Seven of the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s fleet of eight NH90 helicopters have taken to the Manawatū skies in a rare large formation flight.

Tuesday’s flight was a testament to the hard work of No. 3 Squadron’s maintainers at RNZAF Base Ohakea, who ensured the helicopters were available for the flight, NH90 Training Section commander Squadron Leader Andrew Stewart says.

There was also an element of the stars aligning with all aircrew available and only one of the fleet undergoing scheduled maintenance, he said.

“It was planned a few days in advance. Duties were delegated and it all came together.”

Contingency planning played an important role in the flight and on the day, low cloud meant a last-minute change of route away from the built-up areas of Palmerston North and Feilding.

Instead, it was over rural areas where the aircraft could fly at a lower height.

For many of the crew it was their first large formation flight and was valuable training for this year’s Australian Exercise Talisman Sabre, where they will be flying in formation alongside different nations’ aircraft.

“It’s not often we have seven helicopters available, and the formation flight opportunity was due to the hard work by maintenance staff - you've got to take your hat off to them,” Squadron Leader Stewart said.

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The aircraft have recently been fitted with updated software with improved navigation and radio features. The NH90s are the first fleet in the world to have the upgrades installed and the maintainers completed it well before deadline.

Avionics technicians Corporal Ben Crowley and Corporal Rory McLachlan were part of the team to install the new software, and it was gratifying to see it used, they said.

They said it was great to see the fleet flying in formation – the first time in their memory that so many had taken to the sky at once.

“It’s not very often we have so many serviceable aircraft flying at the same time,” Corporal Crowley said.

It was a testament to their tight team that the flight was able to happen, he said.

“Everybody chipped in and to get all seven up is a big win for us.”

“We always try to have as many aircraft as possible serviceable, but we have to work around scheduled maintenance as well.”

No. 3 Squadron maintainers have an enviable international reputation of having the highest NH90 serviceability rate in the world, with the fleet so far clocking up 18,250 flying hours and availability to fly sitting about 70 per cent.

The next goal for the team was to get all eight helicopters flying at once, but “the stars definitely need to align for that”, Corporal McLachlan said.

One of the roles for helicopter loadmaster Sergeant Evan McKenzie was keeping an eye on the distance between the aircraft in the formation.

“I was working with the pilots to make sure we were at a safe, but appropriate distance.

“It was pretty special; it’s not often you get to fly in a seven-ship formation.”

Co-pilot Flight Lieutenant Jason Anderson was also keeping a close eye on the gap between each helicopter, which was about 40-50m apart.

“The main outcome of the flight was a thank you to the hard work done by the maintenance team who made the fleet serviceable. To have them fly with us in the back while we worked on training outcomes in the front was epic.”

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