ANDREW HEALEY / LONDON
The Malaysian navy's new Super Lynx 300 is poised to deliver a huge increase in capability as its crews make the leap from flying Wasps
Aircrew from Westland Helicopters and the UK Royal Navy are approaching a milestone in their in-country training of the Royal Malaysian Navy following the arrival last October of five of its six new Super Lynx 300s. An advanced flying training programme is nearing completion at the naval air station at Lumut - the navy's principal operating base on the west coast of the Malaysian peninsula, about 170km (105 miles) south of Penang.
Since November, four Malaysian navy instructor pilots and three tactical command officers have been building their team skills while flying general handling, instrument and navigation sorties by day and night. A fifth pilot, the commanding officer designate of a new navy Lynx squadron, has recently joined them. According to Westland training pilot Andy Raggett, the operational training phase, due to start in March, will test the mettle of the relatively inexperienced Malaysian aircrew.
Raggett, a former RN Lynx squadron commanding officer, who has accompanied the Malaysians during their conversion to the multirole Lynx, says: "It's an enormous leap in capability, from the most basic shipborne helicopter, the single-engined Westland Wasp, to what is arguably the most advanced in the world."
Advanced training
There has been a limited time for preparation. Raggett says that, in less than two years, a Royal Navy three-man liaison team - pilot, observer and engineer - has been conducting the advanced flying training and is now preparing for the operational training phase. During that time the team has to not only train the Malaysians to fly tactically in several roles, but also prepare them to then train and qualify the crews who will succeed them on the frontline.
The Malaysian navy Lynx's primary role will be anti-surface warfare and their tactical command officers' experience has so far been limited to six weeks flying RN Lynx Mk3s - a more basic aircraft. "The Royal Navy team will have to teach them first how to fight with the aircraft, then accompany them as they build frontline experience, before training them how to teach other pilots to the same operational standard. So it's a huge task to get them completely up to speed before the end of the original two-year contract funded by the UK's Defence Export Services Organisation," he says.
The Malaysian navy is launch customer for the Super Lynx 300 (a Mk100 suffix distinguishes it from aircraft destined for Oman and Thailand). The service's Wasps ran out of flying hours two years ago and, to bridge the gap, Malaysian navy pilots have been keeping current on two Eurocopter AS350B Squirrels, leased from civil operator Malaysian Helicopter Systems.
Twelve months ago the original four Malaysian pilots, Lt Cdrs Ajazi Bin Jamaluddin, Sazalee Bin Hj Shoib, Yusri Bin Abd Rahman and Ahmed Shafirudin Bin Abu Baker, were in the UK in the middle of a 16h familiarisation programme with the new aircraft, supervised by Raggett. It marked not only the start of their conversions but, as it covered all aspects of flying the aircraft, was designed to give them a working knowledge of all its systems.
The idea was that, by the time the five helicopters arrived in Malaysia (the sixth is undergoing MBDA Sea Skua anti-ship missile trials in the UK and is due to arrive by June), they would be able to make sound judgements as to their readiness for service.
Following a minor post-delivery delay surrounding equipment compatibility, formal acceptance and the start of in-country training was achieved last November. After a general-handling and single-engine review phase, the Malaysian crews embarked on a programme of low-level instrument sorties over water and automatic transitions to the hover - the basis for night search-and-rescue recoveries. Raggett says: "We also flew them on instruments at high level to introduce them to the Lynx's limited instrument-flight fit - the helicopter has an azimuth-only instrument-landing system." Maintenance test flights (under the supervision of RN maintenance chief Tim Harris), navigation and formation sorties were completed and the Malaysian navy's entry-into-service schedule for the Lynx was regained.
The crews also practised flying to a ship's flightdeck as, explains Raggett, "the single-spot Lekiu-class frigates were delivered with a limited SHOL [ship/helicopter operating limits] clearance and the crews will expand that during formal day/night deck-landing trials during March. But we used the limited clearance to confirm the basic points - that they could land safely, that the telebrief worked, they could fold and stow [the rotor], use the ground-handling equipment, and so on."
With training and maintenance commitments taken into account, six airframes are considered enough to enable the Malaysian navy to keep two ships continuously manned. They will not have dedicated flights, as in the Royal Navy, but will rotate as necessary. The aircraft will fly from two Lekiu-class frigates, the Lekiu and Jebat, both commissioned in 1999. A navy Lynx squadron, 501, is expected to be formed in the middle of this year.
The pilot in charge of the RN liaison team, Lt Cdr David Nelson, says that the contract with the UK will terminate in September 2005, but he believes "everyone is keen to follow it up with some sort of exchange programme".
Nelson says: "The Lynx's primary role is anti-surface. When they all have the Skua - the first five will be retrofitted in-country - it will be deployed in that role. However, an important secondary mission is anti-piracy and that's primarily why the helicopters have the 0.5in M3M cabin gun and, as primary sensor, the forward-looking infrared. Next in priority comes the anti-submarine warfare role as a weapon platform and, after that, secondary roles such as HDS [helicopter delivery system] and search and rescue."
The piracy threat is real. At the end of 2003, according to the International Chamber of Commerce Piracy Reporting Centre, gangs of heavily armed pirates in fishing and speedboats were targeting small oil tankers in the Malacca Straits.
Tanker piracy
In one case last year, the Malaysian-registered tanker Penrider was carrying 1,000t of fuel oil when it was attacked 20km from Port Klang. The Penrider was en route from Singapore to Penang in August when a fishing boat, containing 14 pirates armed with assault rifles, intercepted her. After robbing the crew and forcing it to sail into Indonesian waters, the pirates took the master, chief engineer and a crewman hostage, leaving the ship to continue its passage. After protracted ransom negotiations, the hostages were returned unharmed.
The Malaysians are keen to get to grips with the pirates and, says Nelson, see the helicopters as force-multipliers.
Technical service representatives from Westland and LHTEC, which supplies the T800 engines, will retrofit the remaining Lynxes for Sea Skua and continue to provide support for several years. The RN team will complete advanced flying training for pilot and tactical command officers before embarking on the operational training phase. "It is a challenge for all concerned," says Raggett. "The Wasp was little more than an airborne torpedo tube on the end of a short piece of elastic. Today's Lynx observer/tactical command officer has an enormous amount of tactical information at his fingertips, as well as much more sophisticated weapons. It's a completely different ball-game."
Source: Flight International
