THERE’S a Jungly, a Lynx and a Bagger.What a cracking example of Fleet Air Arm co-operation in Afghanistan.
(With apologies to 1970s working men’s clubs comics…)
Above the almost featureless terrain of the sands of Helmand two helicopters of the Commando Helicopter Force and one crucial eye in the sky form up briefly before going their separate ways to conduct missions in support of the Allied peacekeeping effort on the ground.
Despite the media’s obsession that everything which flies must be RAF, one in five British helicopters in Afghanistan is Royal Navy – particular pertinent now that 3 Commando Brigade are in charge of operations on land.
More than 120 Fleet Air Arm ground and aircrew are committed at Camp Bastion with elements of 845 and 846 Naval Air Squadrons (Jungly Sea Kings), 847 NAS (Lynx Mk9A) and 854 NAS (Airborne Surveillance and Control Sea Kings – or Baggers thanks to the distinctive black sack which contains the helicopter’s state-of-the-art radar).
The Junglies have been in theatre for three and a half years now with their souped-up Mk4+ Sea Kings (improved engines and special rotor blades inter alia). The workhorses operate mainly by night, ferrying troops and equipment around the various outlying bases and strongpoints and evacuating casualties when needed.
Since May 2009 they’ve been joined at Camp Bastion – the hub of British operations in Afghanistan, carved out of the desert some 20 miles north of Lashkar Gah – by the surveillance version of the trusty Sea King, the Mk7 ASaC.
With no threat in the Afghan skies, the Baggers are not being used for their original role – to track enemy aircraft threatening the Fleet (not least because there’s not much of a Fleet 450 miles from the sea…) – but are searching for the ‘presence of the abnormal’, namely insurgent movements.
The Mk7’s Searchwater Radar has been switched to ‘Ground Movement Target Indication’ mode to track movements – and feed real-time data back to operations and intelligence staff directing the Coalition effort in Helmand.
As for the Lynx of 847, they can finally support the Allied mission in the summer as well as the winter. The engines on the Mk7 (the helicopter’s easily identifiable thanks to its skids) couldn’t cope with the heat of the Helmand summer… whereas the newer Mk9A (with wheels not skids for an undercarriage) can.
The Yeovilton-based squadron has recently converted to the Mk9A which, apart from enhanced engines features a 7.62mm longer-range and more accurate machine-gun (instead of the old .5 calibre) and an MX15 surveillance camera.
The Lynx provide ‘top cover’ for convoys ferrying supplies around Helmand as well as reconnaissance and close air support for ground troops.
Source : http://www.navynews.co.uk
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