Norway sends them back

In November 2025 the Norwegian government settled one of the strangest disputes in European defence procurement. Norway would hand back every NH90 helicopter it owned, along with the spares, and the manufacturer would pay it 305 million euros on top of 70 million euros in bank guarantees. The helicopters had been ordered in 2001 for delivery from 2005. The first did not arrive until December 2011, and in June 2022 Oslo grounded the fleet with immediate effect and told its procurement agency to terminate the contract. The company on the other end of that deal was NHIndustries, and the NH90 is the only product it has ever made.

One helicopter, four countries

NHIndustries was created in 1992 for one job: to be the prime contractor for a NATO helicopter. France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain had teamed up in 1985 to develop a battlefield transport and anti-submarine machine for the 1990s. Britain walked away in 1987. On 1 September 1992 the new company signed the design and development contract with NAHEMA, the NATO helicopter agency, on behalf of the four remaining nations. Its shareholders were Eurocopter, Agusta and Stork Fokker; today they are Airbus Helicopters with 62.5 per cent, Leonardo with 32 per cent and GKN Fokker with 5.5 per cent.

The first helicopter with no mechanical controls

The first prototype flew on 18 December 1995, and the NH90 was genuinely ahead of its time. It was the first production helicopter with fully fly-by-wire flight controls, and on 12 December 2002 the third prototype, its mechanical back-up removed, became the first helicopter to fly on fly-by-wire alone. The composite airframe was diamond-shaped to cut radar returns and could carry 20 equipped soldiers. In June 2000 the partner nations ordered 366 of them in a deal worth 8.6 billion dollars, and the German Army took the first production aircraft in December 2006.

Too many versions

Then the customers started customising. There were two basic models, the TTH battlefield transport and the NFH frigate helicopter, but Sweden wanted a high cabin, Spain wanted General Electric engines, Germany switched army orders to navy ones, and the company ended up delivering 24 different variants to 14 countries. Production was spread across shareholders and final assembly lines in France, Germany, Italy, Finland, Spain and Australia. Reported costs per flying hour became a running scandal: Belgium put them at 12,000 euros in 2020 and cut the fleet’s flying by 40 per cent.

Australia, the crash and the scrapyard

Australia bought 46 as the MRH-90 Taipan and suffered engine problems, groundings and a place on the Defence Department’s projects-of-concern list. In March 2023 one ditched in Jervis Bay with all ten aboard surviving. In July 2023, during Exercise Talisman Sabre, another crashed into the sea at night off Hamilton Island, killing its four crew. Canberra withdrew the whole fleet that September, 14 years ahead of plan, and the airframes are being stripped for spare parts. Sweden announced in 2022 that it would replace its own NH90s with Black Hawk variants.

New Horizon

And yet the NH90 keeps selling. New Zealand, whose eight helicopters were the first to reach 2,000 flying hours on a single airframe, says it is happy. Qatar ordered 28 in 2018, Germany ordered 31 Sea Tiger naval versions in 2020, and the first upgraded Standard 3 aircraft were delivered in December 2024. Under a recovery plan called New Horizon, inspection intervals were stretched by 50 per cent. The company now counts 525 deliveries, 18 operators and 460,000 flying hours, which is a big fleet for a helicopter people love to criticise.

מפעלים

• NHIndustries head office · Aix-en-Provence, France — Programme management company
• Marignane final assembly line · Marignane, France — Airbus Helicopters; reportedly up to 22 NH90s a year; delivered the 500th NH90 in 2023
• Donauwörth final assembly line · Donauwörth, Germany — Airbus Helicopters Deutschland
• Tessera final assembly line · Venice, Italy — Leonardo (formerly AgustaWestland)
• Albacete final assembly line · Albacete, Spain — Airbus Helicopters; assembled Spanish NH90s from 2014
• Halli (Patria) · Halli, Finland — Nordic assembly line; first to close, in 2016
• Brisbane · Brisbane, Australia — Assembled most Australian MRH-90s

אֲנָשִׁים

• Axel Aloccio · head of NHIndustries since September 2022 — Has argued most NH90 problems were teething issues being addressed under New Horizon
• Nathalie Tarnaud Laude · former head of NHIndustries — Launched the New Horizon fleet-availability plan
• Vincent Dubrule · former president of NHIndustries — Led the company around 2018, when Spain’s follow-on order was secured

שיאים וראשונות

• NH90: first production helicopter with fully fly-by-wire flight controls
• 12 December 2002: prototype PT3 became the first helicopter to fly exclusively on fly-by-wire after its mechanical back-up was removed
• 2015: first helicopter to receive a laser-based airborne collision avoidance system
• Omani NH90 flew 700 nautical miles without refuelling on a 5-hour 21-minute mission