At the end of August, the Airbus Helicopters H145M performed its first flight with a complete HForce weapon system in Donauwörth, Germany. Thanks to this modular weapon system designed by Airbus, the H145M can be equipped with a variety of guided and ballistic armaments, such as missiles and laser guided rockets, guns, machine guns and rockets. Qualification of HForce for use on the H145M is planned for 2018.

The Republic of Serbia is the launch customer for the H145M with the HForce weapon system, having placed orders for nine H145Ms, including four equipped with HForce.

“The next steps prior to qualification include a firing campaign, testing the whole fire mission spectrum through guns, cannons and rockets in Hungary as well as tests on the laser-guided rockets in Sweden before the end of the year,” said Jean-Luc André, HForce Programme Manager at Airbus Helicopters.

HForce is a modular weapon system that can be used on any military version of Airbus’ civil helicopter range (H125M, H145M and H225M). The H145M— the military version of the twin-engine H145 civil helicopter — has also been ordered by Germany and Thailand.