AS350 Écureuil
ICAO AS50The most widely used light helicopter in state service, from police patrols to armed Fennecs. Live AS350 positions.
Flying right now
Live · 30s
No AS350 Écureuil is transmitting ADS-B at the moment.
Military aircraft are not obliged to broadcast, so this happens regularly. The count refreshes every thirty seconds.
Airframe
- Manufacturer
- Airbus Helicopters
- Role
- Light utility helicopter
- Class
- H1T — Helicopter, 1 turboshaft engine
- Crew
- 1
- First flight
- 27 June 1974
- In service
- 1975
Operators airborne
Nothing of this type is up right now.
About the AS350 Écureuil
The Écureuil — Squirrel in Britain, H125 in current Airbus branding — is the aircraft that turns up whenever a government needs a small helicopter and does not need it to do anything exotic. Police forces, border agencies, coastguards, air ambulances and a long list of armies fly it, which is why it is consistently one of the most numerous types on this feed.
Its military form is the AS550 Fennec, armed with rockets, a cannon or anti-tank missiles depending on the customer. Denmark, Singapore, Brazil and several African and Latin American air forces operate it in that configuration, and the underlying airframe is identical to the one a sheriff's department flies.
It is also famous for one particular flight: a modified AS350 landed on the summit of Everest in 2005, which remains the highest helicopter landing ever recorded.
Callsign prefixes
- POLICE
- State and police operators
- RESCUE
- Air ambulance and mountain rescue tasking
- ARMY
- Light army aviation flights
How to recognise it
- —A small single-engine helicopter on skids with a slim, tapering tailboom.
- —A three-blade Starflex rotor head and a distinctly rounded, glassy nose.
- —Low and local: short sorties at a few hundred to a few thousand feet.
Common questions
+ Is the AS350 a military helicopter?
Some are. The armed AS550 Fennec is the military version, used for reconnaissance and light attack. Most of the airframes visible here are state operators — police, border and rescue services — flying the unarmed variant.
+ What is the difference between the AS350, Écureuil, Squirrel and H125?
They are the same family under different names. Écureuil is the French original, Squirrel the British service name, and H125 the current Airbus designation for the latest single-engine model.
+ Why do police and rescue helicopters appear on a military tracker?
The feed this site reads covers state-operated aircraft, not only armed forces. Gendarmeries, coastguards and civil protection agencies are carried in it alongside air force aircraft.