life upgrade being contemplated for the NH90, with the launch last month of formal architecture studies for the so-called Block 2 enhancement.

In the meantime, however, Belgium is following the lead of Australia and Norway and pushing some of its NH90s into early retirement.

Confirming the decision of the country’s defence committee on X, defence and foreign trade minister Theo Franken said the four examples of the TTH troop transport variant operated by the Belgian Air Component would be “decommissioned” from September.

Describing their acquisition as a “bad purchase”, he says they are “extremely costly to maintain” and promised there would be “replacements to come in 2026”.

Belgium last June ordered 15 Airbus Helicopters H145Ms, which will replace the TTHs and its ageing fleet of Leonardo Helicopters AW109s; deliveries are scheduled to start next year.

While Australia and Norway withdrew their entire NH90 fleets, the picture is more complicated in Belgium, which will continue to operate four naval NFH variants for anti-submarine warfare missions, last year ordering new sonobuoys for the helicopters.

NHI has been working to improve its support offering to NH90 operators, making a significant investment in spare parts, including acquiring the retired Australian fleet and component inventory to feed the global spares pool – a potential solution for the Belgian aircraft too.

Speaking to FlightGlobal at the Paris air show in June, Axel Aloccio, NHI president and head of the NH90 programme for Airbus Helicopters, said those parts were now all in Europe.

“We have started the revalidation process and we have started to use them for the standard exchange programme, and we have started to sell some of them to various nations [who] have placed orders worth several millions of euros for those second-hand Australian parts.”

Aloccio also sees a broad improvement across the NH90’s supply chain, noting that “the number of hot topics has drastically reduced – we are counting them on the fingers of one hand”.

Discussions with customers continue related to the “war readiness” of their fleets, he adds, which have focused on multiple topics, including the availability of technicians and maintenance capacity.

“It is very much welcomed by customers because they also understand that the entire system can only work if all the levers of fleet availability are working in sync,” he says.

Meanwhile, mediation is ongoing with Norway as the two sides attempt to find an agreed solution to the June 2022 cancellation of Oslo’s procurement of 14 NH90s. Norway has been seeking a full refund for helicopters, which it rejected following repeated delivery delays.

A court case to decide the matter is expected to start in October.