The systems support center is an entity that is jointly managed by the German Army and Eurocopter within the software and avionics assistance center for military helicopters. Its mission is to provide operational avionic and software support for the UHT version of the Tiger and the TTH version of the NH90 in order to guarantee their availability and operability.
The German Federal Ministry of Defense (BMVg) has just approved a plan to open up the center to teams delegated by partner countries, and to extend its activities to the NFH version of the NH90 and the CH-53 GA at a later date. Forty soldiers from the Bundeswehr (Federal Defense Force), 75 employees from Eurocopter, and industrial partners currently work at the SUZ.
The key stone to the effective management of the daily relations with the German Army is the assistance platform led by a team of eight specialists, which acts as an interface with the German operational managers, the military units, and the systems engineers on site (at Le Luc for the Tiger and Bückeburg for the NH90).
This platform responds to requests for technical information about the Tiger and the NH90, and links the various internal departments at Eurocopter (customer and product support, development).

The SUZ regularly performs tests to perfect and adapt the software and the avionics systems on the two weapons systems, and the ARTIST(2) test bench is the lynchpin of this activity.
The SUZ has equipment that is specifically designed to simulate and analyze the phenomena encountered on the Tiger and the NH90, including the adaptation of the software inside the onboard computers and the mission support equipment.
In addition to this work, the SUZ organizes training for the systems engineers responsible for the UHT Tiger and the NH90.
A dozen soldiers from the Bundeswehr recently took a general course on the NH90 as a system, the development processes, and the upgrading activities, as part of a training course that ended in the middle of February.