On Wednesday, 26 August 2026, an NH90 Tactical Troop Helicopter designated TNZA002 has clocked 3,000 flight hours, the first NH90 anywhere in the globe to pass the 3,000 flight hour mark.
Out of roughly 530 NH90 aircraft in active service across multiple configurations worldwide, New Zealand's No. 3 Squadron based out of RNZAF Base Ohakea has led the entire international fleet. Remarkably, the squadron has achieved this global benchmark from a base of just eight operational aircraft.
This milestone has occurred 15 years after the first two NH90s arrived in New Zealand in December 2011 to replace the Air Force's ageing Iroquois fleet.
“It's a significant achievement for what is a small fleet and small team,” NH90 Flight Commander Squadron Leader, Lachie Johnston, said.
“We need to always have these aircraft available to fly and it's a testament to the maintainers, who put in the long days in often trying conditions to get the helicopters flying, as well as the supply chain, and the fleet planners. “They are the secret sauce to our success.”
The New Zealand NH90 fleet is unique, as it supports a broad range of both civil and military missions. From tactical troop transport, search and rescue, casualty evacuation, and support for police and government agencies, to complex alpine tasks, maritime deployments off HMNZS Canterbury, and humanitarian disaster relief across the Pacific, the fleet is in constant demand.
When the November 2016 Kaikōura earthquake severed every road into the region, RNZAF NH90s established an emergency air bridge by midday.
Patrick Power, Airbus Team Lead for the NH90 programme and the only person in New Zealand to have worked continuously on the platform since its introduction in 2011 across both uniformed RNZAF and civil roles, was right in the middle of the response.
He recalls arriving in Christchurch that evening with three NH90s to deliver critical aid and evacuate stranded civilians.
"Trucks would arrive with aid and we would load it onto the helicopter, they would depart for Kaikōura, and return with a full load of people," Power said.
"We would load it again, repeating that cycle many times a day." Maintainers also had to keep up with the intense pace on the ground.
"I always remember we had to clean the windscreen every time they came back because there were so many other helicopters in the sky doing rescue work that any small black mark looked like another aircraft. The rate of effort was intense as we had to perform all the maintenance and get them ready for the next day, but it was very rewarding because you knew you were making a difference."
A similar story unfolded during Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023. When the Commanding Officer of No. 3 Squadron walked into the maintenance office asking how many aircraft could be readied, a surveying NH90 had just radioed back requesting maximum assistance as floodwaters rose rapidly around trapped residents.
Power was serving as Hangar Manager at the time, in charge of day-to-day maintenance when the maintenance team made seven of the fleet's eight helicopters available that day. With the eighth airframe mid-servicing, a full 100 per cent of available aircraft deployed into harm's way.
The airframes also completed emergency deployments during the 2019 Whakaari White Island eruption and the 2020 Australian bushfires.
Since 2015, Airbus Helicopters has provided an embedded workforce that sits directly inside the RNZAF's own maintenance organisation at Ohakea.
Working as a single unit alongside Air Force mechanics like Aviator Warren Bignoux, who carries out system checks and overhauls as part of his path toward becoming a licensed engineer, this joint Deeper Maintenance team performs the major 600 flight hour servicings that take approximately three months per airframe.
Power, who trained on the type in Marignane in early 2011 and helped establish the initial deeper maintenance line in 2015 alongside Airbus specialists from Brisbane before transferring to Airbus himself in 2017, has seen the embedded workforce grow from four to ten personnel.
RNZAF NH90 fleet serviceability consistently runs at around 75 per cent.
Thanks to this standard of technical support, the Ohakea team locally performed a major fleet-wide software upgrade (Software Release 2) that resulted in New Zealand becoming the first country in the world to complete the upgrade across its entire fleet.