Malaysia Attains 30,000 Flight Hours On H225M

LABUAN: The Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) celebrated yet another milestone with its H225M/EC725 fleet achieving 30,000 flight hours – one of the highest in Asia-Pacific.

The event held at RMAF’s Labuan Air Base was attended by its chief, Gen Mohd Asghar Khan along with Airbus Chief Representative for Malaysia Burhanudin (Burhan) Noordin Ali and Managing Director of Airbus Helicopters Malaysia, Axel de Pascal.

“Airbus is proud of how the H225M fleet has served the RMAF effectively and efficiently over the last decade, playing a critical role to all its strategic and tactical missions. We are very honoured to join the air force in celebrating such an important flight milestone underscoring the significance of this asset to RMAF’s operations.” de Pascal said “

Gen Asghar was presented an award by de Pascal to commemorate this milestone alongside flight hour achievement awards for the pilots with 2,000, 1,500, 1,000 and 500 flight hours respectively on the H225M helicopter.

The event also marked the first successful installation of an enhanced main gear box (eMGB) outside of Europe on one of the RMAF’s H225Ms. The eMGB will provide an improved mechanical system, and an innovative monitoring feature that reduces the maintenance workload of the fleet.

12 H225M helicopters have been serving the RMAF since 2012, a combat-proven multi-role platform that has participated in various exercises and humanitarian missions, including flood rescue and lifesaving operations.

Currently, 170 H225Ms are in service across the world while over 200 Super Puma family helicopters are currently operating across Asia-Pacific .

Besides Malaysia, the H225M is also operated by Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand in the region.-Airbus/adj/dl (Pix:Airbus)