The second Airbus H145 for Midlands Air Ambulance (MAA) was recently added to the UK register, and has been delivered by road from the factory in Germany.  It is now being fitted out with a full medical interior by Airbus Helicopters UK at their Oxford base, and after further flight testing will be delivered to MAA in due course.  It is a D3 model with five main blades.  Our photo here shows it in temporary external storage at the factory when some recent flooding from the adjacent River Danube provided some logistical challenges for the OEM and a lot of helicopters were parked on the main helipads for a few days.

MAA operates from three separate bases – their headquarters at RAF Cosford in Shropshire, Tatenhill in Staffordshire and a dedicated hangar on the site of the M5 motorway services at Strensham. These cover the counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands.  From an initial fleet of three Bo105s, the charity then standardised on H135s and in mid 2021 added their first H145  (a four-blade D2 model) G-RMAA.

MAA expect to put this helicopter into service on 1st April 2025 at their Tatenhill base.  Ian Jones, clinical operations director for Midlands Air Ambulance Charity explains: “In 2023, we made the decision to replace our oldest helicopter (which is 18 years old) with a new one.”  The aircraft being replaced is an Airbus EC135 that they lease from Babcock Mission Critical Services Onshore Ltd, who the charity contracts to operate and maintain their fleet.  This will mean that MAA will then own their entire fleet, two H145s and one H135

MAA tells us that there are no current plans to replace their other H135 with an H145, but the way the UK air ambulance market is progressing, and the MAA’s recent expansion of their Strensham base would certainly set them up for purchasing a third H145 before too long.