Eurocopter EC665 Tiger HAP

The HAP (Hélicoptère d'Appui Protection, support and escort helicopter) was the close air support and escort version requested by the French Army within the Franco-German programme. In the original 1980s split France wanted 75 HAP and 140 anti-tank HAC; the HAP carried the name Gerfaut (gyrfalcon), dropped in late 1993. Unlike the German and anti-tank versions, which carry the Osiris mast-mounted sight, the HAP is recognisable by its gyro-stabilised SFIM/Sagem Strix roof-mounted sight — infrared camera, CCD television camera, laser rangefinder and direct optical sight — and by the chin turret housing the GIAT (now Nexter) AM-30781 30 mm cannon, firing 750 rounds per minute with 450 rounds carried. The stub wings take two pods of 22 SNEB 68 mm rockets, 20 mm cannon pods and four Mistral air-to-air missiles on the outer stations; only one weapon is active at a time. Typical loads are four Mistral, or 44 rockets plus four Mistral, or 68 rockets.

Two of the five prototypes flew in HAP configuration: PT2 (F-ZWWY), rolled out on 9 November 1992 and flown on 22 April 1993, and PT4 (F-ZWWU), the first Tiger with a live weapons system, which first flew on 15 December 1994 and fired its cannon at Toulon in April 1995. Series production began in March 2002 and the first production HAP (S01, registered F-ZKDB) took off at Marignane on 26 March 2003, being handed to the French Army in July that year. The first airframes went to the Franco-German training school (EFA) at Le Luc in 2005. In December 2005 France restructured its 80-aircraft order — originally 70 HAP and 10 HAC — into 40 HAP and 40 HAD. All 40 HAP had been delivered by 2012 at a unit cost of 27 million euros (2012 prices).

Final qualification of the HAP and UHT versions was completed in December 2008, and that same month the 5th Combat Helicopter Regiment (5e RHC) at Pau declared the Tiger operational after tactical evaluation and adaptation to the naval standard, which allows operations from the Mistral- and Foudre-class amphibious ships and from the carrier Charles de Gaulle. In July 2009 three HAP of the 5e RHC arrived at Kabul International Airport: the first deployment of the Tiger into an active combat zone. By 1 July 2010 France had received 25 aircraft, 14 of them at Pau with three permanently in Afghanistan; by 15 April 2011 the total was 30, of which 16 were combat-capable.

During Operation Harmattan over Libya the ALAT Tigers embarked on the helicopter carrier Tonnerre on the night of 17-18 May 2011. With the cannon they neutralised T-72 tanks by destroying antennas and sighting optics, and they fired six Mistral 2 missiles at ground targets, at least three successfully, locking onto the thermal signature of the engines. In January 2013 the HAP went into Mali with Operation Serval; in 2017 it was still firing 68 mm rockets north-east of Gao under Barkhane.

Spain received six Tigers in HAP configuration (HAP-E), taken from the French batch, as a stepping stone to its HAD-E version. The planned conversion of these six to HAD standard was dropped on cost grounds, and the HAP-E were decommissioned at the end of 2020.

In December 2015 France decided to standardise its whole fleet on the HAD by 2025: the 36 HAP-F in service are progressively converted to HAD-F with MTR390-E engines, higher maximum take-off weight and a Strix sight fitted with a laser designator; the first retrofitted aircraft was delivered on 8 December 2017. With the HAP-E withdrawn and the HAP-F under conversion, from 2026 onward there will be no HAP version left in service.