As such it played important role in WWI in support of the army : observation, artillery guidance, bombing and strafing, etc.

[3] The machines of the nascent ALAT carried out a considerable number of missions against Algerian insurgents between 1955, when the Groupe d’Hélicoptères No.2 (GH 2) was created, and 1962 when the French empire in Algeria finally came to an end.

GH 2 was based at Sétif – Aïn Arnat in the east of the country, and it was equipped primarily with machines to undertake transport missions, though the Vertol H-21C, nicknamed the Banane volante (“Flying Banana”) because of its silhouette, would soon join the unit owing to concerns about the lack of machines which could both defend themselves and carry out offensive missions against the insurgents.

Acquiring these machines lay in the hands of the licensee Piasecki given France's urgent need to have them on account of the circumstances.

[citation needed] After the American experiments coupling attack helicopters with anti-tank missiles during the last phases of the Vietnam War, and during NATO maneuvers, the ALAT worked to create specialized units in this area to fight against the threat of armoured Warsaw Pact assaults.

According to a report of the National Assembly of 2007[5] 'the potential of the primary aircraft has in fact decreased sharply since 2004, with the decline to accelerate in 2008.