Dutch receive mission planning system

CASCINA COSTA DI SAMARATE, Italy, May 12 (UPI) -- The Royal Netherlands Navy has taken delivery from AgustaWestland of a mission-planning and analysis system for its fleet of NH90 NFH helicopters.

The RNLN MPAS is based on an AgustaWestland-designed Skyflight Planning System, a multi-helicopter flight and mission planning solution that all variants of AgustaWestland's mission planning stations rely upon.

In particular, Skyflight technology is currently being used for the development of the U.K. Ministry of Defense's AW159 and Apache Mission Planning Systems.

It is also the core element for the Flight Planning System of the AW101 VVIP helicopter and will be delivered to the Royal New Zealand Air Force in support of mission planning for their AW109 LUH helicopters.

The delivered system will now support the RNLN's operations as well as training activities by providing the users with enhanced situation awareness, flight and mission planning functionality and a complete aircraft data upload/download capability.

AgustaWestland said delivery of the MPAS to the RNLN was completed after a thorough verification of the system by the RNLN, initially at a company facility and later at a Dutch naval base.

The system will be fully operational by the end of 2012.

The NH90 helicopter is made by NHIndustries, a French company wholly owned by Eurocopter, AgustaWestland and Fokker Aerostructures.

AgustaWestland is responsible for the production of the main transmission, tail drive shafts, hydraulic system, automatic flight control system, rear ramp, rear fuselage, the T700/6E1 engine solution installation and on-board computers.

It is also responsible for the overall integration of the NH90 naval mission system for all NFH variants.

The Royal Netherlands Navy has ordered a total of 20 NH90 NFHs.