Aerospatiale SA315B Lama

In 1968, Sud-Aviation received a request of the Indian Air Force for a helicopter capable of operate in high altitude. Differences between the Alouette II includes three tail rotor blades, forward U/C dampers and strike guard over T/R drive shaft.

It was primarily built in India as HAL Cheetah and in Brazil as Helibras HB.315B Gaviao

On June 21, 1972 a Lama reach major altitude world record for an helicopter: 12.442 m ~ 41.000 ft

It was the main rescue helicopter on both the asian Himalayas and southamerican Andes for decades, being succeeded from 1997 by the B3 variant of the Squirell

A total of 447 SA315 Lamas were delivered to customers worldwide. As of the end of 2018, 86 were still in service and 3,512,100 flight hours have been accumulated

SA315 Lama differs from the SA313 Alouette II principally in its single Turbomeca Artouste IIIb engine. Hover performance (in and out of ground effect) was also improved by a factor of 5.