World fleet of civil and military helicopters: status and trends

Experts from the analytical company Cirium spoke about the state of the world fleet of civil and military helicopters, as well as supply trends. The data is provided by the Flightglobal.com portal.

According to analysts, over the past 20 years (from 2000 to 2020), the global helicopter fleet has grown by tens of thousands of units. Thus, at the beginning of the 2000s, there were less than a thousand helicopters with piston engines in the world, and in 2020 there were about 10 thousand of them, while the number of helicopters with gas turbine engines during the same period increased from 25 to 40 thousand.

The most active delivery of helicopters was in 2007-2008 – more than 1.5 thousand units per year.

The most popular civilian helicopters in the world were Airbus Helicopters H125 – 3.7 thousand units, their share was 14% of the total. The second place was taken by Bell (3.2 thousand units, 12%), and the third – Mi-171 (2 thousand, 8%). Next, respectively, are Bell 407 (1.3 thousand, 5%), Airbus Helicopters H135 (1.8 thousand, 4%), Bell 212/412 (1.1 thousand, 4%), MD Helicopters MD500 (1 thousand , 4%), Leonardo AW109 (950, 4%), Leonardo AW139 (925, 3%) and Robinson R66 (848, 3%).

Analysts have found that most of the world’s civilian helicopter fleet is operated in the United States (7 thousand, 27% of the total), followed by Russia (2.2 thousand, 8%) and Canada (1.7 thousand 6%). Brazil (1,100 helicopters, 4%), Australia (822, 3%), China (802, 3%), Italy (741, 3%), Japan (707, 3%), Great Britain ( 665.3%) and Mexico (586.2%).

At the same time, the most popular military helicopters in the world were the Sikorsky S-70 / SH / UH-60 (3.6 thousand units, 17% of the total), the Mi-171 (2.8 thousand, 14%), and also Bell UH-1 (1.3 thousand, 6%). Next come Boeing AH-64 (1.2 thousand, 6%), Mil Mi-24/35 (949.5%), Boeing CH-47 (914.5%), MD Helicopters MD500 (671.3%), Bell 206 (561, 3%), 9 Bell AH-1 (550, 3%) and Airbus Helicopters H145 (495, 2%).