Despite being a COMECON and Warsaw Pact member, Romania strove for some measure of independence from the USSR. Instead of buying popular Soviet designs, Romania bought a licence to manufacture the French Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma on 30 July 1974. The first licensed helicopter was flown on 22 October 1975 under the designation IAR-330L. At least 163 of these helicopters have been built, out of which 104 were assigned to Romania's military, 2 were retained by the manufacturer and 57 were produced for export. There is also a search and rescue version, fitted with inflatable floats for emergency landingat sea, which has been built in a small batch. Production is still ongoing at the Industria Aeronautică Română plant at Ghimbav near Brașov.
SOCAT version
In the 1990s, the Romanian Air Force decided to enhance the combat capabilities of the IAR 330L, making it a universal anti-tank and support helicopter. At that time, Romania started to cooperate with Israel on some military programs. The Israeli company Elbit Systems was chosen, and in September 1995 the Romanian Air Force signed a contract to upgrade 24 helicopters with the SOCAT system. The first IAR 330L SOCAT was flown on 26 May 1998, from IAR's airfield in Ghimbav, near Brașov. On 23 October 1999, the second prototype flew. The first IAR 330L SOCAT was delivered to a combat unit in 2001. In all, 25 SOCATs were made, including the prototype, rebuilt to production standard in 2005. The IAR 330M NATO is a modernized transport version with the SOCAT version's avionics, but without weapons and optronic systems. Among others, it has a weather radar. Twelve IAR 330Ls were modernized to 330M standard between 2005 and 2008.
Naval version
The first IAR 330 NAVAL helicopter was officially unveiled at Ghimbav on 30 January 2007. The Romanian Naval Forces ordered three of this variant. The helicopter is in a similar configuration to the Romanian Air Force variant, including the SOCAT upgrade package; the Navy aircraft also have flotation gear fitted under the nose and main undercarriage fairings. They are operated from Navy frigates for search and rescue, medevac and maritime surveillance missions.
An IAR 330 was presumably shot at and crash-landed on December 23, 1989 during a transport flight near Alba Iulia, killing the crew of three and two passengers.
An IAR 330 SOCAT crashed on August 16, 2001 during a training flight shortly after take-off from Titu Air Base. The crash occurred at an altitude of 50 meters, wounding the crew.
An IAR 330 SOCAT crashed on March 7, 2013 in Berești-Bistrița, near Bacău, during a training flight, killing two crew members and wounding three other crew members. Romanian Air Force and Navy grounded the entire IAR 330 SOCAT fleet pending an investigation into the crash.
An IAR-330 MEDEVAC crashed on November 21, 2014 in Mălâncrav, near Sibiu, during a training flight, killing eight military personnel and injuring two others.
