On 19 September 2025 Life Flight's new Airbus H145 D3 helicopter flew into their base at Wellington Airport and Tim Gorman of ZK-Aviation was there to take a series of great photos of the event:
ZK-IXS3 (c/n 21397) is a brand new machine and was temporarily registered D-HBTS in Germany - it replaces Life Flight's BK-117 ZK-HLF which had been in service for more than 20 years! It has been prepared for Life Flight by Airbus Helicopters at Ardmore. On ZK-IXS's entry into service Life Flight CEO Mark Johnston said "This isn't just a new helicopter - the Westpac Rescue Chopper service in part of the fabric of our local community."
Thanks for the photo Tim, you can't beat Wellington on a good day!
Slick chopper. How many 5 blade H145's does NZ have now?
ReplyDeleteThere are currently 8 5 bladed H145s, 3 Corporate machines in Auckland, 3 with Helicopters Otago, 1 the Westpac Rescue machine at Hamilton and now the Wellington one. More on order...
DeleteReplacing many of the BK117s I guess. Thank you for the info.
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