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SA 330 Puma
AS 532 Cougar

The Puma medium lift helicopter was in production until 1987 featuring many roles including military and civilian. Used in the army as a troop carrier it could seat twelve occupants. As a civilian based helicopter the Puma could seat twenty passengers. A total of 696 Puma's had been sold by the end of manufacture although they are still produced in Romania. The Puma was built by the EUROCOPTER Group, owned 70% by AEROSPATIALE France and 30% by Daimler Aerospace (DASA) of Germany.

The Cougar name was adopted for all military variants, and in 1990, all Super Puma designations were changed from AS 332 to AS 532 to distinguish between civil and military variants. The Cougar was designed to provide high performance, ease of deployment, low operating cost, comfort, plus high mission readiness. For military use and adapting to modern battlefield conditions, it features survivability, suitability for tactical flight thanks to exceptional manoeuvrability, low observability, low vulnerability to projectiles, crashworthiness. A multirole helicopter, the Cougar can be armed with machine-guns and pod-mounted cannons, with rockets, or with antisubmarine or antisurface weapon systems to suit different mission requirements. Additional missions include: VIP transport, electronic warfare, and anti-submarine warfare.

The large, four-blade main rotor is mounted above center of fuselage on a hump. Two turboshaft engines are mounted on top of the fuselage midsection, giving the helicopter a humpbacked appearance. The fuselage is long, rectangular, upswept, with a tapered rear section, a rounded, stepped-up, glassed-in cockpit and retractable landing gear. Swept-back and tapered tail fin mounts a rotor on the right and a tapered, single flat on left top of the fin.

The Turbomeca Makila 1A1 turboshafts engines, of modular design and low specific fuel consumption, endows the Cougar with impressive power (2 x 1877 shp). Coupled with exceptionally short response times, contributing to the machine's tactical flight capability. The rotors blades are made of composite materials throughout. By comparison with blades incorporating metallic components, this makes for unsurpassed serviceability, low vulnerability, an unlimited useful life and imperviousness to marine corrosion. Other innovations include a simplified main rotor hub, a main gearbox of modular design and a high-energy-absorption landing-gear contributing to the machine's crashworthiness.

The Cougar can also be equipped with jet diluters for protection against heat-seeking missiles, with infrared and electromagnetic countermeasures, crashworthy seats for pilot and military personnel, armorplate for crew seats and vital parts of the machine, a 4.5 metric-ton capacity sling and a winch capable of hoisting 245 kg.

The Horizon system (Helicoptre d'Observation Radar et d'Investigation sur Zone) consists of the AS 532UL Cougar and a ground station. The Cougar helicopter operates behind the front line at an altitude of up to 4000 meters to survey the battlefield with the Thomson-CSF Target radar. This X-band radar with a swivelling antenna below the rear fuselage has a range resolution of approximately 40 meters and a target velocity accuracy of +/- seven km/h. In snapshot mode the radar can scan 20000 sq km in ten seconds. Horizon is able to survey the movements of up to 4000 wheeled or tracked vehicles at distances of up to 200 km. The French Army procured a total of four helicopters and two ground stations, which were delivered in 1996 and 1997. This represented a major reduction from the original 1980s plan in which 20 aircraft were to be procured uner the Orchidée program, which was canceled after the first flight of the fully equipped prototype in 1990. Following test missions during the Gulf War, the program was reactivated on a reduced scale in 1993.