Airbus Helicopters have recently delivered a new H175 helicopter for operations based on a superyacht. Given the size of an H175, there are very few superyachts capable of hosting it, and HeliHub.com research points to it operating from MY Flying Fox, which was completed by the Lurssen shipyard in March 2019 (image below), and is currently cruising in the Maldives.  The helicopter is on a Cayman Islands registration.

MY Flying Fox is 136m (446 ft) long and 20.5m wide, and has 8.5T rated helipads at both stern and bow – with D values of 18 and 14 respectively (see images below), and each of these has all markings lit at night from underneath the deck/pad level.

The H175 left the Marignane factory in France in late January and its route went via Ad Dammam (Saudi Arabia), Abu Dhabi (UAE), Muscat (Oman). From there it flew down the western side of India via Ahmedabad, Belgaum and Cochin to Thiruvananthapuram, from where it made the last stage of the delivery flight to its new superyacht home.

The first superyacht ACH175 is based onboard MY Dilbar, and HeliHub.com was the first media outlet globally to identify Russian mining billionaire Alisher Usmanov as the owner.

Airbus Helicopters declined to confirm the above details to HeliHub.com but did advise that they have delivered a total of five ACH175s to date, including two for superyacht operations.  We believe other examples are all flown on Government VVIP work.

Jeremy Parkin – HeliHub.com