Eurocopter delivers 1,000th Dauphin to Pawan Hans

Eurocopter's famed civil service helicopter model, the Dauphin, reached another milestone when the 1,000th production unit was delivered to India's state-owned Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd (PHHL). The rotorcraft, an AS365N3, is configured for offshore operations.

With a fleet of 35 Dauphins, Pawan Hans is the world's largest civil operator of the model. At present, the government owns a 79 per cent stake in the chopper firm, while state-owned oil and gas giant, ONGC, has 21 per cent participating interest.

PHHL has been carrying out offshore operations for ONGC for the last 24 years. ONGC has said it would hike its stake in PHHL from 21 to 49 per cent.

Pawan Hans's Dauphin fleet has logged about 375,000 flight hours, according to Eurocopter, with an availability rate of ''more than 80 per cent.''

The global Dauphin fleet, in service with 300 customers in 69 countries, has accumulated 5.1 million flight hours.

Eurocopter is now working on a new version of this famed model - the AS365N3e. It expects to make first delivery sometime in 2013. The upgrades in the N3e version are expected to provide a 15-per cent increase in power for ''better performance, a significant payload gain [with the mtow increased from 9,500 to 9,900 pounds] and reductions in operating costs.''

This programme will eventually supersede the Dauphin.