ANDREW HEALEY / LONDON
The UK Royal Navy modified its Westland Lynx maritime helicopters to allow use of night-vision goggles (NVG) in theatre while preparing for operations in the Iraq war.
During the deployment phase of the UK's Operation Telic, a team of 815 Naval Air Sqn instructors and engineers prepared to take helicopters built to two standards from the six ships in the Gulf. UK maritime force commander Adm David Snelson assessed the maritime threat as suicide missions, such as that which targeted the USS Cole in Aden harbour in Yemen in October 2000, together with mines and minelayers. The Lynxs needed a full NVG capability to counter the threat, and cabin door-mounted machine guns were also added to the helicopters to increase their "powers of dissuasion".
The mix of aircraft standards - the HAS3 and HMA8 - and other factors required a juggling of assets. Three headquarters helicopters were equipped with NVG-compatible cockpits, but the ships' flight crews had not trained with NVGs since leaving UK waters in January.
"We had seven double-manned flights on six ships in-theatre," says 815NAS operations officer Lt Cdr Dave Lewis. "HMS Chatham, originally designed to take two Lynxs, had not previously operated with them. From a start-point in November, we had to get the cockpit glass kit designed and released for service, the M3M 0.5in gun cleared and two already-NVG capable aircraft, one Mk3 and one Mk8 from our HQ flight, flown out with the replacement kits in a chartered Antonov freighter."
The ships' Lynxs were converted over three to five days by a naval mobile air support unit (MASU) at a base in the region. The programme was managed so that the MASU could call in specific aircraft depending on which standard was available. Meanwhile, at sea, instructors refreshed the crews in NVG use.
When hostilities commenced on 20 March and the ships began a "surge-flying" period, they all had fully prepared Lynx flights and the MASU was left with two serviceable and NVG-compatible Lynxs.
Source: Flight International
