Eurocopter EC665 Tiger ARH

The ARH (Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter) is the version chosen by the Australian Army for its AIR 87 requirement, intended to replace the OH-58 Kiowa and the UH-1 Iroquois-based Bushranger gunships. On 21 December 2001 Eurocopter was awarded the contract for 22 aircraft. Australia already knew the programme: prototype PT4 had crashed on 17 February 1998 during a night low-level evaluation by the Australian Army. The ARH is described as a hybrid of the HAC and HAP: it keeps the Strix roof-mounted sight and the 30 mm chin turret but adds uprated MTR390 engines, a laser designator built into the Strix to guide AGM-114 Hellfire II missiles from M299 smart launchers and, instead of the 68 mm SNEB, 70 mm rockets from Belgium's FZ; four Stinger air-to-air missiles complete the fit. The crew use their own helmet-mounted sight and ADI Ltd customised the mission and communications systems. The unit price was put at A$68 million.

The first ARH flew in February 2004 and the first two were delivered on 15 December 2004. The aircraft were shipped in part form and assembled at Brisbane Airport by Australian Aerospace, a Eurocopter subsidiary, which also manufactured parts for the whole programme. It entered service in 2008, with most of the fleet at the 1st Aviation Regiment at Robertson Barracks in Darwin. Deliveries were to be completed by June 2010 and full operating capability was planned for December 2011, but the fleet was dogged by problems: in 2012, after three cockpit-fume incidents that endangered aircrew, pilots voted not to fly until all safety concerns were addressed. In August 2014 the Australian Defence Force and BAE Systems Australia successfully trialled the APKWS laser guidance kit on the ARH's 70 mm FZ rockets. Final operating capability was declared on 18 April 2016.

The 2016 Defence White Paper stated that the Tiger would be replaced in the mid-2020s by another armed reconnaissance aircraft, citing lack of commonality with the other Tiger variants, the high maintenance cost of the engines and the shipping time for sending parts to Europe for repair. Even so, in April 2019 the Army renewed Airbus Helicopters' maintenance contract for a further five years to 2025. In July 2019 the Capability, Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG) issued a request for information for a replacement, which surprised many experts because the 2016 issues appeared largely resolved; the Minister for Defence rejected Airbus's offer to upgrade the in-service Tigers. In January 2021 the Government announced the purchase of 29 AH-64E Apache Guardians to replace the Tigers, twenty years ahead of the originally planned retirement date.

In June 2024 the Ukrainian Government expressed interest in acquiring Australia's Tiger fleet and in December 2025 discussions to gift it to Ukraine were reported. In April 2026 the Australian Government announced that it would withdraw the Tigers by the end of 2026, a year earlier than previously planned. Australia took part in 2016 in the initial definition of the Mk III but was not part of the 2022 agreement between Airbus, France and Spain.