Italian Navy Puts SH-90 To The Test In Asia-Pacific Deployment

SH-90 on board ITS Francesco Morosini.

Credit: Chen Chuanren

SINGAPORE—The Italian Navy is taking extra steps to ensure the serviceability and reliability of its SH-90 naval helicopters as it begins a five-month deployment to the Asia-Pacific region on board the Thaon di Revel-class offshore patrol vessel ITS Francesco Morosini.

SH-90 is Italy’s designation for the NH90 NATO Frigate Helicopter.

The naval flight commanding officer of Grupelicot 4 told Aerospace DAILY at the IMDEX Asia exhibition here that the unit has a database of the helicopter’s component expiration dates, and has furnished the ship with any spares that might lapse during the deployment. 

The aviation detachment is relatively small, consisting of three pilots, three system operators and seven technicians and engineers.

He said the naval variant generally faced fewer issues than the army’s, but stressed that could also be due to the harsher environment that the army NH90s were operating in. Italian NH90s reportedly faced reliability issues during their Afghanistan deployment in 2012.

While the Asia-Pacific deployment is not the navy’s longest, the lack of an NH90 operator in the region and no spare support is mitigated by the navy’s logistics network. The unit also brought Vuzix monocular glasses, which enable troubleshooting via real-time video conferencing and between the detachment and technical experts in Italy, available 24/7.

The officer also added that the unit has scheduled additional washes and maintenance time to overcome the Pacific’s humid and salty climate. After Singapore, the ship will travel around Southeast Asia before heading north to Japan and South Korea.

Aviation Week Fleet Discovery Military data show the Italian Navy has 38 SH-90s in service with eight more on order.

Chen Chuanren

Chen Chuanren is the Southeast Asia and China Editor for the Aviation Week Network’s (AWN) Air Transport World (ATW) and the Asia-Pacific Defense Correspondent for AWN, joining the team in 2017.