Edinburgh's back in action - with a bang

With a flash of fire bright enough to bathe the Atlantic a pale orange momentarily, HMS Edinburgh fires her first Sea Dart in several years – proof that the Fortress of the Sea is back. With a bang.

The bang came when the Sea Dart – one of three fired by the Type 42 destroyer – downed a target drone off the coast of the Outer Hebrides.

The High Seas Firing was the last act in Edinburgh’s long road back from refit and means she’s ready to take her place in the line of battle.

The ship has spent 2011 undergoing an almost non-stop series of trials, tests and exercises, from two months in the hands of the Flag Officer Sea Training – the Fleet’s ‘MOT’ organisation who determine whether a ship and, above all, her ship’s company are ready for all the rigours of deployment and, should it come to it, war.

Fresh from that spell of Operational Sea Training, the ship made for Scottish waters and her first visit to the capital in three years for a four-day visit to reaffirm bonds built over the 25 years the Portsmouth-based warship has been in service.

Next stop Faslane and Joint Warrior 111, the latest air-sea-land war games run by the British military in and off western Scotland, where Edinburgh was charged with building on her experiences at FOST by defending a task group against concerted air attack and raining fire on the Queen’s enemies.

And so to the Outer Hebrides and the final validation after that £17.5m refit – the very last performed on a Type 42 destroyer – which was completed in the autumn.

Some 3,750 square miles of sea and air space were cleared, before three Sea Darts were loosed from the rails of the launcher on the destroyer’s forecastle. Within a second the missiles had accelerated to twice the speed of sound. In a few seconds more they were out of sight of the ship’s 815 NAS Lynx, observing the firings from a safe distance for posterity.

A few more seconds and…KABOOM (technical term...).

“The shooting down of live targets is the pinnacle of HMS Edinburgh’s regeneration,” said her delighted CO Cdr Paul Russell. “We now stand ready to deploy as an operational warship.”

Which won’t be too long off, for Edinburgh will be departing Portsmouth later this spring bound for the South Atlantic to replace her sister HMS York, currently patrolling the Falklands.