The record
Hot refuelling means putting fuel into a helicopter with its rotors still turning, and doing it wherever the aircraft happens to be. That is what the VTA exists for: it carries a complete fuel farm on a Land Rover chassis and drives to the helicopter rather than the other way about.
The base is not a standard Defender. TITAN Défense built the system onto a Core Model chassis cab using Otokar's heavy-duty stretched Defender 130 chassis, giving an overall length of 5,050 mm on the standard 2,150 mm width, and an empty weight of 3,600 kg. The dispenser draws through a single 20-metre suction hose on a reel behind the driver — the vehicle can feed from a bladder, a bowser or a fuel dump — and delivers through two 40-metre hoses, one on the right side and one at the rear. Between the two it filters, meters and pressure-regulates the fuel to aviation safety standards. The equipment is rated from +50 °C down to −25 °C, and a Warn winch provides self-recovery, because the vehicle's whole purpose is to reach places an airfield refueller cannot.
Only three were converted, in 2010, entering service the following year in support of the helicopters of 4e RHFS — the French special forces helicopter regiment. They have proved durable: as of April 2019 all three remained in service, two on constant call with the third held in reserve. The type was shown publicly at Eurosatory in 2012 and 2014 and at SOFINS 2019 at the special forces base near Bordeaux.
