Sud Aviation / Aerospatiale / Eurocopter Puma / Super Puma / Cougar
First flown in April 1965 as the Sud Aviation SA 330A Alouette IV, the French Puma was designed to fill an
Aviation Legere del l' Armee de Terre (French Army Aviation) requirement for a medium troop transport helicopter.
In February 1967, a Franco - British agreement for helicopter production was signed between Sud Aviation
and the British Westland covering licence production in UK
of 48 SA330Es which were to be known as Puma HC.1s in RAF service and the production
of 292 SA341 Gazelles. In return the French were granted licence production of 40 Westland Lynx helicopters.
In France, The Puma was in production until 1984 and a total of 692 Puma's had been sold by
the end of manufacture although they were still produced in Romania by IAR at the end 1990s.
A growth version of the successful SA.330, the Super Puma first flew in September 1977.
Fitted with twin 1330kW Turbomeca Makila 1A1 turbine engines, composite rotor blades,
improved landing gear and modified tail fin, the Super Puma has been made in both short
and long fuselage versions.
In 1990 all Super Puma designations were changed from AS 332
to AS 532 Cougar to distinguish between civil and military variants.
Puma SA 330A: Prototype, originally named Alouette IV (F-ZWWN) SA 330B: French Army 1st series SA 330E: UK built, entered RAF service in January 1971. SA 330C: Export SA 330F: Civilian
First major Upgrade: Turmo IVC engines SA 330G: Civilian version with metalic blades SA 330H: French Army and export 2nd series with composite rotor blades and higher weights SA 330J: Civilian version with composite blades. Also assembled by IPTN in Indonesia. SA 330L: Export version. Also
assembled in South Africa by
Atlas IAR330L : SA330L manufactured in Romania SA 330Z: Prototype with fenestron tail rotor Atlas TP-1 Oryx: Variant of the SA330L built in South africa
Super Puma SA 330R/SA 331: Super Puma prototype AS.332B: Super Puma military version AS 332C: civilian AS 332F: naval fitted with 2 exocet missiles
Stretched versions: AS 332L: civilian AS 332M: military
Cougar AS 532: AS 332 new military version AS 535: french Combat SAR RESCO
Eurocopter new designations EC 225 : Super Puma civilian versions EC 725 : Cougar military versions
