Three rescue helicopters to be delivered at year's end
ROC Central News Agency
2011/09/26 21:46:00
By Chen Pei-huang and Lilian Wu
Taipei, Sept. 26 (CNA) Three rescue helicopters purchased from Europe are scheduled to be delivered at the end of the year and be put into service in the second half of 2012, if the training process in the first half of next year goes smoothly, the Air Force said Monday.
News of the new rescue helicopters came to light after local media reported that a British magazine, Air Forces Monthly, published a photo of a EC-225 Mk-2 Super Puma -- the helicopter type Taiwan has ordered from Eurocopter -- on a trial flight.
Air Force officials visited Eurocopter, in Marignane, France in August 2010, to check on the assembly of the three helicopters, and air and ground crew completed training courses in France earlier this year, the Air Force said.
Crew members encountered a number of problems while in France, including language barriers and discrepancies between the training courses agreed upon and what was actually delivered.
The Air Force currently has a fleet of 17 S-70C helicopters from U.S. Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. that have been in service since 1986. The S-70C has a maximum speed of 290 nautical miles per hour and a maximum range of 550 kilometers.
The S-70s have yet to reach the phase-out stage, but the three EC-225s are expected to strengthen military rescue forces.
They will be the first European-made rescue helicopters being used by the Air Force and have a maximum range of 857 km.
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