Hellfire First Firing From Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) in Woomera (SA)

On Saturday 28 May 2005, the first Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter, presently supporting the development and integration of the Lockheed Martin Hellfire II air to ground missile system, performed a successful first firing of an inert missile at the Commonwealth Defence firing range at Woomera, South Australia. This firing was performed at a distance of 6 Km using the on board laser designator, the missile hit the centre of the APC like target as predicted.

The Tiger ARH is the first non US platform to integrate the Hellfire II missile and the support from Lockheed Martin and US agencies was mandatory to achieve this success.

This first firing is part of the testing planned in 2005 in Australia, in accordance with the contract. A second firing campaign at Woomera is planned before the end of 2005.

The first two Tiger ARH’s were delivered by Australian Aerospace, a Eurocopter subsidiary, to the Australian Army on the 15th December 2004.

Eurocopter is a wholly-owned subsidiary of EADS. EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2004, EADS generated revenues of € 31.8 billion and employed a workforce of about 110,000. The EADS Group includes the aircraft manufacturer Airbus, the world's largest helicopter supplier Eurocopter and the joint venture MBDA, the international leader in missile systems. EADS is the major partner in the Eurofighter consortium, is the prime contractor for the Ariane launcher, develops the A400M military transport aircraft and is the largest industrial partner for the European satellite navigation system Galileo.

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